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The Fargo experience

I'm keeping busy here — we had a packed house at my talk (which was all wonky sciencey biology stuff) last night, I did a press conference this morning which might get a few soundbites floating around North Dakota, spent a little time on the Christopher Gabriel show on WDAY radio, and now get a brief break before I head over to NDSU for a 2:00 discussion session on atheist activism, which should be fun. I plan on briefly discussing the Creation Museum trip and desecrating communion wafers, and then let other people howl back and forth for a while. At 6:00, it's time for the Fargo Theatre and…

Existence

David Brin has a new novel out, Existence Brin is on a book tour at independent book stores on the west coast and was in the Bay Area saturday, where he spoke at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, having stopped by at SETIcon II earlier. David Brin The book is nice and chunky, and is a medium future novel, somewhat in the spirit of Earth. I am told that the story also includes the beginning of Uplift as a side plot. David is one of my all time favourite authors, and while at Caltech, as a founding member of SPECTRE, the legendary Caltech Science Fiction Club, I hosted him for the first of…

The fine art of religious expression

Once, religion gave us Bach and the Sistine Chapel. That was then; now religion gives us… Holy Flash Abuse, Batman! You have to see the intro page for the International Congress of Churches & Ministers to believe it. Somebody had way too much coffee. If your religious kitsch preferences are more old school, try crafting a god box. A God box is an object of intense beauty used for manifesting goodness in your life. You can buy it or build it. You can adorn it with faux finishes, faux lapis, strings soaked in glue, making loops, like spaghetti rococco, then paint it, varnish it, maybe…

Laptop Recommendations

As previously noted, the Lenovo ThinkPad X61 tablet that I use for my lectures is limping badly these days (it blue-screened this morning, whee). The options for a direct replacement are pretty limited, but in thinking about it a bit, I realized that I hardly use the tablet functions other than to annotate slides during lectures. Most of what I do with it just involves using it like an ordinary laptop. It's not clear to me whether the hardware is really a problem, but I might very well be able to wipe it, reinstall the necessary programs, then continue to use it as a lecture-only computer,…

OMG, Your Head's On Fire!!!!

Do not delay. Do not equivocate. Do not think twice. Just get to the theater and buy your tickets, find a seat, turn off your cell phone, and sit back and enjoy Bill Maher's Religulous! In this film, Maher makes a handful of critically important points. Like, if our world is led by people who are expecting, waiting for, even hoping for, The End Times (or some similar event) then ... well... then we are all deeply fucked. This is probably the main point, backed up by lot of other important points about religion. The other objective of the film is to make fun of religion and religious…

GAG GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!

Continuing this weeks theme of spewing-- Drove home to visit the parents for a few days (dial-up country w00t!-- expect spammed comments to stay spammed for a while, sry). While Im sure you all are under the impression Im high-society and enjoy luxury, there are few things that make me happier than a bag of Doritos, and an ice cold bottle of the best soda ever made, Mountain Dew (Red Mountain Dew and Blue Mountain Dew are close seconds). However I cant justify buying these items very often, so normally I buy them as a treat for the (long) drive home to visit the parents. This time I tried a…

Technothrillers vs. Science Fiction

Reading Final Theory last night reminded me of something Patrick Nielsen Hayden said on a con panel once. The question was raised of why thriller-ish science fiction books don't do as well as thrillers with a thin SF gloss-- basically, "Why doesn't Greg Bear sell as many books as Michael Crichton?" Patrick noted that there's a very different attitude toward the products of science in the two genres. In thrillers, he said, the plot is set in motion by the unleashing of some scientific discovery, and the plot is resolved by destroying or covering up that discovery. In genre science fiction, on…

Enjoy a nice cold Pepsi today

And while you're doing that, I have answered the Monday Mystery back at my tried and true wordpress blog. I will be blogging at the old digs for the next few days until I have had time to digest the unfortunate recent events here at Scienceblogs. What's going on? I'll let my excellent sciblings explain: GrrlScientist Mark Chu-Carroll Thoughtful Animal PalMD Dr. Free-Ride ***update and clarification*** I have reached no decision about the future location of Myrmecos blog. I like some things about Scienceblogs. Their openness in letting bloggers air this sort of dirty laundry out in…

