General
sciencepunk | May 28, 2009
USA Today reports the curious case of a Singapore man who was detained for several hours by airport security when they couldn't find his fingerprints. The man, who was taking capecitabine as part of chemotherapy treatment, suffered from hand-foot syndrome, a side effect of the drug where skin peels off. His oncologist describes the unusual case today in an online letter to the Annals of Oncology.
The problem is not as rare as you might think. Around one in 50 people in the world lack identifiable fingerprints; an official from the Department of Homeland Security reported "We have standard…
sciencepunk | May 24, 2009Ken grows crystals. Specifically, he grows free-standing crystals made of bismuth, a metal resembling lead. It has some very interesting properties - it crystallises at right angles, and tends to form shell-like "hoppers", and natural oxidation gives the crystals a very beautiful iridescence. The end result is something that looks like a tiny futuristic city of gleaming metal skyscrapers.
The good news is, Ken sells his crystals online, and of you can't afford to buy one, you can win one by correctly guessing its weight. Ken says:
Ever drink Pepto-Bismol? Well if you have, then you've…
illconsidered | May 19, 2009I get tons of drive by attacks on the HTTTACS articles and most are pretty thoughtless repetitions of everything we've heard a hundred times before, and often posted directly underneath their own refutations.
But occasionally there are seemingly very sincere and well posed questions or arguments that I have not addressed very thoroughly or very well before. These deserve equally thoughtful answers but I don't always have the time to provide them.
I recently received one such via email from a fellow named Jonathon, which I will present below:
Dear Mr. Beck:
My name is Jonathan [redacted]. I…
sciencepunk | May 14, 2009I love to see new and inventive ways of measuring the passing of time, and especially I love this fabulous "Digital Calendar" (haha) that Bre Pettis laser-etched onto his fingernails.
sciencepunk | May 5, 2009This post is written in response to the contest I posted on my Twitter feed earlier today:
SciencePunk challenge: give me two unrelated topics and I will attempt to write a blog post combining them. Your time starts now.
Of several excellent and perplexing replies, I decided to seize the gauntlet thrown down by Martin of The Lay Scientist blog:
@SciencePunk Pigs, and the flu. No? Oh alright... erm... Mars and cheese.
So here it is Martin!
* * *
If you heard the words "time reversal technology" you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a plot point from the new Star Trek movie. Yet across the…
sciencepunk | April 27, 2009
Or, to give the full title: "How to brew beer in a coffee maker, using only materials commonly found on a modestly sized oceanographic research vessel". The marine scientists at Southern Fried Science have this handy guide to any scientist unfortunate enough to find themselves high and dry whilst out collecting data:
You're six days into a 2 month expedition, and if you were lucky enough to not be on a dry ship, it's de facto dry by now anyway. You're eying the ethanol stores, the crew is eying each other, and all hell will break loose if y'all don't get some sweet water soon. This is no…
sciencepunk | April 26, 2009
Thanks to Sandy for letting me know about the Center for Disease Control's Twitter Feed, which will keep you up to date with the current swine flu outbreak. Latest news is 20 confirmed cases in the US, with one hospitalisation, and clear human-to-human spread. Over at Effect Measure, Paul Revere has a well-informed running commentary of the emerging virus.
sciencepunk | April 2, 2009Have you ever heard the phrase (usually directed at some very recently-single lady) "he's not worth your tears"? Well, how much are tears worth, really? How much are any of your bodily fluids worth? Thankfully the good people at Innovative Research have just the answer! See below for my handy graph showing the value of your various bodily fluids, with 'expensive' liquids such as petrol and high-end champagne thrown in for comparison.
Click to biggify!
This article comes courtesy of the SciencePunk Central vaults!
illconsidered | March 27, 2009This was passed on to me for posting by het, just as a human interest angle to this current event
My brother David lives 50 feet from the Red River north
of Winnipeg about half way between Lockport and the perimeter
highway. You may have heard about the flooding across
the river at St. Andrews. Below I have copied an email received
from him last night.
> I've been getting calls and emails about the Red River and flooding, so I thought
> I would write and let you know.
>
> On monday, after work, we had the most amazing experience. The river ice was groaning
> and moaning and…
sciencepunk | March 26, 2009Over at Ask MetaFilter, a kind of Yahoo! Answers for the cognoscenti, user lizzicide wanted a system that would alert her if her car was towed. Apparently the moderators didn't rate my answer, because it's gone now. Good thing I
saved it
for posterity. Text reads:
There's a good chance my car might get towed at any time. So, what are my options for tracking my car's movement (possible via GPS) when it's not turned on and I'm not in it?
