Announcements
sporte | May 25, 2007for our overly enthusiastic comment filter. Thankfully, a reader alerted me to the problem.
I've gone through the spam bucket and you should see them now. My, answers though, may take a little more time.
oracknows | May 24, 2007In honor of Towel Day, the theme of the latest meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is The Hitchhiking Skeptic's Guide to the Galaxy. Join Rebecca (a.k.a. The Skepchick) as she takes you on a tour of the skeptical blogosphere. But don't do it for me. Don't even do it just for Rebecca.
Do it for Douglas.
After you're done gallivanting about the universe with your towel, don't forget that two weeks from now we'll be doing it all again. Next up to host will be Thursday at Polite Company. Start getting your best skeptical entries together for our next go-around. Better yet, if you want to avoid the…
oracknows | May 22, 2007A fellow ScienceBlogger has suffered a profound loss. Sadly, on Sunday, my blogchild Mark lost his father.
If you like Mark's blog (or even if you don't), please do me a favor and take a moment to read Mark's tribute to his father and offer your condolences. He has mine.
sporte | May 21, 2007tags: moon, lunar geology, NASA, astronomy, computer games, learning through computer games
NASA researchers are learning how to design video games and they're looking for high school students to help. They want students between the ages of 13-18 to play an online computer game about lunar geology and they want high school teachers to help recruit the students.
What's in it for the students?
Players are guided through Selene by the director of the Center for Educational Technologies, Chuck Wood, an internationally known lunar geologist who writes a monthly column on the moon for Sky and…
oracknows | May 20, 2007Time passes. What once was new is old, and what once seemed far in the future is now just around the corner.
In other words, the Skeptics' Circle is rapidly approaching again; it's a mere four days away!
This time around, the 61st Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle is scheduled to be hosted by Rebecca at Memoirs of a Skepchick on Thursday, May 24. No more procrastinating! Time flies too fast for that, and, if you're not careful, you'll wake Thursday morning to realize that you missed the Wednesday deadline and didn't get your best skeptical blogging submitted to Rebecca for inclusion in this…
oracknows | May 15, 2007The latest Grand Rounds has been posted at the Medical Humanities Blog. Time for your fix of the week's best medical blogging.
oracknows | May 11, 2007As many of you may have noticed, we're having some technical difficulties, with prolonged posting times for comments, errors, etc. I assure you that, however much it might annoy you to watch your browser chug away slowly and seemingly endlessly after you've composed your pithy and erudite comment and hit "Post," only to deliver an error message at the end, it annoys me infinitely more because it's happening to me nearly every time I try to edit or save a post or comment and has been for several days now.
I've learned that what's going on is tha apparently traffic at ScienceBlogs has finally…
sporte | May 11, 2007Do you want to learn how to use some cool biotechnology and bioinformatics methods in your college or high school class?
If you're on the East coast, the best place to go is the Fralin Biotechnology Conference at Virignia Tech, July 18-21st.
(Yes, it's the same Virgina Tech, and that's why I waited to post this announcement).
There's something for everyone at this conference. For beginners, there's a pre-conference Biotech Boot camp where you can learn to run gels and clone genes. For instructors with more experience, there are great talks, new techniques to test, and plenty of…
sporte | May 10, 2007tags: moose, bioinformatics class, willows, plant genes
PZ's morning post about a bear killing a moose in someone's yard (they do live in Alaska, after all), reminded me that it's time to make an announcement about our upcoming course.
No, no, no! We're not going to kill any moose on the premises. We're going to learn about the moose and its food, not the moose as its food.
But, if you take the course that precedes ours, you might get to see some moose, and you might get to see some bears eating salmon.
The class before ours is entitled "Ecology of South Central Alaska " and they have…
oracknows | May 10, 2007It's that time again! Has it really been a fortnight since the last time the skeptics of the blogosphere met to apply desperately-needed critical thinking skills to the woo, credulity, and general lack of critical thinking in which the blogosphere is continually awash?
I guess so.
