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Scientist Laureate? E.O. Wilson

This week's Ask a ScienceBlogger: Who would you nominate for Scientist Laureate, if such a position existed?... E.O. Wilson. Wilson combines the skills of a serious researcher with literary grace and social/political prominence. With the passing from the scene of Carl Sagan I can't think of any other great scientist who can compare. Yes, there are greater stars in the heavens such as Edward Witten, but none who burn so brightly for the delicate eyes of the common man.

Wednesday Link Dump

Here are some posts for you. Science first: What? The Great Lakes Too Obvious? Make All Academic Research Databases Free For Everyone Perverse Incentives Palaeowomaen: Barbara Isaac, Women in The Field, and The Throwing Hypothesis Other: Left And Right Working Together Please, spare us from the melodramatic populism In praise of class warfare Journalism, Civil Society and 21st Century Reportage How to spot a hidden religious agenda Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable Step 2: Documenting Bushvilles

Links 9/22/10

Links are back! Science: Q&A: Antibiotic resistance: where does it come from and what can we do about it? Detecting natural selection: a pika's tale (nice post about molecular evolution) Bleach: Not a cure for obesity Other: The Rich Need Our Help - $$$ Addiction With high-calorie dishes, restaurant chains put obesity on the menu How Perry Mason Ruined America You're Rich. Get Over It. People who make $250,000 or more a year can afford a tax hike.

Links 8/18/10

Links for you. Science: Cato's Pat Michaels admits 40 percent of funding comes from big oil. Data release (blogwar or pillow fight?) Survey Shows Many Are Clueless On How To Save Energy: People Turn Off Lights in Vain, Ignoring Real Efficiencies Other: Free Parking Comes at a Price The Citizens Agenda in Campaign Coverage New benches are a pain in the **** ALAN SIMPSON'S CON Improving Urban Intersections Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Scab: Israeli Diplomats Hit Back at Mossad

Links 11/10/10

Links for you. Science: An ID anniversary missed The case against evidence: From fingerprints to high-tech CSI, forensic science plays a much smaller role than you would think Great Migrations Other: Huzzah! Take That, Socialism! White House thinks it was the stimulus that killed them (so they're going to try to win election by not helping people?) Affordable Care and the Election Digg Patriots Censorship Part 2: The Evidence Will Education Be a Bipartisan Issue in 2011?

Carnivalia

I know that christmas nearly has us in a strangle-hold, but if you need to get away from the tension and rush for awhile, perhaps you'd like to read the Festival of the Trees? And of course, talking about seasonally relevant, don't forget to check in to the Carnival of Christmas. And the Carnival of Health tips is also availabke to keep us all thinking about how to stay healthy despite the many unhealthy temptations this holiday season.

Ménage à Trois

tags: three eagles, National Geographic, international photography contest, image of the day Image: Jose Hernandez, Nature Honorable Mention, 2008 International Photography Contest [larger view]. The photographer writes; This is a shot of three [bald] eagles fighting over a fish in Homer, Alaska, from March 2008. You can see the fish at the top of the image flying by itself, but it was caught in its fall by another eagle. There's lots more gorgeous images here for you to enjoy!

Rachel Alexandra Victorious in the 2009 Preakness Stakes!

tags: Preakness Stakes, horse racing, race horses, Rachel Alexandra, Mine That Bird, sports, streaming video Even though I don't own a television, I managed to watch the Preakness Stakes live in a pub in NYC. To say the least, I was so excited to watch the wonderful superfilly, Rachel Alexandra, win the Preakness Stakes from the far outside post by running wire-to-wire and holding off the fast-closing Mine That BIrd, who won the Kentucky Derby just two weeks ago [3:34]

TEDTalks: Richard Dawkins on Thinking the Improbable

tags: philosophy, thinking the improbable, middle world, atoms, atheism, physics, Richard Dawkins, streaming video In this video, Biologist Richard Dawkins makes a case for "thinking the improbable" by looking at how the human frame of reference limits our understanding of the universe [22:42] TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

Waaaah!

Remember the Rev. Evan Cockshaw? He put a silly poll on the web, and then was quite miffed when we answered it. It turns out that he has lately been dunning Seed, demanding that my post and your comments be taken down! He has also added a redirect to his site so that links from here won't work. Isn't that sooooo cute? P.S. Seed has said "no", quite plainly. They do not meddle in blog content at all.

How bad could it get?

