education
grrlscientist | January 30, 2010tags: Mormonism, religion, cults, mind control, social phenomenon, moron, offbeat, beliefs, Proposition 8, education, streaming video
As a group, mormons are some of the passive-aggressive people I know. They are nice to everyone, but they are vicious and intolerant behind your back. This film trailer is one example of the double-face I've seen and experienced while growing up among mormons. This is a trailer from the documentary film, 8: The Mormon Proposition. This film investigates how the mormon cult was behind the banning of gay marriage in California. In short, mormons dumped millions…
rallain | January 30, 2010After judging the science fair last week, I would like to revisit my tips for you the science fair participant.
Warning number 1
Some of the things I say here might go against what your teacher has told you. I am not sure what you should do in this case. Your teacher gives you a grade and I am just some dude on the internet. Proceed at your own risk.
Oh, and maybe you are a teacher. I think that is great that you are seeking more tips for your students. However, note that I have not read any science fair rules. I am merely thinking about science fair projects from a science viewpoint.…
grrlscientist | January 30, 2010tags: Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis macularia, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis macularia, photographed at the Arthur Storey Park, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 28 December 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/640s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
esiegel | January 29, 2010Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin
Over at The Onion, I found this article about science on television, and I laughed too hard to not reproduce it here. (Link to original.)
Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further
SILVER SPRING, MD--Frustrated by continued demands from viewers for more awesome and extreme programming, Science Channel president Clark Bunting told reporters Tuesday that his cable network was "completely incapable" of watering down science any further than it already had.
"Look, we've…
ddobbs | January 29, 2010Hits of the week:
Savage Minds (with a spiffy website redesign) asks Why is there no Anthropology Journalism?
Jerry Coyne takes sharp exception to both a paper and a SciAm Mind Matters article by Paul Andrews and Andy Thomson arguing that depression might be an evolutionary adaptation. Dr. Pangloss punches back. (NB: 1. I was founding editor of Mind Matters, but no longer edit it, did not edit the Andrews/Thomson piece, and don't know any of these people. 2. While my recent Atlantic article presented an argument for how a gene associated with depression (the so-called SERT gene) might be…
drorzel | January 29, 2010I'm having a little trouble typing, because the temperature in my office at the moment is around 55 F, and my hands are getting really cold. This is because of "deferred maintenance," which means "we're saving money by not maintaining the air-handling systems in our academic buildings (among other things)." The budget has been tight every year since I got here, and this building is fairly old, so things don't work as well as they might.
The background noise while I'm typing is the sound of construction on the new Wold Building (webcam link). This is a multi-million-dollar new building…
grrlscientist | January 29, 2010tags: birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
This video is beautiful, so beautiful that you don't have to identify any of the birds captured on this video: you can just sit back and appreciate them. That said, I view IDing these birds as something fun to do, and a lot of my readers will agree.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Andrew Zuckerman is famous for photographing his subjects on a white background. These portraits remove every distracting element and force you to focus exclusively on every minute detail of the subject.
Zuckerman doesn't just…
grrlscientist | January 28, 2010tags: birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] photographed near the Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm in Bellevue, Washington. [No one, not even the photographer, knows the ID of the bird that made this snow-print. The photographer is seeking your help IDing this bird]
Image: Ben Bardill, December 2008 (many thanks to Denny Granstrand for obtaining permission to share this image with us) [larger view].
There's a second image below the jump that might give you a better idea of this bird's size.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
[Mystery bird]…
rallain | January 27, 2010Here, I am referring to Dan Meyer's "Be Less Helpful" mantra. I like it, but maybe you aren't familiar with Dan. Here is his take on a high school physics problem. Or maybe you would like the video version:
Be Less Helpful - CMC North 2009 - Dan Meyer from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.
What does this have to do with Reddit? Check out this comment posted in physics. Basically, someone is asking for help finishing physics homework by that night. I really like the following two comments. First, another user said:
"This might help you in the short term, or for this course. But it won't in the long…
grrlscientist | January 27, 2010tags: Loggerhead Shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Loggerhead Shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, inspecting what appears to be a beheaded Black-and-yellow Lichen Moth, Lycomorpha pholus, photographed on the Katy Prairie, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 1 January 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/320s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Here's an interesting bird for you to identify, and as an added bonus, can you identify the insect that it is inspecting?…
gregladen | January 26, 2010The following story is current, but the issue is not new. But interesting. ...
