Misc
ejohnson | March 14, 2008For your weekly viewing pleasure, here are the larger versions of this week's channel photos.
Several of the photos—those featured on the Life Science, Physical Science, Environment, Humanities & Social Science, and Technology channels—come from Felice Frankel and George M. Whitesides' new book, On the Surface of Things; you can read more about the inspiration behind these spectacular images in Page 3.14's interview with Felice Frankel here.
(Have a photo you'd like to send in? Email it to photos@scienceblogs.com, or assign the tag "sbhomepage" to one of your photos on Flickr. Note: be…
ksharpe | March 12, 2008A climate change-denying conference in New York, a new government council to review stem cell regulations in Germany, and a couple of spectacular, science-y visuals: These are the stories driving conversation this week at our partner site, ScienceBlogs.de:
Climate Change Denial
Last week's "International Conference on Climate Change," held in New York by the free-market think tank The Heartland Institute, was the peg on which several authors at ScienceBlogs.de hung a discussion of climate change—and its denial.
At his blog WeiterGen, Tobias Maier compares the opposing stances of denialism and…
hrynyshyn | March 12, 2008If you'd like to join a sort of Scienceblogs elite reader club, you've got two days to send me an email. Each blog here can nominate two readers for access to one massive club account on del.icio.us. You'll be asked to tag (using del.icio.us bookmarks) three ScienceBlogs posts per week that are especially worthy of sharing with the rest of the blogosphere. They don't have to be from this blog--though that would be nice. Those posts will then run into an RSS feed that will be displayed on the homepage. If you want to be part of the process, email me by Thursday night: jamesh (at) scienceblogs…
vhughes | March 10, 2008PZ Myers turned 51 on Sunday. His blog, Pharyngula, is one of our network's most popular, with a impressive Technorati ranking of 2,491. So this week's poll is for the PZ fanatics:
How many reader comments has Pharyngula received since joining ScienceBlogs (as of March 10)?
Click Here for PollOnline Surveys | Web Poll | Email MarketingView MicroPoll
Want to know the results (and the real answer)? We'll publish them exclusively in next week's ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap—the fun e-newsletter that brings you the top posts, quotes, photos and videos from the previous week on ScienceBlogs. (Click…
ejohnson | March 7, 2008For your weekly viewing pleasure, here are the larger versions of this week's channel photos. Because size does matter.
(Have a photo you'd like to send in? Email it to photos@scienceblogs.com, or assign the tag "sbhomepage" to one of your photos on Flickr. Note: be sure to assign your photo an "attribution only" or "share and share alike" Creative Commons license so that we can use it.)
First photo here, the rest below the fold.
Life Science. Wings of a Morpho butterfly. From Felice Frankel and George M. Whitesides' "On The Surface Of Things"
Physical Science. Prismatic soap bubble.…
ejohnson | March 6, 2008Fans of Jennifer Jacquet's and Randy Olson's maritime musings over at Shifting Baselines will be glad to know that they have recently added a new co-blogger to the mix. Josh Donlan shares their passion for conservation but brings his own unique terrestrial approach.
Josh sent us his answers the day after he rolled his truck, so his answers are, understandably, on the shorter side.
What's your name?
Josh Donlan
What do you do when you're not blogging?
I am a conservation scientist with Cornell University and director of the NGO Advanced Conservation Strategies.
(More below the fold...)…
vhughes | March 4, 2008In 1986, 22-year-old Boston Celtics forward Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. This week, DrugMonkey argued that Bias' death—as opposed to educational programs like DARE—was the major reason why self-reported rates of cocaine use by 20-year-olds dropped from 20% in the mid-1980s to 7% in the early 1990s.
So, what do you think:
Click Here for PollOnline Surveys | Web Poll | Email MarketingView MicroPoll
Want to know the results? We'll publish them exclusively in next week's ScienceBlogs Weekly Recap—the fun e-newsletter that brings you the top posts, quotes, photos and videos from the…
stoat | March 3, 2008 At the "lookout" in Bracknell. Bracknell gets a bad press, and the center is indeed horrible, but it has nice paths for walkers and quite a decent bit of woodland. Where I saw my first ever mountain-bike unicycle. I didn't see anyone riding it, but they did have a lot of pads.
Inside, they had this rather nice fluid-dynamics toy: a perspex cylinder about 1/2m wide and 2m high, with a circulation about the vertical axis imposed by the water flowing in at the top. And a valve you could turn, that did something slightly unspecified, but which we're fairly sure was to change the speed of…
ejohnson | March 3, 2008
For those of you who have been thirsting for more details on our newest ScienceBlogger since the introduction of his blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, here Page 3.14 offers an interview with Ed Yong.
Among other juicy tidbits, Ed reveals that he once worked in research science but gave it up for writing. We can't help but be glad that he did!
Starting out easy: What's your name?