Fast Friday feature (from Utah!): Climate Science in a Nutshell #9: How Bad Could it Get? from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo. My only comment is to draw your attention to the video's assumption that the 350 ppm CO2 target is widely accepted as the maximum necessary to avert catastrophic change. It's certainly spreading, but I suspect there are still many who would argue that the science behind it is less than conclusive, as opposed to 450, say.

99 Gallons of Gatorade

in 2007 Yonah opted out of a Bar Mitzvah. His alternative rite of passage was riding a bike from San Francisco to Washington DC with the rest of the family in tow. His Dad, Matt, is a mediocre selling author whose most recent royalty check for his "breakthrough book" was only four figures. (Two of the figures standing to the right of the decimal point.) Undaunted, he has recently finished a memoir of their epic journey. Read the first chapter here.

The X-STEM Symposium was a HUGE Success!

Sponsored by Northrop Grumman Foundation and MedImmune, our X-STEM Symposium featured multiple presentation sessions covering a wide array of subject areas including space exploration, storm chasing, oceanography, the science of social networks, the physics of superheroes, mathematical puzzles and much, much more! As a special treat, the Senior Science Advisor to President Obama, Dr. John Holdren delivered the opening address. Thank you speakers! And thank you students for attending!! View all of the photos from the event here.                                

The Buzz: Competition May Limit Success

It's common for students to take tests in large groups, but a new study suggests being exposed to greater competition may inhibit individuals from excelling. ScienceBlogger Jonah Lehrer attributed this finding to a common tendency of the brain to shut down when intimidated instead of working harder. "When it knows that it won't win the competition—there are just too many competitors—the mind is less willing to put in the effort," he wrote on The Frontal Cortex.

It's Hard to Be King

If you were king for a day (or President for a century), could you slow the course of climate change? This Flash game from the BBC challenges you to create a carbon-neutral future, while still maintaining your coffers--and your presidency. With international carbon-reduction treaties to contend with, and policy suggestions like, "Privatize Electricity", it takes more than a curbside recycling program to succeed in this game: Clearly, my own leadership leaves plenty to be desired. Hat-tip, Josh Rosenau, coturnix.

Digital Biology Friday: More puzzling structures

I've had some requests for some more molecular puzzles since the last one that I posted (see A DNA puzzle ). One person liked it so much he even blogged about it. So, here's one for you to chew on over the weekend. This puzzle is a variation of an activity in Exploring DNA Structure, a CD/lab book that I made (with funding from the NSF) and used for some educational research. tags: DNA structure, DNA , molecular structure, biochemistry Any ideas?

SEED scienceblogs getting more popular

Technorati treats each of SEED blogs as anindividual entity but also the whole scienceblogs.com site as a single blog. Over the past week or so, the SB gradually moved up from #51 to #32 on the Top 100 Most Popular Blogs list. More you link to each one of us, or the site as a whole, higher up we'll get. Do you think we can overtake at least Michelle Malkin? At least we write empirically correct blogposts....

A New Carnival

Carnival of Community Campaigns ....will be a fortnightly roundup of all the best posts put together by local community campaigns, aiming to spread their message - an international forum for local campaigns. The carnival will favour the voices of people excluded from power, people and communities who the establishment parties may sometimes court at election time, but forget as soon as the polls are closed - turning back to their corporate paymasters, at least until the next time they want our votes!

Annals of McCain - Palin, X: "Stop the bullshit"

Leaving aside the absolute disingenuousness of John McCain's claim he is elevating the financial crisis to a non-partisan issue by plopping the Presidential race into the middle of the negotiations in Washington, it wouldn't seem that the whole thing needs that much thought -- at least from his engagingly simplistic point of view. After all, his solution to the millenium old Gordian Knot that Iraq's Sunnis and Shias have entangled themselves in is to tell each side to "": For all the national attention surrounding John McCain's two highly anticipated, protest-ridden commencement speeches in…

Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: the outlook is gay

Most people are religious by default. Religion is a social custom inherited from their parents, like being Italian or Sudanese. Some people turn to religion for comfort or to help them cope with troubles. I'm not sure how this is different than using alcohol or drugs or Transcendental Meditation to cope. I'll let you answer that. Some people use religion to control others. Make up your own examples. And some people hope religion will answer their questions:

Digging out

The blizzard is over, and now we're just buried knee-high in snow. It's also finals week at UMM, and we've just received a note from the administration that classes are not cancelled, but that "students, faculty, and staff should use their judgment when deciding whether or not travel to campus". Nice way to dodge any responsibility at all! Fortunately, the first final I have to give is tomorrow, so we may be dug out by then.

