jlynch | August 31, 2007Many readers will no doubt know the 2004 paper in Science by historian of science Naomi Oreskes, a paper which discussed the consensus position regarding anthropogenic climate change. Predictably, the paper received much vitriol from the climate contrarians and denialists. Now, a medical research (Klaus-Martin Schulte, who appears to be a consultant in endocrine surgery) has claimed that Oreskes’ paper is not only outdated but also wrong. This claim has been extensively crowed over not only by Inhofe’s EPW Press Blog but by other Right wing sites and, indeed, our own beloved Uncommon Descent…
jlynch | August 31, 2007Births
1663 - Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker
1821 - Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician
1913 - Bernard Lovell, British radio astronomer
1949 - H. David Politzer, American physicist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1654 - Ole Worm, Danish physician
1772 - William Borlase, English naturalist
1869 - Mary Ward, Irish scientist, first automobile accident victim
1920 - Wilhelm Wundt, German psychologist
1985 - Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist, Nobel laureate
2002 - George Porter, English chemist, Nobel laureate
2005 - Joseph Rotblat, Polish-British physicist
jlynch | August 29, 2007Events
1909 - Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.
Births
1852 - Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff, Nobel laureate
1871 - Ernest Rutherford, Nobel laureate
1884 - Theodor Svedberg, Nobel laureate
1912 - Edward Mills Purcell, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1751 - Christopher Polhem, Swedish scientist and inventor
1928 - Wilhelm Wien, German physicist, Nobel laureate
1940 - J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel laureate
1941 - Peder Oluf Pedersen, Danish engineer and physicist
2004 - Fred Lawrence Whipple, American astronomer
jlynch | August 29, 2007Events
1831 - Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
1982 - The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung.
Births
1809 - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician
1904 - Werner Forssmann, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1989 - Peter Scott, English ornithologist, conservationist and co-founder of the World Wildlife Fund.
jlynch | August 27, 2007Events
1845 - Scientific American magazine publishes its first issue.
1981 - The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of Pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma in gay men.
Births
1749 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and scientist
1878 - George Whipple, American scientist, and Nobel laureate
1903 - Bruno Bettelheim, American psychologist
1908 - Roger Tory Peterson, American ornithologist
Deaths
1839 - William Smith, English geologist
1965 - Giulio Racah, Israeli physicist
2006 - Melvin Schwartz, American physicist, Nobel laureate
jlynch | August 26, 2007Events
1962 - Mariner 2 launched to Venus.
2003 - Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing approximately 34,646,416 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) from Earth.
Births
1874 - Carl Bosch, Nobel Prize laureate
1915 - Norman F. Ramsey, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1909 - Emil Christian Hansen, Danish fermentation physiologist
1958 - Ernest Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | August 26, 2007
The winged statue of victory [Nike] stands in front of smoke from fires in the village of ancient Olympia near the birthplace of the Olympic Games, in southwestern Greece.
Source: Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press
jlynch | August 25, 2007Births
1728 - Johann Heinrich Lambert, German scientist
1736 - Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l’Isle, French chemist
1740 - Joseph Montgolfier, French inventor
1850 - Charles Robert Richet, French physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
1882 - James Franck, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate
1906 - Albert Sabin, American polio researcher
Deaths
1723 - Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch scientist
1865 - Johann Franz Encke, German astronomer
1910 - William James, American psychologist and philosopher
1987 - Georg Wittig, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1990 - Minoru Honda, Japanese astronomer…
jlynch | August 25, 2007This made my head hurt. The following question was asked of Miss Teen South Carolina at the recent Miss Teen USA pageant. The answer (below the fold) is mind-blowingly incomprehensible and serves as a testament either to the problems with our public education system or the vapidity of pageant contestants (or more likely, both).
Question: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think is?
Answer: I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some...people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh…
jlynch | August 25, 2007Events
1609 - Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
1894 - Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet.
1981 - Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn
1989 - Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, at the time the outermost planet in the Solar System.
