milhayser | April 7, 2011
The science portion of The Nation's Report Card was released on February 24th, with test scores from school districts in seventeen urban centers. Almost every district performed below the national average. Greg Laden explains, "Poverty determines the outcome of the results, and this is probably exacerbated in urban zones where private schools siphon off the small number of higher-income kids." Although Department of Education officials were firm in their stance that "correlation does not equal causality," Greg plots test scores against poverty level in the cities surveyed and reveals a very…
milhayser | April 2, 2011
To judge by its name, cancer may seem like a monolithic disease. But a recent study which sequenced the genomes of seven prostate cancers reveals just how staggeringly complex the disease can be. The sequencing revealed not only DNA mutations, but rampant rearrangements of the chromosomes themselves. As ERV explains, "we arent talking a mutation here, a tiny deletion there—we are talking huge chunks of DNA in the wrong place." Once a cell becomes cancerous—which is no simple transition—it no longer functions as part of a bodily community. Instead, it founds its own community of cellular…
milhayser | March 22, 2011
Vaccines are a tried and true mechanism for controlling disease, but they are not always a magic bullet. Researchers who study the spread of cholera in Haiti recently modeled what would happen if 150,000 vaccines were administered in Port-au-Prince. They concluded "the benefits would have been negligible." Liz Borkowski writes, "this intervention's small effectiveness is due partly to the slow pace at which full immunity builds up and to the likelihood that many vaccine recipients would've already built up natural immunity." A better way to control a water-borne disease like cholera is…
milhayser | March 8, 2011
House Republicans are pushing a bill that would cut funding for the National Institutes of Health by $1.6 billion, over five percent. Isis the Scientist issues a call to action, saying "Whether you are a scientist, a student, or a member of the public interested in the future of science, I join with Dr. Talman in asking you to call your Congressional Representatives and ask them to oppose HR1." DrugMonkey offers a cheat sheet full of facts, figures, and talking points so we can know what we're talking about when we contact our representatives. Orac calls the savings "minimal and symbolic…
milhayser | March 7, 2011
For the last few years, Claire L. Evans and friends have been producing a television show designed to teach computers about the human experience. On Valentine's Day, the term technophile got a new meaning on Universe. Claire explains, "we made some valentines for you and your computer to share. After all, you do spend all day staring at each other." On Pharyngula, PZ Myers looks at love throughout the animal kingdom, including among tortoises and penguins who look downright ecstatic in their couplings. Meanwhile, Mike the Mad Biologist encourages forethought before foreplay, showing us a…
milhayser | March 2, 2011
On Universe, Claire L. Evans takes us all the way back to 1966, when an event called 9 Evenings happened in New York City. This "epic art salon" brought together ten artists with a bevy of engineers from Bell Laboratories, who "helped the artists with complex technical components to their pieces." FM transmitters, infrared cameras, amplifiers and photoelectric cells contributed to "performances, installations, and dances that blended technology with fine art to somewhat legendary effect." Claire has pictures and video of the event on Universe. And on Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer shows us…
milhayser | March 1, 2011
Deservedly or not, jocks have a reputation for being less cerebral than beaker jockeys and bookworms. But when it comes to American football, brain damage can be all in a day's work. On The Pump Handle, Liz Borkowski highlights a recent article by Ben McGrath in the New Yorker, addressing "the effects of repeated brain trauma, which football players often experience during games and practice alike." Even if a player walks off the field, repeated brain-rattlings can lead to dementia and other long-term health problems. But thanks to journalists like Ben, the NFL is starting to pay…
milhayser | February 28, 2011
On Life at the SETI Institute, Dr. Franck Marchis shares the latest results from Kepler, a telescope in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit which keeps a distant eye on 156,453 stars. Kepler watches for tell-tale reductions in brightness, which "could be due to the transit of an exoplanet passing between its star and us." As of Tuesday, Kepler has identified 1202 likely new exoplanets, tripling the number of known worlds beyond our solar system. These results suggest that out of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy, "several hundred million of them could have an exoplanet with a surface…
milhayser | February 23, 2011
If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, then what of the hand that rocks the world? Dr. Jeffrey Toney reports that Google recently showed its revolutionary colors with speak2tweet, a service that enabled netless Egyptians to access Twitter over the phone. After breaking with China over censorship issues last year, Google's political conscience is becoming clear. Their Android operating system powers smartphones around the world, their driverless cars turn heads in California, and the new information services just keep on coming. Jessica Palmer shares the Google Art Project,…
