jlynch | March 12, 2007March 12th
1824 - Birth of Gustav Kirchhoff, German physicist
1838 - Birth of William Perkin, English chemist
1863 - Birth of Vladimir Vernadsky, Russian mineralogist
1907 - Birth of Dorrit Hoffleit, American astronomer
1925 - Birth of Leo Esaki, Japanese physicist, Nobel laureate
1991 - Death of Ragnar Granit, Finnish neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
jlynch | March 11, 2007Once again, my sheep-like characteristics manifest themselves and I find myself dutifully following Orac, PZ, Bora, Joseph, John, Rob,
and Afarensis in listing (in bold) those of the "Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years" that I have read.
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon…
jlynch | March 10, 2007March 11th
1811 - Birth of Urbain Le Verrier, French mathematician
1822 - Birth of Joseph Louis François Bertrand, French mathematician
1870 - Birth of Louis Bachelier, French mathematician
1880 - Birth of Harry H. Laughlin, American eugenecist
1910 - Birth of Robert Havemann, German chemist
1920 - Death of Julio Garavito Armero, Colombian astronomer
1915 - Birth of JCR Licklider, computer scientist and internet pioneer
1955 - Death of Alexander Fleming, Scottish scientist, Nobel laureate
1920 - Birth of Nicolaas Bloembergen, Dutch physicist, Nobel laureate
1921 - Birth of Frank Harary,…
jlynch | March 10, 2007Egnorance: The egotistical combination of ignorance and arrogance. First coined by Burt Humburg Reed Cartwright to describe Michael Egnor, neurosurgeon, ID-flak, and no-nothing (at least when it comes to biology).
jlynch | March 10, 2007
Ireland won its third Triple Crown in four years with a 19-18 victory over Scotland and Murrayfield. No further comment.
jlynch | March 9, 2007March 10th
1585 - Death of Rembert Dodoens, Flemish physician and botanist
1628 - Birth of Marcello Malpighi, Italian physician
1670 - Death of Johann Rudolf Glauber, German chemist
1709 - Birth of Georg Steller, German naturalist
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call.
1891 - Almon Strowger patents the strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching.
1923 - Birth of Val Logsdon Fitch, Physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
1942 - Death of William Henry Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1966 - Death of Frits…
jlynch | March 9, 2007March 9th
1564 - Birth of David Fabricius, German astronomer
1758 - Birth of Franz Joseph Gall, German neuroscientist
1851 - Death of Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish physicist
1900 - Birth of Howard Aiken, American computing pioneer
1923 - Birth of Walter Kohn, Austrian-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
1934 - Birth of Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut
1954 - Death of Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs, German astronomer
1974 - Death of Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
1983 - Death of Ulf von Euler, Swedish physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
2006…
jlynch | March 8, 2007
Ode to a Trilobite
Timothy A. Conrad (1840)
Thou large-eyed mummy of the ancient rocks,
The Niobe of ocean, couldst thou tell
Of thine own times, and of the earthquake shocks
Which tore the ocean-bed where thou didst dwell;
What dream of wild Romance would then compare
With the strange truths thy history might unfold?
How would Geologists confounded, stare
To find their glittering theories were not gold?
Methinks I see thee gazing from the stone
With those great eyes, and smiling as in scorn
Of notions and of systems which have grown
From relics of the time when thou wert born.
Thou ne'er…
jlynch | March 8, 2007As it turns out, today is Myers' fiftieth birthday. Posting a squid would appear to be appropriate, and Dawkins raised the bar by writing him a poem. Being untalented, I'd rather link to one of my favorite posts by PZ, "The proper reverence due those who have gone before". Enjoy ... and happy birthday, Paul!
Oh, what the hell. Here's a cephalopod:
Got to see some of these live for the first time at the California Academy during the AAAS Science Journalist party.
jlynch | March 8, 2007
Featuring Kent Hovind.
Update: Ah, only now I see that PZ posted this yesterday.
jlynch | March 8, 2007March 8th
1618 - Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1712 - Birth of John Fothergill, English physician
1886 - Birth of Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1914 - Birth of Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Russian physicist
1918 - The first case of Spanish flu occurs, the start of a devastating pandemic.
1923 - Death of Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch Nobel Prize laureate
2005 - Death of César Lattes, Brazilian physicist
jlynch | March 7, 2007
Apparently, an unknown number of new George Washington dollar coins were mistakenly struck without "In God We Trust." Seems like a good development.
jlynch | March 7, 2007March 7th
1625 - Death of Johann Bayer, German astronomer
1788 - Birth of Antoine César Becquerel, French physicist
1792 - Birth of John Herschel, English mathematician and astronomer
1837 - Birth of Henry Draper, American physician and astronomer
1857 - Birth of Julius Wagner-Jauregg, Austrian neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1904 - Death of Ferdinand André Fouqué, French geologist
1922 - Birth of Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya, Russian mathematician
1928 - Death of Robert Abbe, American surgeon
1938 - Birth of David Baltimore, American biologist…
jlynch | March 6, 2007
A large-billed reed-warbler (Acrocephalus orinus), one of the world's least known birds, is seen in this photo released by Birdlife International. A wetland bird that has eluded scientists for nearly 130 years, it has been rediscovered at a wastewater treatment plant in Thailand. More details here,
jlynch | March 6, 2007Back in July I reported on the "ID Arts Initiative" - an attempt by Access Research Network to establish the relevance of their particular brand of creationism to the fine arts. Well now they have a website and a blog featuring some fairly horrific poetry. Witness "GIGANTOPITHECUS, WE HARDLY KNEW YE: IN SEARCH OF MISSING LINKS" by
Robert Voss (shouting caps in the original):
BUILT UP FROM A SKULLCAP AND ORANGUTAN'S JAW,
IN MANY OLD TEXTBOOKS, PILTDOWN MAN WE ALL SAW,
TEETH FILED TO LOOK HUMAN, AND STAINED TO LOOK OLD,
HIS LESSON FOR US: DON'T BELIEVE ALL YOU'RE TOLD.
TEN YEARS LATER,…
jlynch | March 6, 2007
Four new species of Loricariid catfish have been described from the upper RÃo Orinoco of southern Venezuela: (A) Hypancistrus inspector, (B) H.
lunaorum, (C) H. furunculus, and (D) H.
debilittera, Full details are in Armbruster et al. (2007) "Four New Hypancistrus (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from Amazonas, Venezuela" Copeia 2006(1): 62-79 (link).
Experts at Planet Catfish claim that the species have been sold under the following L-numbers: L201 (H. contradens); L129 (H. debilittera); L199 (H. furunculus) and L339 (H. lunaorum).
jlynch | March 6, 2007March 6th
1787 - Birth of Joseph von Fraunhofer, German physicist
1866 - Death of William Whewell, English scientist, philosopher, and historian of science
1869 - Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.
1900 - Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and industrialist
1939 - Death of Ferdinand von Lindemann, German mathematician
2005 - Death of Hans Bethe, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | March 5, 2007I really have to stop paying attention to Ann Coulter, but this quote that Steve highlights just shows her as the ignorant troll she really is:
Professors are the most cosseted, pussified, subsidized group of people in the U.S. workforce. They have concocted a system to preemptively protect themselves for not doing their jobs, known as "tenure." They make a lot of money, have health plans that would make New York City municipal workers' jaws drop, and work -- at most -- fifteen hours a week.
Were that it be true that I worked "at most" 15 hours a week! But there is a certain irony in this…