This is probably not possible, but I'd like to be able to tell if my car is being towed. Since it'll most likely be towed in the middle of the night while I…
sciencepunk | March 24, 2009
There's an old adage for bomb technicians - if you see them running, try to keep up. But preliminary research carried out by the Florida Institute of Technology suggests that bolting for the exit when confronted by a suicide bomber is a poor choice of strategy.
Assistant Professor Daniel Kirk and Fulbright Scholar Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani developed physics-based computer models to predict the magnitude and number of casualties occurring in suicide bomber attacks. They found that the precise location of individuals in the room had a large impact on the injuries they received.
Simulations…
illconsidered | March 20, 2009James Hrynyshyn at Island of Doubt yesterday put up a really interesting examination of the Copenhagen Conference's efforts to deal with just what is the "safety limit" for global warming. I won't add much accept to lament the fact that "as much as possible as soon as possible" is too vague for public policy goals.
Because really, that is the only correct answer to the question politicians want scientists to answer: how much do we need to reduce CO2 emissions?
Have a read.
illconsidered | March 18, 2009While on the subject of being talked about, a columnist writing for Pajamas Media recently took a pot-shot at me and my How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic series.
No publicity is bad publicity, right? Plus, a close second to imitation, mockery is another of the most sincere forms of flattery, at least in the blog world, so I'm not complaining.
On to some substance in a moment, but one thing I found rather remarkable was that even though they get some 450,000 hits per day, my traffic barely registered a blip, despite a prominent link in the first paragraph! The main thrust of the article was…
sciencepunk | March 17, 2009
The British Transport Police seem set to continue the fight against terror with their curious strategy of scaring the living shit out of everyone themselves. I guess if the BTP can whip the British public into a state of paranoid terror, then the terrorists won't have to, and we'll have won. Right? While we're at it, let's remove all those civil liberties like trial by jury and due process, so pesky terrorists can't take them from us. Rule Brittania!
Here's the latest in a series of hysteria-inducing "anti-terror" posters that have come out of the UK in recent years. It appeared on…
illconsidered | March 16, 2009Elizabeth Kolbert, journalist and author of "Field Notes from a Catastrophe", is interviewed by Yale Environment 360 editor Roger Cohn.
The interview was put on their site mid-last week and readers might find it quite interesting.
Kolbert discussed a wide range of issues: how the media and scientists are both responsible for the lack of public understanding on climate change; the Obama administration's chances of passing climate-related legislation; and the prospects of geoengineering the planet to mitigate the effects of warming. On whether there is a moral or ethical dimension to this issue…
sciencepunk | March 10, 2009
Some time back film-maker Alom Shaha asked me to contribute to a project he was working on entitled Why is Science Important?. I'm pleased to see that the finished film is now complete, featuring such luminaries as Adam-Hart Davis, Professor Robin Weiss, Prof. Marcus du Sautoy, A.C. Grayling and Susan Blackmore, and skipping from Antarctic survey to rocket lab to fusion reactor. You can watch the film in individual clips here, or as a single half-hour film here. You can also contribute your thoughts as to why science is important by leaving a message here.
sciencepunk | March 9, 2009
Fans of the traditional Japanese boxed lunch have welcomed news of a self-packing octopus. Staff at the New England Aquarium were able to encourage a 7-foot Giant Pacific Octopus to cram itself into a tiny 15" box. Aquarist Bill Murphy said:
I place one or two live crabs inside the box and the octopus has to learn how to open the box to get the food. I start the octopus off with the small box and once he has mastered the lock I switch to another box and once he has mastered each individual box I put a box inside a box to keep him active and challenged.
Full story here. Hat tip to Ed Yong…
sciencepunk | March 5, 2009National Geographic has the scoop on this incredible fish that boasts a transparent, glass-like head. The two dots at the front of the fish are actually its smell organs, the eyes are under the green barrel-like structures, which can be tilted and pivoted to find food or detect predators. More pics and the full story here.
illconsidered | March 2, 2009Just while we are on the subject of George Will and lying with impunity...
sciencepunk | February 3, 2009We all know that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but surgeons at John Hopkins University Medical School have demonstrated that the way to a woman's kidney may be through her vagina. The pioneering surgery, carried out on a 48 year-old woman for the purpose of organ donation, is much less painful and invasive than traditional surgery, and results in three tiny pea-sized scars rather than the normal six--inch scar. The team hopes it will encourage more women to donate a kidney stating: "An organ donor, in particular, is most deserving of a scar-free, minimally invasive and…