vhughes | March 17, 2008On Friday, 3/14, math enthusiasts worldwide celebrated π Day, in honor of the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (approximately 3.14).
Back in August, Chad asked his readers which irrational number they preferred, π or e—the base for the exponential function (approximately 2.72). He went with e, because "you just have to love a function that is its own derivative."
For this week's Sb Reader Poll, we want to know if you agree with Chad:
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Want to know the results? We'll publish them exclusively in…
vhughes | March 14, 2008Today, March 14th (3.14, get it?), math geeks around the world are celebrating pi. Seed's NYC headquarters did, too, with--what else?--pie!
vhughes | March 13, 2008
Prismatic Soap Bubble
ScienceBlogs fans will have surely noticed the stunning images featured on our Life Science, Physical Science (above), Environment, Humanities and Technology channels. They're taken from On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science, by Harvard organic chemist George Whitesides and photographer Felice Frankel.
Frankel, who heads the Envisioning Science program at Harvard's Initiative in Innovative Computing, recently chatted with me about the role of design in scientific communication.
Why do you call your work design, but not art?
This is my…
ksharpe | March 12, 2008A climate change-denying conference in New York, a new government council to review stem cell regulations in Germany, and a couple of spectacular, science-y visuals: These are the stories driving conversation this week at our partner site, ScienceBlogs.de:
Climate Change Denial
Last week's "International Conference on Climate Change," held in New York by the free-market think tank The Heartland Institute, was the peg on which several authors at ScienceBlogs.de hung a discussion of climate change—and its denial.
At his blog WeiterGen, Tobias Maier compares the opposing stances of denialism and…
vhughes | March 10, 2008PZ Myers turned 51 on Sunday. His blog, Pharyngula, is one of our network's most popular, with a impressive Technorati ranking of 2,491. So this week's poll is for the PZ fanatics:
How many reader comments has Pharyngula received since joining ScienceBlogs (as of March 10)?
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Want to know the results (and the real answer)? We'll publish them exclusively in next week's ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap—the fun e-newsletter that brings you the top posts, quotes, photos and videos from the previous week on ScienceBlogs. (Click…
vhughes | March 4, 2008In 1986, 22-year-old Boston Celtics forward Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. This week, DrugMonkey argued that Bias' death—as opposed to educational programs like DARE—was the major reason why self-reported rates of cocaine use by 20-year-olds dropped from 20% in the mid-1980s to 7% in the early 1990s.
So, what do you think:
Click Here for PollOnline Surveys | Web Poll | Email MarketingView MicroPoll
Want to know the results? We'll publish them exclusively in next week's ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap—the fun e-newsletter that brings you the top posts, quotes, photos and videos from the…
ksharpe | February 27, 2008As Christian Reinboth reports on ScienceBlogs.de, at his energy blog Frischer Wind ("Brisk Wind"), unusually high winds in Denmark on Monday tore the rotor from a turbine on a wind-power farm in Hornslet. The turbine failed spectacularly, exploding mid-spin and scattering parts across the landscape below.
Click the image below to view two short videos of the disintegrating turbine at Reinboth's blog:
The Danish government and the turbine's manufacturer have each launched investigations seeking to clarify the cause of the accident.
vhughes | February 15, 2008It's winter. And here in NYC, that means it's cold, icy, and generally miserable. Everyone I know is coughing, aching, sneezing, and blowing noses. Ten million sick readers undoubtedly want to know the answer to our latest "Ask A ScienceBlogger" question:
What is a Disease?
Four scibling responses below the fold...
Greg and John discuss how evolution changes what's classified as a "disease." Mike narrows the question down to infectious diseases. And Janet wonders how pharmaceutical advertising may affect our feelings of health.
vhughes | February 12, 2008(This is a guest post written by Mo, the Neurophilosopher.)
I'm very pleased to announce that the fantastic Bioephemera has been "acquired" by ScienceBlogs. When I first started reading it, I knew that I had found a unique blog, and it soon became one of my favourites.
(More below the fold...)
Bioephemera is a curiosity box filled with weird and wonderful things from the intersection of art and biology. Take, for example, this wax anatomical figure of a pregnant woman, attributed to Stephan Zick, and dated to around 1700.
Jessica Palmer, the author of Bioephemera, is not a biologist with an…
vhughes | February 12, 2008
Take just five minutes to complete our ScienceBlogs reader survey and you'll be entered in a drawing to win a Seed iPod Nano! All survey responses are completely anonymous, and results will be used in the aggregate only.
Thanks, and good luck!