Ed Yong. I have no pseudonym and automatically incline towards people who write and post under their own names. Ed stands for Edmund, which apparently means "wealthy protector," and I have a Chinese name that…
ejohnson | February 29, 2008It's a boy! It's a girl! It's...Not Exactly Rocket Science! Yes, the latest addition to our happy ScienceBlogs family is here, and we couldn't be more excited (well, unless someone sent balloons...)
(More below the fold...)
Not Exactly Rocket Science is the blog of Ed Yong, a freelance science writer living across the pond. He writes solely from primary research papers in a pointedly jargon-free fashion. In its pre-ScienceBlogs incarnation, Not Exactly Rocket Science featured stories covering news in animal behavior, evolution, psychology, the environment and other topics; since joining…
stoat | February 27, 2008I appear in the Times The Top 50 Eco Blogs. The accolade is somewhat blunted by the heading "FROM DARYL HANNAH AND AL GORE TO THE SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS OF CLIMAGE CHANGE, THE VERY BEST OF THE WEB" but I suppose I'll have to take what I can get, and put aside the shouting. I do rate as #2 amongst those listed as "scientists" (someone hasn't noticed my career change :-), whereas those exiled to Japan who actually have something to say pass unnoticed.
Meanwhile, we had an earthquake nearby, but it was no plastic man toppler and I slept through it.
Nice outing on the river tonight... clear,…
stoat | February 27, 2008A vain attempt to shame me into fitness by making my times public. I may update this.
2007/12/04: 7:50 and 7:45 (?).
[update]
2008/02. 2570 and 4954.
ejohnson | February 27, 2008For your weekly viewing pleasure, here are the larger (more Xtreme!) versions of this week's channel photos.
(Have a photo you'd like to send in? Email it to photos@scienceblogs.com, or assign the tag "sbhomepage" to one of your photos on Flickr. Note: be sure to assign your photo an "attribution only" or "share and share alike" Creative Commons license so that we can use it.)
First photo here, the rest below the fold.
Life Science. From Flickr, by *clairity*
Physical Science. Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi dark…
ejohnson | February 21, 2008For your weekly viewing pleasure, here are the large-scale versions of this week's channel photos.
(Have a photo you'd like to send in? Email it to photos@scienceblogs.com, or assign the tag "sbhomepage" to one of your photos on Flickr. Note: be sure to assign your photo an "attribution only" or "share and share alike" Creative Commons license so that we can use it.)
First photo here, the rest below the fold.
Life Science. From Flickr, by clairity
Physical Science. Crystals growing on a cast iron fence. From Flickr, by Unhindered by Talent
Environment. White Desert, Egypt. From Flickr,…
tqa | February 12, 2008
On at least one occasion, Charles Darwin took the time to share some of the little details involved in conducting geological fieldwork. He was one of a number of noted scientists who contributed to a book that was edited by John Herschel, and which had been commissioned by the Lords of the Admiralty. This book, A Manual of Scientific Enquiry, was designed to serve as a guide that the Royal Navy's medical officers could use when they were acting as naturalists. Darwin wrote the chapter on geology, which provided scientific novices with some of the things that many other geologists (both…
vhughes | February 12, 2008
Take just five minutes to complete our ScienceBlogs reader survey and you'll be entered in a drawing to win a Seed iPod Nano! All survey responses are completely anonymous, and results will be used in the aggregate only.
Thanks, and good luck!
(Photo from Flickr, by riot jane)
tqa | February 12, 2008
Adam Sedgwick was one of the leading geologists of Darwin's time, and was a friend and former teacher of Darwin. After reading Origin of Species, he wrote a letter to Darwin expressing his disappointment with the book. In his reply, Darwin wrote:
I grieve to have shocked a man whom I sincerely honour. But I do not think you would wish anyone to conceal the results at which he has arrived after he has worked, according to the best ability which may be in him. I do not think my book will be mischievous; for there are so many workers that, if I be wrong I shall soon be annihilated; &…
tqa | February 11, 2008
It's the 199th birthday of two extraordinary people: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. One was extremely controversial when he was alive; the other has become more controversial since he died. In honor of the two birthdays, I'll be posting quotes from them over the course of the day.
Let's begin with a quote from Lincoln. It's taken from the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and it falls into the category of "the more things change":
MY FELLOW-CITIZENS: When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him,--at least, I find it so with myself; but when…
stoat | February 11, 2008People love to compare Wikipedia to Open Source but guess what: bad, incorrect code doesn't compile. Bad, incorrect information on the net lives on and non-experts hardly ever notice the mistake [1], via Alice.
True enough, though plenty of cr*ppy code will compile [2].
vhughes | February 11, 2008At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, while chatting with Canadian parliament member Scott Brison, Seed Magazine's founder and editor-in-chief Adam Bly lamented the Canadian prime minister's recent decision to fire the country's science adviser, Arthur Carty. Shocked by the news, Brison brought up the matter on the parliament floor as soon as he got home, saying:
"Dr. Carty was a voice of reason on climate change, stem cell research, resource management and the environment...Does the Prime Minister not realize that his attack on science is making Canada look like the Flat Earth…