It's so easy to re-use Open Access stuff (video)

It's barely been a day since PLoS ONE published the article Discovery of the Largest Orbweaving Spider Species: The Evolution of Gigantism in Nephila when a video appeared on YouTube mashing up images and text from the press release: Of course, as this is Open Access, nobody needs to worry about copyright and stuff....though a direct link to the paper would have been nice (or, considering the infamous YouTube commenters, perhaps better not!). See the related blog post as well.

Charting progress in Iraq

General Petraeus, speaking for President Bush, has told us things are going well in Iraq. He backed it up with charts, numbers and "twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence." (YouTube version here). One of the charts he didn't show, however, was this chart (via atrios) from the Department of Defense. I wonder why:

My hair-stylist had to buy sheep-shearing clippers for me

Now, this is the gene that was meant to be named "hairy" instead of this one: Hirsute-s You, Sir! Could Super Furry Animals Provide Clues For Baldness?: The team found that cells given the genetic command to become hair follicles will send out signals to neighbouring cells to prevent them from doing likewise, so producing a specific hair pattern. They also demonstrated that by hyperactivating the 'hair protein' in embryonic mice, young with considerably more fur than normal were produced.

I may be a Mad Scientist, but at least I am a scientist!

You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew You take the title "mad scientist" to the extreme -with very scary things coming out of your lab. And you've invented some pretty cool things, from a banana sharpener to a robot politician. But while you're busy turning gold into cottage cheese, you need to watch out for poor little Beaker! "Oh, that's very naughty, Beaker! Now you eat these paper clips this minute." The Muppet Personality Test (Hat-tip: Grrrrlscientist)

Darwin's Nightmare

This is the movie I want to see next: Profits on a plane: In truth, the film's title is more of an attention-grabber than an accurate representation of a film that should be considered the human race's nightmare. Sauper's film is a punishing account of global free trade as a zero sum game. Everything the affluent West takes from Africa makes it richer, and all of Africa's recompense comes in the inverted form of suffering at the hands of war, famine and pestilence.

Bird Brains...

Eavesdropping Nuthatches Appear To Understand Chickadees In Distress: If Dr. John Watson had been chronicling the work of Christopher Templeton rather than the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, he might have entitled the latest research by Templeton "The Adventure of the Avian Eavesdroppers." The University of Washington doctoral student has found the first example of an animal making sophisticated decisions about the danger posed by a predator from the information contained in the alarm calls of another species. Grrrrl explains.

Anthology update

Now that the Anthology is arriving at people's homes, getting read and even reviewed on blogs, I hope that more people will take a minute to post reviews or ratings on the actual book webpage. In one week, it has moved from non-existent to 33rd to 27th on the Lulu.com top sellers of the week list. I am also working on having the book more widely available, e.g., on sites like amazon.com and in independent bookstores.

A virus walks into a bar . . .

All geeks love science jokes (one of my favorites: what's purple and drives to work? Answer: an Abelian grape [explanation, the elements of an Abelian group commute, i.e., a + b = b + a]). Science jokes are good. You can learn some science from them. In particular, the first three or four of this set of groaners involve viruses and infectious diseases and each tell you -- vividly -- an important truth. The rest are pretty good, too. Enjoy (hat tip Boingboing):

Black Holes: Live Firewalls

The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics is currently holding a "Rapid Response Workshop" on Black Holes: Complementarity, Fuzz, or Fire?, August 19-30. Organizers: Raphael Bousso (UCB), Samir Mathur (OSU), Rob Myers (PI), Joe Polchinski (KITP), Lenny Susskind (Stanford) The lunch talk today is Lenny Susskind "Inside Black Holes" That talk will be available on video, audio and podcast feeds soon The general session talks from the Fuzz, or Fire are available as they become available at the link above.

The Creation Museum is still there

It's awfully easy to forget Ken Ham's monument to malevolent ignorance, the Creation Museum, but while we're not visiting it, it's apparently doing a bang-up business, and they're even planning a major expansion. Stupidity sells, especially in America. So it's a good thing that some people are still shining the spotlight on it. There's a new review of the museum from Demonbaby that's worth a read. This one highlights the creepy and gruesome nature of Ham's bogus theology.