Births
1561 - Philippe van Lansberge, Dutch astronomer
1841 - Emil Theodor Kocher, Swiss medical researcher; Nobel Prize laureate
1900 - Hans Adolf Krebs, German physician and biochemist; Nobel Prize…
jlynch | August 24, 2007Many readers will by now have encountered the (frankly) frivolous law suit filed - for $15 million for Jeez sake- by Stuart Pivar against PZ Myers for negatively reviewing Pivar’s book Lifecode. Peter Irons - retired law professor at UCSD - has shared the following letter he has sent to Pivar:
Dear Mr. Pivar:
I don’t know if this is a current email address for you; I obtained it from the Internet by accessing some of your 2004 correspondence regarding the NYAA affair.
First, let me introduce myself. I am a lawyer (a graduate of Harvard Law School) and am admitted to practice before several…
jlynch | August 24, 2007Events
1831 - Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle.
2006 - The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is no longer considered a planet.
Births
1899 - Albert Claude, Belgian biologist, Nobel laureate
1923 - Arthur Jensen, American hereditarian psychologist
1950 - Tim White, American physical anthropologist
Deaths
1595 - Thomas Digges, English astronomer
1664 - Maria Cunitz, Silesian astronomer
1888 - Rudolf Clausius, German physicist
jlynch | August 23, 2007First we were "slime-snake-monkey-people". Now we’re "mutant randomites," and Johnson accuses us of name-calling! Mr Mote, meet Mr Eye.
This just keeps getting better and better.
jlynch | August 22, 2007Events
1889 - First wireless message from a ship to the shore received.
1962 - First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite.
1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
1973 - The Intelsat communication satellite is launched.
Births
1623 - StanisÅaw Lubieniecki, Polish astronomer
1769 - Georges Cuvier, French biologist
1847 - Sarah Frances Whiting, American physicist and astronomer
1931 - Hamilton O. Smith, American microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1933 -…
jlynch | August 21, 2007Events
1989 - The first ring of Neptune is discovered.
Births
1647 - Denis Papin, French physicist and inventor
1834 - Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer
1913 - Bruno Pontecorvo, Italian physicist
Deaths
1828 - Franz Joseph Gall, Austrian neuroscientist
1918 - Korbinian Brodmann, German neurologist
1940 - Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge, English physicist, spiritualist, pioneer in wireless telegraphy
1950 - Kirk Bryan, American geologist
1967 - Gregory Goodwin Pincus, American endocrinologist
jlynch | August 21, 2007... you are doing better that 25% of the American public.
One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released today.
The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey [who read any book], more than all other categories. ... Those likeliest to read religious books included older and married women, lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners,rural residents, Republicans and Conservatives. (source)
Interestingly, "those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many [books]…
jlynch | August 21, 2007So let me see if I’ve got this straight ...
There are a bunch of people that think that typing ".com" instead of ".k12.az.us" is a potential error that students looking for their school district on their home computer could make, and as such, the owner of the .com site should shutdown.
Let’s imagine we live in a completely hypothetical universe that students go to their school district website and that parents don’t monitor Junior’s internet usage.
lesd.com is a high level domain name purchased by its owner in March 2002. It also happens to be a pornographic site. There is no evidence that…
jlynch | August 21, 2007Creationist Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. has just published a book detailing Noah's role in Greek art as a known historical figure. Yeah, *that* Noah. Johnson says:
"In Greek art, we find detailed, consistent portrayals of the early Genesis themes including: the ancient garden, the serpent-entwined apple tree, the first family, Cain killing Abel, the Flood, and the successful rebellion against Noah after the Flood. Greek artists made the gods look just like people because that's who they were--our ancestors. Socrates himself referred to the gods as such"
As this article notes:
To shock the…
jlynch | August 20, 2007Births
1660 - Hubert Gautier, French scientist and civil engineer
1665 - Giacomo F. Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer
1816 - Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, French chemist
1826 - Karl Gegenbaur, German anatomist
Deaths
1814 - Benjamin Thompson, American physicist
1836 - Claude-Louis Navier, French physicist
1957 - Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, Norwegian meteorologist and oceanographer
1995 - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Indian-born astrophysicist, Nobel laureate