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How was it for you? Interview with Graham Steel

Graham Steel attended the Science Blogging Conference last week - but only virtually! He has been a strong proponent of Open Access, frequent commenter on PLoS ONE articles, a patient advocate and, more recently, a blogger on his own. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job? Dear Squadron Leader Zivkovic. Thanks for inviting me to contribute. I remain a McNative and McResident of Glasgow, Scotland. For the last 20 years, my real life job has been dealing with…

Open Science Session in October

ASIS&T 2008 meeting - Joining Research and Practice: Social Computing and Information Science will be held in Milwaukee on October 19-24, 2007. The Program is now available online and it is very exciting. Especially this session ;-)

Eyes in Seed

My last column in Seed is now online for you cheapskates (OK, you're forgiven already) who don't subscribe. It's called "Eyeing the Evolutionary Past," and discusses a familiar topic around these parts — the evolution of eyes.

First Google Hit

Dear Reader, the new blog has received its first Google hit, less than a week after coming on-line. And what did this web surfer search for? Bikinis? Big Danish bog booty? No: "Aardvarchaeology". It's already a household name.

Another Political Test

And it tells me nothing I didn't already know: You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (60% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Link

The possibilities are endless

A 15-year-old girl was arrested for child pornography and child sexual abuse for posting pictures of herself online. Would it be statutory rape if she touched herself? Or would that fall under Romeo and Juliet laws?

The Neuroscience of Screw-Ups

My latest Wired article is now online and on the newsstands. It's about the messiness of experimental science, the blind-spots created by knowledge, Thorstein Veblen, European Jews and the background static created by the Big Bang.

A Crank Responds: Georgie-Boy and his "Scientific Proof of God"

Remember my post several weeks ago about ["The First Scientific Proof of God"?][georgie] The author, Georgie-boy Shollenberger popped up [in the comments yesterday][georgie-comments], and posted [a response][georgie-responds] on his blog. This is how he describes this blog: >This website is an example of how some math teachers are thinking and teaching >your children. In general, this website is a Good Math, Bad Math web. On this >web, debunking creationism is listed under the bad math category. So, your >children are most likely taught by atheists. Is this what parents want? If…

Gotta have more woo in my medical school, 2011 edition

Four years ago, I wrote a post that I called Gotta have more woo in my medical school! In it, I discussed how UCSF had put out a woo-ful, non-science-based booklet about "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), full of references to qi, acupuncture, and all manner of woo. Since then I've been sounding the alarm bells about the creeping infiltration of pseudoscience into medical school, even so much that it's becoming part of the mandatory medical school curriculum. Now, four years later, I see that the creeping infiltration has ceased to creep. Rather, it's turned into a torrent of woo…

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists endorses nuclear power as "an alternative energy source"

(Thanks to Steven Starr, at the Energy Justice Network, from whom I got most of this.) This is all strange to me. The January/February 2007 edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says (on page 71): "Major progress towards a safer world would include engaging in serious and candid discussion about the potential expansion of nuclear power worldwide. As a means of addressing the threats from climate change, nuclear power should be considered as an alternative energy source." They also say that "nuclear energy production does not produce carbon dioxide." They don't say anything about…

Fumento gets himself fired

When I criticised Michael Fumento's innumerate writing about the Lancet study he responded with this: You can blog all you want, but my next column is also on this. It goes out to over 350 newspapers Not any more: Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) announced Friday that it severed its relationship with Michael Fumento -- a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute -- for not disclosing he had taken payments in 1999 from agribusiness giant Monsanto. The payments were revealed by BusinessWeek Online, which also broke a similar story revealing columnist Doug Bandow receiving payments…

Media Buzz over Gold and Autoimmune Disease

Well some discoveries are flashier than others. And to get the media's interest make sure your finding can be summarized with some catchy slogan and/or pun. From a post on my old blog: So my blog's been suffering from neglect. (I'm writing up a paper.) Hopefully it'll get in some journal, then I'll be a happy scientist! Speaking of happy scientist, check this photo out (to the right). And why is he happy? He not only just published a paper, but is on front page of Harvard's website. Check out the Harvard article, and the original article in Nature Chemical Biology. What a golden moment! {…

Saving an endangered species (Republicans?)

Nothing demonstrates the Bush administration's commitment to Family Values than the number of its officials who have resigned to spend more time with their family. The latest is Julie A. MacDonald, an Interior Department deputy assistant secretary in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered species program. The context for her new interest in family matters is the usual one for Bushies: conflict of interest charges, providing internal documents to lobbyists and the arbitrary alteration of the findings of her own scientific professionals in the Interior Department. MacDonald's…

Nature Methods: It's good to blog

Another editorial about science blogging today, this time in Nature Methods: Lines of communication: The public likes science stories it can easily relate to, and we have to admit that most science, including that published in Nature Methods, is unlikely to get more than a snore from nonscientists. In contrast, science stories that have a human interest or other emotionally charged angle require the concerted efforts of both journalists and scientists to ensure that the public understands the story well enough to make an informed personal decision. A failure in this regard can lead to a…

Do arrogant, condescending, and dismissive attitudes contribute to the journalism crisis?