Doubt is Their Product Wins Recognition from Library Journal and AAP

New awards for 2008 books are coming out, and we're proud to announce that David Michaels' Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health has won recognition from both the Library Journal and the American Association of Publishers. Library Journal's Gregg Sapp has selected Doubt is Their Product as one of the Best Sci-Tech Books of 2008, and the American Association of Publishers has selected it as a finalist for their PROSE Award.

Oy! Not Goodbye to MSHA's Stickler?

I guess President Bush and Secretary Chao are stickin' with Richard Stickler afterall.  A personnel announcement this afternoon from the White House says: "The President intends to designate Richard Stickler, of West Virginia, to be Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health." Note the use of the word "designate" not "nominate."  And now the webpage featuring Mr. Stickler's photo is back up on MSHA's website.  My previous posts on this are here, here, and here.  Oy!

Creationism explained, in one sentence

On the non-necessity of evolving large brains: It requires big brains and they in turn demand lots of protein, which, outside modern yuppie societies, generally means meat. As the late evolutionary paleontologist Jack Sepkoski used to say: "I see intelligence as just one of a variety of adaptations among tetrapods for survival. Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival." (from a review of an interesting book.)

A weird poll to crash

There's a whole site dedicated to polling visitors on one question: Do you believe in God?. Just as it is, it's a testimonial to the worthlessness of internet polls (100% of the residents of Saint Lucia are atheists! n=1), so it seems superfluous to send the Atheist Legion in, but hey, go ahead, push this poll towards more disbelief. As a special bonus, if you come from a small country you'll be able to wield greater unrepresentative power!

Evidence that too much Greg Paul is bad for you

If you read the ceratosaurid article from yesterday (here), you'll understand what's going on here. I drew it in a diary in 1992 (specifically, on Wednesday 29th April 1992, the day I learnt that Toby the cat had died, and also the day on which the borg [of Star Trek: The Next Generation] made their first appearance on British TV). The caption reads 'Ceratosaurus and Thylacinus contemplate their predicament'. Anatomical errors abound, but I can live with that.

David Kassan Paints a Live Model on his iPad

tags: David Kassan Paints a Live Model on his iPad, technology, computers, iPad, Apple, art, fingerpainting, portrait painting, documentary, time-lapse video, streaming video This video is a time-lapse rendering of an Apple ipad fingerpainting demo that was streamed live from artist David Kassan's Brooklyn studio on Monday, 21 June 2010. The model sat for 3 hours as Mr Kassan painted and answered questions on how he uses the iPad and the Brushes applications. Learn more about David Kassan.

Helsinki Complaints Choir

tags: Helsinki Complaints Choir, complaints, silly, humor, funny, offbeat, weird, life, life isn't fair, choir, streaming video This amusing video is a bit of a departure from my usual Sunday morning god-mocking, but since I am in Helsinki right now, I thought you'd appreciate this. Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. Music composed by Esko Grundström.

Mystery Bird: Brown Noddy, Anous stolidus

tags: Brown Noddy, Common Noddy, Anous stolidus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz [Mystery bird] Brown Noddy, also known as the Common Noddy, Anous stolidus, photographed on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, Midway Island, Hawai'i. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours] Image: Joe Fuhrman, March 2010. I encourage you to purchase images from this professional photographer. NOTE: PLEASE name at least one field mark that supports your identification. Review all mystery birds to date.

My guilty pleasures of late...

...are three blogs written by the same person - Ross Horsley, a librarian with interesting creative juices. Her first blog is My First Dictionary in which she uses pictures from an old 1950s kids' Dictionary and replaces the text with something....usually ominous! Her second blog is Musty Moments with old clippings and ads, sometimes with her own text added: And the third is Anchorwoman In Peril! where she reviews slash-pics: Read the interview with Horsley at NO JUAN HERE

Shaking Up Computer History: Finding the Women of ENIAC

From SCONC: Thursday, Sept. 25 11:30 a.m - 1 p.m (Free lunch if you're early) Lecture: "Shaking Up Computer History: Finding the Women of ENIAC" Historian, computer programmer, telecommunications lawyer, and film producer Kathy Kleiman will speak about the women who programmed the first all-electronic programmable computer, ENIAC, over sixty years ago. Sponsored by Duke University's Office of the Provost, Office of Information Technology, Women in Science and Engineering, and RENCI. Bryan Center, Von Canon A/B/C, Duke

ScienceOnline'09 - NIEHS

I said I was going to introduce the participants at ScienceOnline09 in non-daily but larger batches. So, today, I introduce a large contingent of people coming from the National Institute of Environemental Health Sciences (NIEHS): NIEHS News Director Robin Mackar Web Manager Cheryl Thompson Biomedical Librarian Stephanie Holmgren Signal Transduction researcher Ren Rongqin Signal Transduction researcher Danielle Duma Signal Transduction researcher Daniel Brown Signal Transduction researcher Erica Lannan Blood-Brain Barrier researcher Brian Hawkins And Pediatric Epidemiology researcher Yang…

Oooops! McCain lost the most rabid voters.