This time up, we have a rather unusual presentation of the Circle for the 60th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle over at Infophilia. This time around, the threat is real:
"So, here's the situation. Woos have struck at the foundation of reality, and it's now determined by the popularity of ideas. Simply put, the…
cmooney_2 | May 7, 2007
On April 6, 2007, my good friend Matthew Nisbet and I published a policy forum article in the journal Science. A week later, we followed up with a somewhat longer commentary in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post. In both articles, we argued that scientists, while always remaining true to the science, should "frame" issues and topics in ways that make them personally relevant to broader audiences.
The response was overwhelming. There was some controversy; there were also many endorsements.
Most of all, there were many calls, from bloggers and other commentators, for us to expand upon…
oracknows | May 4, 2007Unite, that is, behind the Infophile, who's scheduled to host the 60th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle next Thursday, May 10. You have until Wednesday night to enter examples of your best skeptical blogging to the carnival. Don't let the side down!
And, as usual, I'm always looking for hosts. If you--yes, you!--think you have what it takes to host, or at least are a Randi wannabe, check out the Skeptics' Circle guidelines and schedule, as well as the guidelines for hosting, and then drop me a line at oracknows@gmail.com, and I'll work you into the schedule.
oracknows | May 2, 2007It's time once again for Change of Shift, the nursing blog carnival. This time, it's being hosted at Emergiblog. Check it out.
oracknows | May 1, 2007...is right here at the latest installment of one of the longest-running blog carnivals out there, Grand Rounds. This time the host blog is Shrink Rap. Head on over and sample the delicacies of medblogging.
oracknows | May 1, 2007I'm a bit late on this, given that the blog went live yesterday, but far be it from me not to welcome denialism blog to the ScienceBlogs universe. It's a promising new blog that in its couple of months of existence has already made an impact in the skeptical blogosphere. Also, Mark Hoofnagle, one of the bloggers responsible for it, has become a regular commenter around here.
I may not always agree with Mark and Chris about specific cases of what constitutes "denialism" (most of the time, but not always), but I do like their blog. Besides, if I ever agreed with everything a blogger wrote, I'd…
oracknows | April 26, 2007Well, it's that time again, time for another foray into battle against the rampant credulity that permeates the blogosphere. This time, your host is a veteran who has hosted two previous Meetings of the Skeptics' Circle and produced some of the most memorable Circles we've had. After two abortive attempts at a format, he's come up with a rather Zen-like method that, I'm sure, a Reiki master would love--were it not for the content, of course. So, join The Pooflinger for the 59th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle.
Next up to host on May 10 is Infophila. Start firing up your keyboard to provide…
oracknows | April 21, 2007This is just a brief announcement to inform everyone that, as part of a project to update and improve the Skeptics' Circle main site, I've updated the link list in the sidebar to cull broken links, add several new skeptical blogs that I've come across (or older skeptical blogs that I've never heard of before), and to eliminate inactive blogs. To me, an inactive blog is a blog where no posts have yet appeared in 2007, a pretty generous definition, if I do say so myself.
If you have a skeptical blog or website that you'd like me to add it to the sidebar of the Skeptics' Circle main site, drop…
oracknows | April 19, 2007The latest Change of Shift, the blog carnival for nursing, has been posted at Blissful Entropy (cool blog name). Check it out!
oracknows | April 12, 2007It's that time again, and Geek Counterpoint has delivered the woo for you (and how!) in the 58th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. Head on over for your fix of rational thought applied liberally to dubious claims, all expertly administered and arranged for your edification.
Next up is previous two-time host Pooflingers Anonymous. The Pooflinger himself, Matt, has done an absolutely fantastic job hosting twice before. Check out the 21st Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle and the 32nd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle to get a taste of what he's capable of. That's why I fully expect the next Circle,…
oracknows | April 11, 2007A brand, spankin' new Tangled Bank has been posted over at fellow ScienceBlogger Tara's Aetiology. It's more science bloggy goodness than you can absorb in one day.
And while we're on the topic of blog carnivals, don't forget that the latest Skeptics' Circle will be appearing at Geek Counterpoint tomorrow. You still have a few hours left to get your entries in.