Stuff that annoyed me this morning

There's nothing wrong about being pretty, or sexy, or shopping, or being interested in traditionally girly things—but there is a big problem when that's the only option you're given. I know I'd be stressed if I were constantly told I'm less of a man if I'm not playing football or working in a manly occupation that involved large wrenches and heavy industrial tools, so I can sympathize with the limited choices given women: oh, you aren't wearing a bikini on your lithe body with the large breasts? Then you're an ugly dyke. You aren't planning a career as a homemaker and mother? You just want to…

An atheist also blesses the Catholic iPhone app

I am very excited about this new technological development. The pope has blessed an iPhone app to help you figure out what to say in confession. I'm not at all interested in throwing away a whole $1.99 on it, but what's interesting is the potential. Next: an app for priests to guide them in the appropriate penance to deliver. Then we add a little bluetooth/wireless capability to the apps, and confession becomes a matter of walking up to a priest and bumping your cell phones together — instant exchange! Next step: an app that reads your penance — say you're supposed to say 25 Hail Marys —…

Femtosecond Lasers at Uncertain Principles

Hey, I just wanted to draw some attention to this great post of Chad's about femtosecond lasers and laser bandwidth in physics and chemistry. Those lasers are near and dear to my heart, as they're one of the main focuses of my research group. And just so you have some original content, here's the Crazy Matt Opinion Of The Day: I like the Seinfeld Microsoft ads. They don't make me want to buy Windows, and they're not very dramatic or even interesting. I like them because they have Bill Gates doing the robot and reading a programming manual as a little kid's bedtime story. I like the idea…

APS March Meeting Ramblings

Things I learned at the APS March meeting. Updated as I learn them. That's right: real time updates of connectivity of my neurons translated into html translated into text and pictures on your browser. A Yale experiment led by Robert Schoelkopf has demonstrated the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm and Grover's algorithm (two qubit algorithms) using transmon qubits (superconducting qubits.) Fidelities for their implementation are in the 80 to 90 percent range. Paper: arXiv:0903.2030. Also, congrats to Robert Schoelkopft for winning the "2009 Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement…

My kids get caught up in the ugly world of spin, spin, spin

Science Scout twitter feed Yes, those forlorn looking children are my kids, Hannah and Ben. This post is another oldie but goodie, but with the summer looming ahead, this picture still cracks me up. Mainly because it's an example of total misrepresentation of the product. Specifically, here is what the picture on the box looked like: Obviously, you can tell the huge discrepancy between the image on the box and what we might call reality. Anyway, a slide with both of these graphics now often makes an appearance in my talks on science literacy. Particularly as a great visual…

Tell me this isn't awesome.

OK, I know GFP is hardly news since the Nobel Prize was awarded to the scientists who discovered it and made it available to researchers. But, come on - tell me this cat ain't cool: Meet Mr. Green Genes. He's a nearly 6-month-old orange tabby whose eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species. He's the first fluorescent cat in the United States, according to Betsy Dresser, the center's director. The researchers made him so they could learn whether a gene could be introduced harmlessly into the feline…

More Nonsense From Our Buddies On Wall Street

NY Times href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/business/16fund.html?ex=1350187200&en=c71cef9b628ff8d5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">reports that large banks are working on a perpetual motion machine: The new entity, called a Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit, or M-LEC, could raise as much as $200 billion or more through the issuance of its own securities, and use the money to buy securities that otherwise might be dumped on the market. Just what we need, another circus, but this time with More Smoke! More Mirrors! I am skeptical, obviously. But don't…

The glamourous weekend of a mommy scientist

It's nearing ten p.m. on a Friday night. After putting my daughter to bed, I've washed the dishes, done the laundry, and boxed up some outgrown toys. Next I'm going to start writing up work plans for two independent studies I'm supervising this semester. Then I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, I've got to take Minnow to the store and buy some diapers, wipes, milk, and chocolate. I'll take the dog for the first decent walk she's had all week. I'll supervise toddler playtime, mealtime, and bathtime. Hopefully during naptime, I'll get a chance to do battle with the invasive plant that's taking over our…

Weird Fish Tanks

A not at all exhaustive collection of cool bizarro aquariums. Modular fish tank Toilet tank. Kind of like fish purgatory. The Fish-Bird Tank-Cage many more below the fold... Sink tank The sophisticated ichthyologist's sitting room A concept piece by a Japanese architectural firm More of the above This robotic fish tank senses which direction the fish is swimming and drives off in that direction. Could prove extremely useful in absolutely no circumstances. In this Korean tank, the pump and aerator are powered via USB. Additionally, temperature is controlled via software on your…