Science standards for Minnesota schools are about to be set for the next six years. Is the battle to keep pseudoscience out of our classrooms over? Sadly the door has been cracked open for intelligent design, an idea with no real scientific basis cooked up by creationists, to remain in Minnesota's classrooms.
The same vague science benchmark that was a compromise in the intelligent design controversy early in the Pawlenty administration still exists, unchanged, in this round of science standards. These standards…
grrlscientist | January 26, 2010tags: Wild Canary, Eastern Goldfinch, American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, Carduelis tristis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] American Goldfinch, also known as the Eastern Goldfinch or the Wild Canary, Spinus (Carduelis) tristis, photographed on the Brazoria Wildlife Refuge, Brazoria, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 5 January 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/320s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery…
rallain | January 26, 2010This is one of my favorite things to do in class. I don't do it too often, or it would lose its specialness. Probably the best time to do this is near the end of class.
I pass out half-sheets of blank scrap paper. Students are told to write a question on the paper and turn it in. The question can be about anything. Or maybe it could be a statement about something that was covered and is still confusing. I tell the students not to put their name on it.
I collect all the questions (or statements) and pick some to go over in class. Usually, I get some off the wall non-sensical type…
grrlscientist | January 26, 2010tags: evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, biochemistry, biophysics, magnetoreception, photoreceptor, cryptochromes, geomagnetic fields, butterflies, Monarch Butterfly, Danaus plexippus, birds, migration, signal transduction, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper
Every autumn, millions of monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, each weighing less than one gram (one US penny weighs 2.5 grams), migrate nearly 4000 kilometers (3000 miles) between their summer breeding grounds in the United States and their wintering areas either in southern California or in the…
grrlscientist | January 26, 2010tags: Story of Stuff, environment, pollution, climate change, global warming, recycling, social commentary, cultural observation, planned obsolescence, perceived obsolescence, fashion, advertizing, social psychology, streaming video
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental…
rallain | January 25, 2010There is a question that keeps coming up in discussions I have. "What should elementary students study in science?" Probably the best answer to this question is: something other than what they are doing now.
What do I think students should know about science? Should they learn how to calculate kinetic energy? Should they learn the difference between mass and weight? These things are important building blocks for other ideas, but sometimes it seems like there is a lot of focus on these building blocks and no focus on science. Just talking about kinetic energy is not necessarily science.…
grrlscientist | January 25, 2010tags: birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird #1] Ring-necked Duck, Aythya collaris, photographed at the Hermann Park Conservancy, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 18 November 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/640s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
[NOTE: all IDs were made by the photographer; I don't agree with them, but I am reporting them. Of course, the links to the original images are broken now]
Mystery bird #2…
drorzel | January 25, 20102010 marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser. To mark the occasion, the American Physical society has launched LaserFest, which will involve a large number of public events over the next year. The website includes a bunch of cool things explaining the physics of lasers, and a timeline of laser history with one glaring bug that you'll have to figure out for yourself. Over at Cocktail Party Physics, Jennifer Ouellette has an excellent historical survey of her own, saving me a lot of typing.
(Fun fact: Gordon Gould, who eventually won a lengthy patent fight, was a Union alumnus…
cagapakis | January 24, 2010Things are gearing up for iGEM 2010, and in looking through some of the incredible work of the 2009 teams, I remembered the University of Washington Software team, who made an awesome lego robot that can move small volumes of liquid around in 96-well plates, a crucial and typically very expensive task in high-throughput biology. What makes the team especially remarkable is that the only member is an 11 year old kid, Gabriel See, who designed and built the robot on his own. Gabriel had the flu during the jamboree, so he unfortunately couldn't fly to MIT to share his work, but he did get his…
drorzel | January 24, 2010A few weeks back, I spoke on the phone with a freelance writer who was doing a piece for the Albany Times Union. She was putting together a joint article on How to Teach Physics to Your Dog and the Atomville book put together by Jill Linz and Cindy Schwarz (at Skidmore and Vassar, respectively). The piece was published today: "Physics without limits: Area writers explain quantum mechanics to adults, kids."
Unfortunately, the Times Union has a policy of reserving some stories for the print edition, and so there's no way to link to it. So, unless you have a way to get your hands on a paper…