education
grrlscientist | February 19, 2009tags: White-collared Seedeater, Sporophila torqueola, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Western White-collared Seedeater, Sporophila torqueola, discovered by the photographer and photographed at the Water Ranch in Gilbert, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 3 October 2008 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
sheril | February 18, 2009You've likely already seen this story all over the news:
Chimp's owner calls vicious mauling 'freak thing'
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The owner of a 200-pound chimpanzee that viciously mauled a Stamford woman calls the incident "a freak thing," but says her pet was not a "horrible" animal.
Sandra Herold told NBC's "Today Show" in an interview aired Wednesday that Travis, her 14-year-old chimpanzee, was like a son to her.
Herold tried to save her friend by stabbing the chimp with a butcher knife and bludgeoning it with a shovel.
I have extremely strong emotions concerning this particular issue…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2009tags: juvenile Northern Goshawk, Accipiter gentilis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
The prior owner of these feathers, a probable juvenile Northern Goshawk, Accipiter gentilis, met a plate-glass window at high speed and apparently was fatally injured. The feathers were what was remaining after a dog scavenged the carcass. Location is on the east side of Tuttle Creek Reservoir, Pottawatomie County Kansas (39.272N, 96.558W, altitude 1150 ft or 351 m). [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Dave Rintoul, 29 January 2009 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that…
cmooney | February 18, 2009I've been thrilled at the comments I'm getting in response to my posts on Nicholaus Copernicus. See for example here. So I've thought of a plan to invite blog readers to join me throughout the next several months as I push through a large number of other texts like De revolutionibus.
For the remainder of this week, the primary reading will be Copernicus. (I still have a ways to go to finish.) Secondary readings will be Owen Gingerich's The Book Nobody Read and Thomas Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution.
After that, here's the schedule I'm working from, and will strive to keep to--with Amazon…
sheril | February 17, 2009Over at Genetic Future, Daniel is asking whether scientists should study race and IQ. The topic is taken on in the most recent issue of Nature here and here and it's a conversation that resurfaces now and then among various colleagues in genetics: If there might be associations between gender or race and intelligence, should scientists look for them?
But before delving into ethics, I expect it would be extremely challenging to 1. define all of the above 2. extricate societal, financial, and environmental influences 3. account for even subconscious observer bias. So what are we really after…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2009tags: Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapillus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapillus, photographed at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 22 January 2006 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
gregladen | February 16, 2009So Amanda and I arrive at some public building in a largish Midwestern city. I'm a scientist, here to sit on a panel for a public discussion related to science and education. The building, a library, is not open yet but is scheduled to open in a few minutes. There are two groups of people standing in the flurries and chilly wind waiting for opening. The larger group is pressed against the door, seemingly anxious, and I (incorrectly, it turns out) attribute this anxiety to the cold. I'm thinking they want to go inside because it is cold. All but two people in this group are brown to dark…
cmooney | February 16, 2009
In my last post I remarked on how "radically strange--and yet strangely modern" I expected the 1543 work that kicked off the "scientific revolution" to be. Now that I've read the first two books of De Revolutionibus, I can say, boy was I right.
This is the first of several posts about my experience of reading Nicholaus Copernicus in the original (er, translation). So first, let me point out the things I found "radically strange" about the work, with the "strangely modern" to come in the next post:
Radically strange: Instructions for how to build an astrolabe. Vast tables of star locations,…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2009tags: Chestnut-sided Warbler, Dendroica pensylvanica, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Chestnut-sided Warbler, Dendroica pensylvanica, photographed at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 4 January 2009 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
As an added bonus, can you identify the insect in this bird's beak?
Chestnut-sided Warbler, Dendroica pensylvanica, photographed at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Arizona.
Image: Richard Ditch, 4 January 2009 [larger…
gregladen | February 16, 2009So, yesterday Afternoon, there was a meeting of the Minnesota Atheists that included a one hour panel discussion of evolution, creationism, science education, and so on. The panel was moderated by Lynn Fellman, and included (in order from right to left as the audience gazed on) Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner, Jane Phillips, Greg Laden, and PZ Myers.
There were several ways in which this discussion was interesting, and I'll tell you a few of them here. Presumably PZ will have something as well. (UPDATE: PZ has this.)