Worst deal ever: Comcast Extreme 105

As Comcast moves towards being the next AT&T (and I'm talking about the ATT of the 1960s, which was more powerful than most countries and more nefarious than Karl Rove and Dick Cheney combined), it gets increasingly strange, self serving, and dangerous as a company to deal with. Over the last year or so, our service (we have Comcast cable) has increased in price and decreased in stations being offered that we will at this point do better by canceling it and adding an antennae (but this is how we get Internet). Now, Comcast offers a thing called "Extreme 105" which costs a bundle even if…

The Girl With Eight Limbs

This is interesting: Doctors began operating today on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal body, a hospital official said. Lakshmi is joined to a "parasitic twin" who stopped developing in the mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus. [source] It is believed that in utero, this girl had a twin whom she absorbed, reportedly after that twin's "death." (I'm not so sure about the death part... that sounds like an assumption.) Various parts…

What is this #1: Answer

Perhaps you have had enough time to think about the first "What is this" demo item. Here is the item in question. It seems most of you were right on track with this one - probably because you can still buy such a device. This thingy launches a small ball horizontally while at the same time dropping a ball. It is supposed to show that the vertical and horizontal components of an object in projectile motion are independent. It takes two balls (which I didn't have when I took the picture). One ball goes on each end and the arm is pulled back. Update: Thanks to Kevin and Frank for pointing…

Why is there a giant octopus hanging over Minnesota?

This old-school public service announcement is warning of the dangers of smut—and for some reason it's illustrated with a many-tentacled cephalopod hovering above my state. Prophecy? There are more strange PSAs collected online.

If you really must know…

I always wonder who the "you" is that online pollsters think they're addressing. I think they're talking right to us atheists, so you should answer their question: Do you believe in God or a supreme being?

How Good is Your Vocabulary?

tags: vocabulary, online quiz I did well on this quiz -- how about you? How did you score? Your Vocabulary Score: A Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person. How's Your Vocabulary?

Anthro Blog Carnival

The thirty-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Testimony of the Spade. Archaeology and anthropology and anthropology and archaeology! Also, don't miss the 78th Skeptics' Circle over at Skeptical Surfer.

Liberals!

There's a new Carnival of the Liberals online, in which I am reminded that yours truly is hosting this one on 12 April. So, like, ummm, go read it, get some ideas, and start sending me links.

What if your workout buddy lives a zillion miles away?

I think one of the easiest ways Web 2.0 can contribute to individuals' health is to help us maintain those buddy relationships, even when we can't see our buddies in person... See Sharing your Workouts Online

World Conference of Science Journalists - New media new journalism

In the opening salvo of the World Conference of Science Journalists, three speakers debated the role of new media in the science journalism of tomorrow. What follows is an account of the session and personal opinions on some of the issues raised. How online news can evolve (and have blogs and other media already beaten it there?) Krishna Bharat, founder of Google News and owner of the incredible job title of "Distinguished Researcher", kicked things off with a whirlwind tour of ideas on the future of online news. He touched on each one for the briefest of moments: He highlighted Google…

Economic End Times and a Coming Housing Implosion

By 'End Times', I'm not referring to the significant global decrease in food production, or the Far East trade war over sand (I'm not kidding--Indonesia has declared a sand embargo against Singapore). Putting those two news items together does have an apocalyptic feel to it. No, what I'm referring to is that mortgage foreclosures and homeowner vacancies have reached record highs (also see here). Over at Tapped, Dana Goldstein describes a cause of the phenomenon: The story is always the same: clever marketing campaigns prey on families in blighted neighborhoods, promising them the American…

Past Due (and Brad DeLong) on Political Paralysis

If you're looking for a good primer on Big Shitpile and other recent economic events, I highly recommend Peter Goodman's Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy. It's well written, and does what many other books about the recent economic collapse fail to do: puts it into a larger context. But this small excerpt from Past Due hits the nail on the head as to what our problem is: Washington has grown accustomed to muddy compromises that can be spun into clear-cut victories by both parties, as their leaders appear on Sunday television talk shows to argue over…