To begin, I'm not necessarily saying these are attitudes of journalists but perhaps may be of some editors and media business decision makers. This post was stimulated by an interesting comment thread is developing over at The White Coat Underground - a fine blog written by practicing internist colleague, PalMD. Pal wrote a short post on one of his pet peeves: the lack of journal citations in mainstream media articles of recent science and medicine stories. On one hand, the space taken by such a citation in print would be perhaps a line or two more than the text, "Researchers at Highfalutin…

Quantum Postdocs and Beyond

Well it seems that it is that time of year again when grad students and postdocs begin to think about job applications. Last year I had the great pleasure of going through the process (yet one more time!) so yes, I feel your pain. But, at least on the postdoc side of equation for quantum computing, things don't look as bad to me as I've seen in the past. I've already posted about Microsoft Station Q postdocs and the Center for Quantum Information and Control postdocs. Here are a few more to add to the mix. First up is some loon from the University of Washington: The quantum computing…

I'm An Omnivore -- What Are You?

tags: internet, Pew Research Center, poll The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 4,001 adults and found that half of them only use the internet occasionally, and even many avid Internet users surf the Web in the same way they did 10 years ago. Yeowza, not me! "We were struck by a couple of things in the survey," says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Here's the list; 49 percent are not weaving Internet use into their daily life. These include people who don't check their e-mail every day -- or aren't online at all 20 percent are middle-of-the-road…

Typing Monkeys

"With a bit of luck, random sequences of letters and figures may form intelligible words and phrases. The most well-known formulation of this fact is the image of the monkeys and typewriters: if you let monkeys hammer for ever on typewriters, then they will eventually write every possible sequence of the typewriters' characters, including every book that has ever been, or will ever be, written. Let us disregard the risk that the monkeys may tire before they have typed for ever; also, let us leave questions of typewriter wear, paper supply and banana prices out of consideration." In 1999 I…

Museum Opens Catalogue to User Participation

As chronicled here before, some forward-thinking colleagues of mine in the Swedish heritage business are embracing the social web and launching cutting-edge apps and projects. This is impressive not least because they are all working for state bodies founded in the 17th century. Just the other day Minister for Municipalities and the Financial Market Mats Odell gave the National Heritage Board a big shout-out for their Flickr project. (This is funny because Odell is a Christian Democrat and my buddies Lars and Johan are not so much.) Well-deserved praise! Now Ulf Bodin has announced the start…

Online Copyright Registration

A couple years back I posted a short bit on how to register photo copyright with the U.S. government. That turned out to be the last time I filled out a registration with pen and paper. For all subsequent submissions I've used the new ECO system at http://www.copyright.gov/eco. Let me disabuse you of any preconception that the online method is easier. You'll need to clear an hour or two out of your schedule to prepare a submission. The new process involves clicking though an interminable array of confusing steps, filling out an order of magnitude more information than was requested in the…

Friday Fractal LXVIII: LEDs and A Fractal Pine Wreath

Is it just me, or are the holidays getting more and more high tech and environmentally friendly? Maybe it is me. I haven’t used real pine to decorate for the holidays in years. There may be some bits among the potpourri in the centerpiece, but just about everything else has been replaced with paper or plastic versions of the real thing: the tree, the garlands, and the wreath. This year, I’ve been seeking better ways to do the holiday thing. For instance, my tree and garlands now are strung with LED lights. (The odd "lunar white" glow was a bit disconcerting at first--they seem to flicker with…

NOVA: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

NOVA's documentary about the Dover Creationism case, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, aired tonight. If you don't have a TV, or missed it and don't have a TIVO, etc., you can watch it online on the 16th.

Science Blogging Conference - Gender and Race in science: online and offline

There are 5 days until the Science Blogging Conference. Both Zuska and Karen are urging their readers to contribute questions, thoughts and ideas for their session on Gender and Race in science: online and offline - go help them out!

GRB blog and Supernovae on-line

GRBlog provides a handy live feed of the Gamma Ray Burst circulars - the GCN notices. Same bunch has the Texas Supernova Search online. Using ROTSE-III(b) to find optical supernovae, piggybacking on the gammar ray burst optical transient searches.