milhayser | February 22, 2011
January 28th marked the 25th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, when one of the rocket boosters separated from the external fuel tank after liftoff and aerodynamic forces tore the shuttle apart. Like millions of Americans, Ethan Siegel and Greg Laden watched the orbiter disintegrate live on TV. Ethan writes that while "we found and fixed the flaws that caused the accident, and returned to space 32 months later with the Space Shuttle Discovery," we "lost our eagerness for human space exploration in a way that would have been unfathomable 20 years prior." NASA shifted its…
milhayser | February 14, 2011
Kissing remains popular among the people of the world, and in a new book former scibling Sheril Kirshenbaum delves into the emerging science behind the age-old practice. For one, the sensory experience of osculation (as sucking face is more formally known) forges new neuronal connections in the brain. On Dean's Corner, Dr. Jeffrey Toney says "these new connections represent learning, memory and can enhance sensory perception and even healing." We at Scienceblogs recommend five to nine servings a day. Dr. Toney also shares a video which demonstrates affection throughout the animal kingdom…
milhayser | February 7, 2011
We heard recently that 36% of university students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" upon graduation, although they may have bettered their Xbox skills, social lives, and tolerance to alcohol. Physics professor Chad Orzel isn't surprised by this number, saying it "seems consistent with my experiences both as a student and as a faculty member." According to Chad, laziness is just human nature, and there are other important (if not academic) lessons that college provides. The new statistics, drawn from a book called Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College…
ably | September 28, 2010According to the Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators, an annual database that records the number of articles published in about 12,000 internationally recognized journals:
- The Asia-Pacific region increased its global share of published science articles from 13 percent in the early 1980s to just over 30 percent in 2009
- China is leading the way, having increased its share of articles to 11 percent in 2009 from just 0.4 percent in the early 1980s
- Japan is next, accounting for 6.7 percent, followed by India with 3.4 percent
- The proportion of articles from the United States dropped…
ably | September 28, 2010Brian Lehrer was kind enough to invite me onto his show the other day along with Kathleen Fitzpatrick of MediaCommons and Katherine Rowe, guest editor of the ground-breaking openly peer reviewed issue of Shakespeare Quarterly, to discuss digital scholarship, peer review, and open science. Our segment begins at 42:00.
elerner | September 1, 2010Last week, "The Skeptical Environmentalist" Bjørn Lomborg announced that he was skeptical no more. Timed with the release of his new book "Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits" Lomborg now says that the world needs an investment of $100 Billion a year to fight global warming. Lomborg denies this is a total reversal of his position, considering he never denied the reality of climate change, just the severity of its impacts and cost-effectiveness of attempts to mitigate it. Nevertheless, Lomborg's switching sides has made headlines, though Class M's James Hrynyshyn…
ably | August 31, 2010Our friend Victoria Stodden is the lead author on a paper published today in Computing in Science and Engineering summarizing the recommendations of a roundtable we participated in at Yale on data (and code) sharing in (computational) science. Seed's Joy Moore is an additional author on the paper.
To adhere to the scientific method in the face of the transformations arising from changes in technology and the Internet, we must be able to reproduce computational results. Reproducibility will let each generation of scientists build on the previous generations' achievements.... Reproducible…
elerner | August 31, 2010Though the "publish or perish" life of an academic never rests, it can't help but be infused with the rhythm of the school year. Perhaps that explains a recent surge in bloggerly analysis of the institutions and infrastructures that infuse this scientific lifestyle. From peer review to data collection, there isn't facet of this world that isn't being reconceputalized in terms of openess and transparency. Mike the Mad Biologist has some thoughts on how this might impact the Researcher-Data Producer Conflict, and you should check out this classic from Common Knowledge's John Wilbanks over at…
ably | August 29, 2010From the New York Times:
Now some humanities scholars have begun to challenge the monopoly that peer review has on admission to career-making journals and, as a consequence, to the charmed circle of tenured academe. They argue that in an era of digital media there is a better way to assess the quality of work. Instead of relying on a few experts selected by leading publications, they advocate using the Internet to expose scholarly thinking to the swift collective judgment of a much broader interested audience.
Will be interesting to follow the Shakespeare Quarterly experiment...
ably | August 27, 2010Journey to the Center of a Triangle (1976) 8m, dir. Bruce & Katharine Cornwell, presents a series of animated constructions that determine the center of a variety of triangles, including circumcenter, incenter, centroid and orthocenter.
(via swissmiss)