Project Exploration

You may have noticed a button on my sidebar (under the heading "I Support") that looks like this: If you click on it, you will be transported to the homepage of one of my favourite science educational programs - the Project Exploration. This project is the brainchild of paleontologist Paul Sereno and his wife, historian and educator Gabrielle Lyons. More under the fold.... If you do not know who Paul Sereno is, you are probably not interested in dinosaurs at all, as he is the #1 Big Star of Dinosaur Paleontology. Among else, he has discovered Carcharodontosaurus saharicus, one of the…

Fresh flowers and spoiled lives

by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure A story on the wires about a paper in the journal Epidemiology this month (November) confirms what other work has shown: those beautiful flowers we buy in American florist shops have an added price attached to them, paid by the children of Central America. Epidemiology is one of the top tier journals in the field of epidemiology, but I don't have access to my copy, which is at work (and I'm not), so I'm working off wire service copy (Reuters Health). From what I know of the subject, however, the account is likely accurate. Here's the gist: In a study…

Carbon taxes: Macron is an idiot

Zut alors! Ze Chef Frog, Macron, 'e iz not 'appy wiz ze prix of ze Carbon: Europe needed a significant minimum carbon price to boost investment in its energy transition, and a European carbon tax at the bloc’s borders to guarantee fair competition for its companies... Macron said Europe had to give “the right price signal” for carbon emissions, and make them sufficiently high enough to attract investments. He said that a carbon price below 25 to 30 euros ($35.31) per ton was not efficient to spur investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. If in the years ahead, we don’t have a…

Haggard Caught in Obvious Lies

The plot thickens. The Rocky Mountain News reports: Embattled minister Ted Haggard this morning admitted receiving a massage from the Denver man who claims to have exchanged sex for money with the Colorado Springs church leader for three years. And a local news station reports: Haggard says he bought the meth from a gay escort, 49-year-old Michael Jones, after contacting him for a massage. Haggard says he never used the meth and instead threw it away. However, Haggard could not remember where he threw the meth away. According to Haggard, he met with Jones in a Denver hotel room. Haggard…

Amazing Laser Application 5: Optical Data Storage!

What's the application? CD and DVD players use lasers to read (and in some cases write) digital information from convenient plastic disks. What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How do we store a large amount of digital information in a convenient and stable fashion?" 2) "How do we make everybody buy the White Album a second time?" How does it work? The optics at the core of a CD player are very simple, and illustrated in this graphic that I lifted from the excellent explanation at HyperPhysics: Light from a diode laser is collimated and then focused down onto the surface of the CD. The…

Aspen live-blogging - part 3

Sorry, gang, but this is just more journal than blog - and yet another emphatic and blathering reason of why I love this town. Had a lovely hike yesterday with PharmGirl and PharmPreSchooler to the Grottos just outside of Aspen proper, an amazing series of igneous rocks and ice caves at the base of Independence Pass. PharmMom now forbids posting pictures of her beautiful granddaughter on these here internets, so here's an inanimate shot that still doesn't do justice to the view: Then, had a lovely lunch with a dear friend in Explorer Bookstore and Bistro, an idyllic setting in an old…

Spring Bloomtime at Jenkins Arboretum

This post is for all who love plants... I visited the Jenkins Arboretum yesterday. It's located in Devon, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia, on the "Main Line". This arboretum is a real jewel of biodiversity in the midst of a region that has been developed to the ultramax. It has a special focus on rhododendrons and azaleas, and right now the azaleas are in peak bloom. The eponymous Mr. Jenkins established the arboretum as a living memorial to his wife, Elisabeth, "an avid gardener and wildlife enthusiast". He also stipulated in the terms of the foundation that admission to the arboretum…

Kevin Trudeau: New book is true "in essence"

This just cracked me up this morning: NEW YORK - Kevin Trudeau, the million-selling author, infomercial star and convicted felon, swears that his new health guide, "More Natural 'Cures' Revealed," is 100 percent true. Make that 100 percent true "in essence."` "My point is I don't want to be caught in what is true, what isn't true, what is opinion, what is an idea," Trudeau, whose self-published "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About," thrived despite his criminal past and other legal run-ins, said. "More Natural Cures," released in May and also self-published, is a sequel to "…

Bad Ads?