Guest post on TGGWS

I have a guest post over at Ellee Seymour's blog. Its an attempt at explaining TGGWS for more political type folks. Meanwhile The Independent has an article on the faked graphs; sadly the online version hasn't got the pix.

Et tu, Archie?

Not that I was ever a fan of Archie comics, but I thought they were a little less inane than this: You can read the whole thing online, if you want to. Sanctimony really doesn't go well with corn, though. (via Tikistitch)

Sad Anniversary, Apollo 1

I met Amy Shira Teitel at the Science Online 2012 conference, and we had an interesting conversation about the risks of spaceflight. Have a look at this extensive coverage by Amy of the Apollo 1 fire, which happened 45 years ago.

Lungfish petition

There is now an online petition to save the Australian Lungfish. Take a moment and put your name on it! Also, it's not just the lungfish—as Monika Dieker reminded me, there's also the Mary River Turtle at risk.

Life At Last

Earlier this summer my cover story on the meaning of life (or, at least, "life") came out in the July/August issue of Seed. Now, at long last, the Seedsters have posted the story online. Read it here.

What about art?

Bora's comment on my previous post (Could beautiful design save newspapers?) got me thinking about the distinction between aesthetics and advertising. Here's one Twitter-worthy take on it: Available at the Grandburo online store. Via Kingdom of Style

Dawkins clip

For those curious about Dawkins' documentary, "Root of All Evil?", you can find a short excerpt of the segment with Ted Haggard online. Haggard is extraordinarily creepy—keep some Pepto-Bismol handy if you watch it. (via Leiter Reports)

Promachoteuthis sloani

Isn't she pretty? This is Promachoteuthis sloani, a new species of deep water squid trawled up out of the North Atlantic. Many more photos of this creature are available online, and you can also download the paper describing it.

Spreadsheet Tutorial for Numerical Calculations

I really didn't want to post this, but I am going to anyway. I used ScreenToaster.com to make a screen capture movie (with audio) of a tutorial on spreadsheets. This should accompany my previous post on numerical calculations. Free online screen recorder

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: this Hobson's not so choice

Last week someone by the name of Theo Hobson expelled a hard, dry turd onto the pages of The Guardian: Richard Dawkins wants America's atheists to stand up and be counted. He wants them to form a lobby that's capable of challenging the religious culture they inhabit. He says that about 10% of the nation is atheist - if these godless millions unite, then they can begin to influence national politics. Dawkins has even tried to start the ball rolling, by launching a movement called the Out Campaign. [snip] [Quoting Dawkins] "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has…

On Persistence and the Counting of Things

Kameron Hurley did a blog post on what it took her to become a writer, which I ran across via Harry Connolly's follow-up. These are fairly long, but well worth reading for insight into what it means to be a writer-- and they're both very good at what they do. You should buy their books, right now. As always, reading these made me feel really guilty. Maybe I ought to add "the writing life" articles to the list of topics I just don't read, with "Let's make fun of religious people!" and "The Higgs boson is the greatest thing since sliced bread!" Except unlike those two, which just irritate me,…

Science Blogging 2008: London

Conference Programme for the Science Blogging 2008: London is now online. I wish I could afford to go - it looks delicious! I hope everyone there takes and posts a lot of pictures, videos, podcasts and blog-posts so we can all vicariously participate.

Science Online London 2010

The third Science Online London 2010 will be held at the British Library on September 3rd and 4th, 2010. You can follow it as a hashtag #solo10 on Twitter and add session suggestions to the wiki here.

Tangled Bank #45

The latest edition of the Tangled Bank is online at Greythumb.blog. We are looking for volunteers to host future editions later this spring—drop a note to me if you're interested in spreading the word about science blogging.

Encephalon 50

The 50th edition of Encephalon is now online at SharpBrains. It includes entries about the path planning by hippocampal place cells, the role of calcium ion homeostasis in Alzheimer's Disease and the potential applications of transcranial magnetic stimulation.

I am a racist

(Unfortunately, this post has been linked to by a white supremacist site. Instead of providing a forum for their foulness, I'm shutting down comments on this post.) Unfortunately, I lost the link that inspired this. But I recently saw a post by a conservative about "reclaiming" the word racist. It went on to list a collection of reasons why he was a racist. The gist of it was that all of us dirty liberals were the real racists - because there's no possible reason for us to support things like affirmative action, welfare, etc., unless we really, deep down, believe that minorities -…

The Sci-Hub story so far: Main event or sideshow?