To begin with, this was a pretty full room (a hundred or so?) and almost…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2009tags: Leucistic Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Leucistic Song Sparrow, Melospiza melodia, photographed at the far end of the Nisqually River, Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, near Olympia, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Dan Streiffert, 25 January 2009 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
NOTE: If you have seen this bird or images of it, please don't "spill the beans" for everyone else who hasn't yet seen it!
clock | February 14, 2009A sixth of a GCSE in 60 minutes?:
Later this year, pupils from Monkseaton high school will file into their new lozenge-shaped school and take their seats before a giant video wall in a multipurpose hall. Here, they will receive a unique lesson: an intense PowerPoint presentation, repeated three times, and interspersed with 10-minute breaks of juggling or spinning plates. After one hour of this study, the pupils will be primed for one sixth of a GCSE. In theory, following this "spaced learning" method, a teenager could sit a GCSE after just three days' work.
It is a vision of the future that…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2009tags: Costa's Hummingbird, Calypte costae, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Costa's Hummingbird, Calypte costae, photographed in Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 23 December 2004 [larger view].
Date Time Original: 2004:12:23 16:04:23
Exposure Time: 1/60
F-Number: 8.00
ISO: 640
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | February 13, 2009tags: Ross's Gull, Rhodostethia rosea, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Ross's Gull, Rhodostethia rosea, photographed near the Tuttle Creek Reservoir outflow tubes in Kansas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow].
Image: Dave Rintoul, 14 January 2009 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
In alternate plumage, the pinkish cast to the plumage and black ring around the head are diagnostic. In basic plumage, the evenly gray wings on both the upper and under surfaces and the wedge-shaped tail (which isn't easily seen in…
grrlscientist | February 12, 2009tags: mystery bird, identify this bird, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Probable hybrid hummingbird, Violet-crowned x Broad-billed hummingbird, Amazilia violiceps x Cynanthus latirostris, photographed in the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 18 December 2007 [larger view].
Date Time Original: 2004:12:23 16:04:23
Exposure Time: 1/60
F-Number: 8.00
ISO: 640
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
NOTE: If you are one of those peeps who…
cmooney | February 12, 2009Over at Science Progress, I've been involved in putting together not one but two items timed for Darwin Day.
The first is an op-ed coauthored with my prof here at Princeton, D. Graham Burnett, who teaches Darwin. We argue for historical nuance, which leads one to reject the idea that Darwin should be considered an icon of conflict between science and religion. In fact, we call that idea "a hackneyed story, lacking in historical nuance and ultimately running counter to the project of drawing helpful lessons from the life of one of history's greatest scientists." A brief excerpt:
...Science-…
bioephemera | February 11, 2009I'm working on my Darwin Day blog entry for the Blog for Darwin swarm/carnival. In the meantime, you can have a little Darwin Day frivolity of your own by devolving yourself into an Australopithecus, courtesy of the Open University.
I hope it goes without saying that this is definitely not a scientifically accurate activity. But I'll say it anyway.
Speaking of frivolity, have you wished Darwin happy birthday on Facebook yet?
cmooney | February 11, 2009This is a post simply to ask for comment on my last three (here, here, here) as a kind of genre exercise. Each post has been about my new foray into studying the history of science here at Princeton and testing out what it's like to be a student again. (The most insane kind of culture shock, is the short answer.)
Anyway, this is a very different kind of thing for the Intersection, although certainly not outside of its mandate. And so far, I like the response it has generally prompted. But I don't have to blog about the history of science for the next three to four months...it's just a…
grrlscientist | February 11, 2009tags: Greater Sage-Grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
Here is a feather pic from a [Mystery bird] Male Greater Sage-Grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus, for the mystery bird quiz, along with a map (below the fold) from Google Earth showing where it was collected (East Canyon Road SW of Henefer, Utah, 40.95N, 111.55W, elevation 6200 ft or 1890 meters) [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Dave Rintoul, feather collected on 10 April 2005 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
East Canyon Road SW…
cmooney | February 11, 2009I'm posting this on Sheril's behalf, as she is in the hospital right now:
Dear readers and friends in and out of the blogosphere,
I am extremely appreciative for so many emails during the past week. Thanks for offering your guestrooms, travel recommendations, and road trip advice. Thank you for invitations to speak at universities along the way and participate in dinners and happy hours. I am very glad to know so many thoughtful people follow our blog and have been happy to hear from several old friends I did not realize were readers.
Last week I also began getting emails from many planning…