Rabies themselves! We are a proud group of rabies. We are not a rabid group. And we rarely engage in rabid rabble rousing. As a commonly misunderstood virus which supports the Barack Obama candidacy, we've formed an alliance of rabies to pledge our support for Senator Obama. Our group is comprised of all different kinds of rabies, including rabies from a raccoon, bat and non-domesticated canines. Wow! If this won't get wingnuts frothing at their mouths, I don't know what will!

Science Cafe - Buzzed: Using Fruit Flies to Understand Alcohol Addiction

From SCONC: Tuesday, Jan. 13 7 p.m. Periodic Tables -- "Buzzed: Using Fruit Flies to Understand Alcohol Addiction." The Science Cafe of Durham features Duke freshman Kapil Ramachandran, who won national recognition at age 16 for his work on the Diazepam binding inhibitor, a protein that apparently confers alcohol tolerance in fruitflies. Put your own inhibitions to the test while discussing Kapil's work. Broad Street Cafe, 1116 Broad Street, Durham; free and open to the public http://www.ncmls.org/periodictables

Global Warming: Is the Science Settled Enough for Policy?

July 24, 2008 presentation by Stephen Schneider for the Stanford University Office of Science Outreach's Summer Science Lecture Series. Professor Schneider discusses the local, regional, and international actions that are already beginning to address global warming and describe other actions that could be taken, if there were political will to substantially reduce the magnitude of the risks. The Stanford Summer Science Lecture Series is a set of informal lectures about cutting edge research from four of Stanford's most esteemed professors.

Life after Darwin: Are there still big discoveries to be made in biology?

From SCONC: Tuesday, March 31 6:30 p.m. "Life after Darwin: Are there still big discoveries to be made in biology?" NC State ecologist Rob Dunn continues the NC Museum of Natural Science's Charles Darwin Lecture Series. Free lecture; doors open at 6. Museum of Natural Science, downtown Raleigh. Please RSVP to museum.reservations@ncmail.net. (Next in the series: Anne Yoder, director of the Duke Lemur Center, and paleontologist Paul Brinkman on Darwin's use of fossil evidence.)

Republicans can't even admit their anti-evolution leanings

Chris Matthews ask Representative Mike Pence a simple question — "Do you believe in evolution?" — and Pence spends 5 minutes squirming avoiding giving an answer. He changes the subject repeatedly, to global warming and stem cells, and tries to pretend that the Republican party doesn't have a serious problem with an anti-science agenda, which he himself is demonstrating. I have to commend Matthews, too: he bulldogs that question and won't let it go. Let's see more of that from our media, please.

A Fable about Trolls

Nanny Goat Gruff and the Internet Trolls: Once upon a time, there was a nanny goat who lived to wander from field to field, tasting the grass and bushes as she went. It was a simple life: wander, taste, chew, wander again. Sunshine and air and a million flavors were her world. The only problem was that the most complex, interesting flavors were to be found in isolated meadows, only accessible by bridge. And where there were bridges, there were trolls......

Blogging contests of various kinds

Are you writing your posts yet? Hurry up, the PLoS ONE Second Birthday Synchroblogging Competition is in two days! There are also just a couple of days left to vote in the 2008 Edublog Awards, so if you have not done it yet, do it now. And be patient with us - there are many, many good entries to choose from for The Open Laboratory 2008. The judging process is going on smoothly and the winners will be announced pretty soon.

The importance of free speech

Excellent article by Jasmina Tesanovic about the final gasps of the Serbian Radicals (the right-wing nationalists and war-mongers) : A couple of days ago, journalists from various press groups were beaten up by Radical goons; at that point the new government declared Serbian journalists to be equivalent to Serbian police performing public duties, and severely penalized the street-thugs for attacking free speech. Imagine that in the USA?! And what about Citizen Journalists? Can I haz my blue uniform now?