(Photo from Flickr, by riot jane)
vhughes | February 11, 2008At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, while chatting with Canadian parliament member Scott Brison, Seed Magazine's founder and editor-in-chief Adam Bly lamented the Canadian prime minister's recent decision to fire the country's science adviser, Arthur Carty. Shocked by the news, Brison brought up the matter on the parliament floor as soon as he got home, saying:
"Dr. Carty was a voice of reason on climate change, stem cell research, resource management and the environment...Does the Prime Minister not realize that his attack on science is making Canada look like the Flat Earth…
vhughes | February 8, 2008
Today Page 3.14 interviews the anonymous PhysioProf, who writes (along with the anonymous DrugMonkey) at our new blog DrugMonkey. (For more about the blog, see Abel's introductory post.)
PP's responses here are short and sweet—which is odd considering what's supposedly PP's "most marked characteristic."
So, PhysioProf, what do you do when you're not blogging?
Basic science faculty member at a private medical school.
(More below the fold...)
What is your blog called?
DrugMonkey. I also have a less-science, more politics blog at http://physioprof.wordpress.com.
What's up with that name?…
vhughes | February 7, 2008(This guest post was written by Chris Rowan)
It is always a pleasure to welcome a new Scibling into the fold, but I am particularly pleased to celebrate the addition of a fellow rock-hound to the Collective. Maria Brumm of Green Gabbro has used the move as an opportunity to throw off her cloak of pseudonyminity, but despite her claims to the contrary, the blogger formerly known as Yami McMoots will surely continue to provide the geologically flavoured wit and wisdom that we have come to know and love at her old site.
Maria was actually a big factor in inspiring me to blog in the first place…
vhughes | February 4, 2008(This guest post was written by Abel Pharmboy)
Let's say you're a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow in the biomedical sciences. You're questioning your choice of career but know you want to stick with it and just need some objective advice from someone who isn't as invested (or uninterested) in your success.
Or maybe you are a NIH-funded researcher at the assistant or associate professor level who is looking to commiserate with fellow scientists in the blogosphere, only to find there are very few of your kind out there.
Well, as of 23 January 2008, ScienceBlogs has a solution—DrugMonkey…
ksharpe | February 1, 2008If you've been following along with ScienceBlogs news, you might already know that we've teamed up with the German media company Hubert Burda Media to bring you ScienceBlogs' first sister site, ScienceBlogs.de.
From January 20-22, Hubert Burda Media held its annual, forward-thinking Digital, Life Design Conference (DLD) at the HVB Forum in Munich.
Seed CEO and Editor-in-Chief Adam Bly was there: after the jump, a few pictures from the proceedings.
From the "Reality Formula" panel, moderated by Adam Bly: Matthew Ritchie, Lisa Randall, Francesca von Habsburg, Hector Parra, Adam Bly.
At the…
jrice | January 28, 2008For your weekly viewing pleasure, here are the large-scale versions of this week's channel photos.
(Have a photo you'd like to send in? Email it to photos@scienceblogs.com, or assign the tag "sbhomepage" to one of your photos on Flickr. Note: be sure to assign your photo an "attribution only" or "share and share alike" Creative Commons license so that we can use it.)
First photo here, the rest below the fold.
Life Science. From Flickr, by David Prior
Physical Science. From Flickr, by darkpatator
Environment. From NSF, via pingnews.com
Humanities & Social Science. From Flickr, by…
vhughes | January 23, 2008
Page 3.14 interviews are back! Somehow it's taken many moons for veteran SciBling Martin Rundkvist, of Aardvarchaeology, to answer our barrage of questions. The Swedish archaeologist (pictured at right with his daughter) made headlines recently when he discovered, while metal-detecting on the island of Djurö, a 92-centimeter, 16th-century sword. Much more below the fold...
What's your name?
Martin Rundkvist
What do you do when you're not blogging?
Four days a week, I'm a threadbare gentleman scholar doing research in the 1st Millennium AD archaeology of Sweden. One day a week, I'm the…
jrice | January 22, 2008As always, take a gander at the large-scale versions of this week's channel photos.
(Have a photo you'd like to send in? Email it to photos@scienceblogs.com, or assign the tag "sbhomepage" to one of your photos on Flickr. Note: be sure to assign your photo an "attribution only" or "share and share alike" Creative Commons license so that we can use it.)
First photo here, the rest below the fold.
Life Science. From Flickr, by jurvetson
Physical Science. From Flickr, by Tetine
Environment. From OAR/ERL/National Severe Storms Laboratory, via pingnews.com
Humanities & Social Science.…
vhughes | January 20, 2008What can I and can't I write on my blog?
Why hat-tip?
Should I censor my commenters?
Should the MSM be able to take quotes from my blog out of context?
These were the TUFF questions discussed at the first session I attended at yesterday's NC Science Blogging Conference: "Science Blogging Ethics," led by Janet. The discussion that followed Janet's talking points led to one great idea: A blogger's code of ethics. More below the fold...
"Some people still see the blogosphere as the wild west," Janet said. Which means that the laws of this wild land are few and far between. Many of the session…