I have been writing recently about the role of science in advertising as the "new glam." A Yoplait television ad brings a new dimension to this discussion. Is it possible for TV ads to deliver subliminal potentially harmful messages, whether intentional or not? Ads are everywhere, of course, in all forms of media. The market research firm Yankelovich estimates that we are exposed to, incredibly, up to 5,000 ads per day! Below is the commercial that sparked considerable controversy from a health advocacy group: According to the National Eating Disorders Association: "The language in this…

Extra, Extra

I humbly present, once again, the quasi-weekly linkfest. Enjoy! First, a reminder: Submit awesome science blogging for Open Lab! I encourage you not to be shy about submitting your own stuff! Also, are you following me on twitter? Lots of shenanigans going on over there, and lots of good links, too. Starting with the Science: Did you catch my Research Blogging editor's selections this week? Science journalist Bill Lascher (twitter, blog) is now doing some freelance writing about the environment for High Country News, on their "A Just West" blog. Interesting stuff. I know Bill from when he was…

Don't Waste Good Wine on Food

I used to work in a restaurant where we served wild salmon with a Barolo sauce. (This was back when drinking red wine with fish was still very au courant.) Needless to say, the chef wasn't wasting real Barolo on a wine reduction. Instead, we used some of the generic plonk you buy in two gallon jugs. It wasn't Gallo Hearty Burgundy, but it wasn't that much better, either. The chef actually swore that the cheap wine, with its sweetish edge, actually made superior sauces. So I wasn't surprised to read this: Two weeks ago I set out to cook with some particularly unappealing wines and promised…

Order My Mead-Halls Book On-line

Those who want hard copy or are unwilling to wait six months for the free PDF can now order my Mead-halls book on-line for SEK 180 / U$D 27 / â¬20 / Â£17 plus postage.

Genetics for the spring

I know some of my students read Pharyngula, so I'll mention this here: if you're taking Biology 3101, Genetics, the course web page and syllabus are online. Get the textbook and start reading chapter 1!

Digital dissection coolness

This is so cool. A one-millimeter long spider (Cenotextricella simoni) encased in amber gets "digitally dissected" using Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography. The paper is online in Zootaxa 1623:47-53 but requires a subscription.

How to prepare brain slice cultures

A method for the preparation of rodent hippocampal slice cultures is now available at Cold Spring Harbor Protocols, a comprehensive online database of research techniques for the life sciences. The full list of freely available protocols is here.

Fame: Dr. Kiki edition

I taped this back in April, and forgot all about it until I just found it online. Enjoy! Dr. Kiki and I chatted about science education, controversies in science classrooms, and related issues. It was inspired by this presentation.

'Pulp Fiction' does not need to pay copyright, just be honest

(August 10, 2005) --------------------------------------- Since "The Connection" was abruptly cancelled by the Boston affiliate of NPR, the local station is scrambling to fix the schedule. We got Diane Rehm show instead and also something called "The World". I was listening to the World this afternoon - interesting stuff about the Harvard Zoology Museum collection, about a Slovenian alpinist rescued from the Himalayan mountain called "The Killer" (9th highest peak in the world), etc. At the very end, they had a segment, just a few minutes, about an interesting German band and their new CD. It…

Two views of Kiribati Bails Out

mt notes that "Kiribati Bails Out": The low-lying island nation of Kiribati (formerly "Christmas Island") is buying real estate on the larger Fiji Island and planning to move everybody out, on account of, well, you know, water. The usual story of atolls being submerged by global warming. Or not; but that's not the point here, so I won't go into that. My response was Could be a sensible solution. How does it stack up, cost-wise? That wasn't the reply that mt was looking for, of course, for he replied The point is not how individuals or particular groups cope so much as that the problems are…

Brief thoughts on Fair Use

My Scibling Shelley has gotten into and out of a bit of fuss while I've been incommunicado. She posted about a paper discussing the role of alcohol in protecting antioxidants in fruit. As so many of us have done, she posted a graph and table from the original paper to illustrate her description of the study. Wiley Interscience complained, but has, thankfully, buckled to their obvious wrongness. To me and most observers, what Shelley did is an obvious instance of "fair use," as described by U.S. law: the fair use of a copyrighted work … for purposes such as criticism, comment, news…

Peer reviewer behaving badly (and why it matters).

Revere already flagged this story, but I'm going to try to move beyond the forehead slapping to some analysis of why a journal's confidentiality rules might matter. (I'll leave it to Bill, Bora, Jean-Claude, and their posse to explain how a thoroughgoing shift to "open science" might make such situations go away.) The story, as reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, is that a peer reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine, reviewing a manuscript that reported negative findings about the safety of a diabetes drug, broke confidentiality rules and sent a copy of that soon-to-be-…

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