jlynch | October 12, 2007On a day when Al Gore and the IPCC won a Nobel Prize for their work on the climate, I just want to quickly highlight one of the projects in our DonorsChoose challenge. This one is from a teacher in Indiana who wants to teach their 25 second-grade students about the weather and states of matter. The school is 87% low income (and thus high poverty). The challenge needs a further $419 as I type, so please consider donating.
jlynch | October 12, 2007Scibling Shelly is in the running for a $10,000 scholarship. Since she’s a grad student this is a big deal. So, go vote for her. I did.
jlynch | October 12, 2007Put Out My Eyes
Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;And without any feet can go to you;And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.Break off my arms, I shall take hold of youAnd grasp you with my heart as with a hand;Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;And if you set this brain of mine afire,Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you.
Rainer Maria Rilke
jlynch | October 12, 2007But first, your DonorsChoose update.
We seem to have stalled out at 19% of our goal. While I’m sure we can feel happy that we are positively impacting the education of 210 students (and four of our challenges have been met), it has been five days since any reader has donated.
Our masters at Seed have generously volunteered to sweeten the pot a little. In addition to the $15,000 in matching funds that they are putting up, donors can enter to win prizes, namely:
1 iPod nano
21 "Seed Hearts Threadless" tee shirts
21 ScienceBlogs mugs
21 subscriptions to Seed magazine
9 copies of "The Best…
jlynch | October 11, 2007What would you do if the Earth was to be destroyed in one hour by a meteorite? Apparently 54% of Britons would spend the time with (or on the phone to) loved ones, 13% would grab a glass of champagne, 9% would have sex, and 3% would pray. Two percent would start looting (why?).
Assuming I was around those I care about, I’d have a good IPA or two, put some Mozart on and, sitting in a lawn chair, watch the big old rock hit the planet. Why not?
What would you do?
jlynch | October 11, 2007It goes something like this ...
Reasoning involves using the laws of logic.
Laws of logic are God's standard for thinking.
The atheist's view cannot be rational because he uses things (laws of logic) that cannot exist according to his profession.
I have made you dumber by having you read this. Wow.
jlynch | October 10, 2007Events
1968 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.
Births
1758 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers, German astronomer
1884 - Friedrich Bergius, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1705 - Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker
1811 - Johann Conrad Ammann, Swiss physician and naturalist
1889 - James Prescott Joule, English physicist
1940 - Vito Volterra, Italian mathematician and physicist
1989 - M. King Hubbert, American geophysicist
jlynch | October 10, 2007PZ says something good in agreement with a post by Brian Leiter:
I’d suggest that the Christo-Fascists have done far more damage to our country than any Islamo-Fascist -- after all, the Islamic hordes haven’t been responsible for stripping away our civil liberties, nor did they force us to spend trillions on a fool’s war, nor did they turn Jesus into Mammon, nor did they replace education and science with ignorance and piety.
Truth be told, we do have less to fear from Bin Laden than from Bush and his cronies. But I will add that not all Christians are "Christo-Fascists."
jlynch | October 10, 2007Births
1731 - Henry Cavendish, British scientist
1780 - John Abercrombie, Scottish physician
1930 - Yves Chauvin, French chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1708 - David Gregory, Scottish astronomer
1876 - Charles Joseph Sainte-Claire Deville, French geologist
1930 - Adolf Engler, German botanist
1986 - Gleb Wataghin, Ukrainian-Italian physicist
2006 - Michael John Rogers, English ornithologist
jlynch | October 9, 2007I note that Minazo, Japan’s largest seal died this week. Minazo became an Internet icon:
He will be missed.
(HT to Ugly Overload)
jlynch | October 8, 2007
Events
1604 - Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way.
Births
1704 - Ján Andrej Segner, Slovak and German mathematician, physicist, and physician
1852 - Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1873 - Karl Schwarzschild, German physicist and astronomer
1879 - Max von Laue, German physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
1933 - Peter Mansfield, British physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1562 - Gabriele Falloppio, Italian anatomist
1806 - Benjamin Banneker, American astronomer
1943 - Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize…
jlynch | October 8, 2007Seed is putting up $15,000 in matching funds for our DonorsChoose Challenge, as part of their Science Literacy Grants program. You give $20, the kids get $40. What more could you ask for?
You know what to do ...
jlynch | October 7, 2007Births
1850 - Henri Louis le Chatelier, French chemist
1883 - Otto Heinrich Warburg, German physician and Nobel Prize laureate
1917 - Rodney Robert Porter, English biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1927 - César Milstein, Argentine scientist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1647 - Christian Sørensen Longomontanus, Danish astronomer
jlynch | October 7, 2007You know what to do ...
Events
1959 - Luna 3 transmits first ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.
Births
1927 - R. D. Laing, Scottish psychologist
1939 - Harold Kroto, English chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1911 - John Hughlings Jackson, English neurologist
1926 - Emil Kraepelin, German psychologist
1994 - Niels Kaj Jerne, English-born Danish immunologist and Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | October 6, 2007And with the USC and UCLA losses (to Stanford and Notre Dame respectively), ASU finds itself halfway through the season and on top of the Pac-10 standings. Not bad for a team in its first season with a new coach.
jlynch | October 6, 2007A field goal with 55 seconds to go was enough to give ASU a 23-20 away win (their second away win in a row) against Washington State. I missed most of the game due to family commitments but what I saw wasn’t terribly impressive. Still, an away win is good, especially since we haven't had two in a row since 1996. ASU go to 6-0, WSU to 2-4. Next week is Washington (2-3, 0-2) at home.
Oh, and WSU coach Doba’s "second or third best team in the conference" (Arizona) got beat 31-16 by Oregon State.
jlynch | October 6, 2007This morning we successfully funded two further projects and are now impacting the science education of approximal 190 students in Illinois, California, and North Carolina. Many thanks to all who have donated so far.
This project (for twenty kids effected by Katrina) needs a further $381 in the next five days. The teacher says this about their students:
Science is important to them because science is all around them. Pre-K students develop a love for living things and other science concepts during their first year of school.
My "little scientists" include 20 four and five year old "at-risk…
jlynch | October 6, 2007Quote: "It’s time to start taking seriously the proposition that the American economy under the Bush administration is the best in the nation’s history." (Source.)
Some representative data:
Creating future debt does not make for the best economy ever.
Discuss.