The controversy about Sci-Hub is raging in the halls of scholarship and academic publishing. What's the story, in a nutshell? Sci-Hub is a Russian website that has used donated institutional login credentials to harvest tens of millions of academic articles and has posted them on their site, free to access and read for everyone. This has not pleased the academic publishing community, to say the least. Elsevier is leading the charge to shut them down, succeeding with one iteration of the site last year until, mushroom-like, Sci-Hub has popped up again this year. My take? Mostly that it's a…

New York City Meetup - Saturday Night Fever

OK, this will be the last series of pictures of my Sciblings from the shindig of the past weekend. As you may have noticed, several others have posted their recollections and pictures on their blogs. You can also see some pictures on Flickr and Facebook and please add and tag more if you have them. I have noticed it several times before, but this is something that really came out in full force at the Meetup as we really feel like an online family - meeting people online can produce real freindships. Then, when you meet offline for the first time after years of cyberchatter, there is…

Opening Science to All at ASIS&T

Back at delightful Mocha's cafe on the corner... We just finished our session at the ASIS&T conference: Opening Science to All: Implications of Blogs and Wikis for Social and Scholarly Scientific Communication, organized by K.T. Vaughan, moderated by Phillip Edwards. Janet Stemwedel, Jean-Claude Bradley and I were the panelists. There were about 50-60 people in the audience who asked some excellent questions afterwards. I started off with defining science blogs and various uses they can be put to, in particular how they interact with other ways of scientific communication such as Open…

What lessons can we learn from teaching with a wiki?

Experimenting with on-line worksheets I know some people who always teach their classes the same way, semester after semester, year after year.. Not me. I always want to experiment and try new things. This fall, I'm experimenting with using a wiki in the classroom, in addition to my blog. This wont be my first wiki experience. We've long used wikis where I work, and I've used them to collaborate with people in different locations, but this is the first time that I'll try one in a teaching situation. The wikis in my past My earlier experiences with wikis had convinced me that they would…

Presidential Science Debate: What to ask the candidates?

Science Debate is an organization that has been trying to get the presidential candidates to directly address important science policy issues. After several months of meeting and convening and conversing among top science organizations and seeking public input, Science Debate Dot Org has nailed down what questions they feel should be asked at a presidential debate. Without further ado, here is the press release from that organization just as it came to me moments ago: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—JULY 19, 2011 Organizations List Top Science & Environmental Questions Obama, Romney Should…

Don't Fix What Ain't Broke

Inside Higher Ed reports today on a new brainstrom from the ETS With criticism growing that standardized tests and grades fail to convey the full picture of applicants, the Educational Testing Service is preparing a standardized way for graduate schools to consider students' non-cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Under the "Personal Potential Index," which was developed at the request of the advisory board for the Graduate Record Exam, three or four professors or supervisors would answer a series of questions about candidates' non-cognitive skills in various areas, as well as a more general…

I guess he'd rather be in Colorado

Get me in my 1977 Chevy pickup with KBCO blasting from the radio, head up for a trail run at the Dakota Ridge Red Rocks Trail near the I-70 geologic cutout (the hypoxia makes the colors seem even more intense), then back to town to the Wynkoop Brewing Company for a few pints of Railyard Ale and fish and chips. That's where I'd be right now instead of inside the Pepsi Center or at Tent State University (although outside is always better than inside in Colorado). I'm trying to dig some science out of this week's Democratic National Convention being held in Denver this week, other than ranting…

Herbal Remedies: Just Because Its Natural Doesn't Mean Its Safe

Despite a lack of scientific evidence to back up their claims, herbal remedies are used by millions. effectiveness isn't the only issue. Could they be dangerous, too? A news story with this headline appeared in Delaware Online today, highlighting the complex relationship that Americans have with herbal remedies. I personally am quite interested in this topic for several reasons: 1) Most effective pharmaceuticals originated in plants or animals, in a more dilute form (opium, growth hormones, aspirin, etc.) 2) A paucity of peer-reviewed clinical studies back up the health benefits of a variety…

Hands of Lead and Like to Help People?

Then I have the job for you. If you are a scientist, but you want to get out of the lab, want to have a little more variety in your life, like helping people and finding information, but still want to use your science degree and be part of the scientific enterprise, then you might want to consider becoming a librarian. You know a little about what a librarian does and if not you can see my recent post. Don't worry, though, all of those functions are not typically done by the same person. You don't have to be in public service, actually, you could deal with metadata or building discovery…

Nicholson Baker on Wikipedia

Now here's a match-up: the fine-grained, highly particularized, unpredictable, and insatiably curious mind of Nicholson Baker and the many-grained field of knowledge expressed in Wikipedia. In a great reading pleasure, Baker reviews John Broughton's Wikipedia: The Missing Manual in the current issue of the New York Review of Books: Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It's fact-encirclingly huge, and it's idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking, and full of simmering controversies—and it's free, and it's fast. In a few seconds you can look up, for instance, "Diogenes of Sinope," or…