Misc
ksharpe | May 31, 2006This week, ScienceBloggers tackled the question of how much control the public ought to have over the scientific research that its tax dollars pay for. The question was phrased like so:
"Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies?"
And the answers? Well, the answers depend on what you mean by "justify."
(continued below the fold...)
Most of the ScienceBloggers claim that letting the public vote directly on which specific projects will or won't receive…
stoat | May 29, 2006Aegypt is the name of a fantasy book by John Crowley, as well as the title of yet another non-climate-science post by me. I have loved several of Crowleys books - notably The Deep; Engine Summer; and Beasts. Which left me eager to read more, and totally baffled by Little, Big: a book with some ideas in it, a nice beginning, a turgid midsection and a pointless ending. Many people describe it as his masterwork. But onto Aegypt...
Ostensibly Aegypt is about a chap who gives up his job teaching history and goes off to live in a small village in the hills. So far so boring, and indeed not a lot…
ksharpe | May 24, 2006This week, the ScienceBloggers lined up to take a crack at this fine question:
"If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?"
Below the fold, in their own words, twelve ScienceBloggers name the ideas they'd be happier if we all grasped firmly.
But first, an above-the-fold reminder to send your Ask A ScienceBlogger questions to askablogger@seedmediagroup.com.
Razib at Gene Expression would have the public understand that the essence of science isn't findings, but process:
"my reply is that the public needs to know that the most important idea…
sb admin | May 22, 2006In the April-May issue of Seed, Josh Braun wrote that the Center for Biological Diversity was moving to get two species of coral & the polar bear listed under the Endangered Species Act. The NY Times article on the news makes no mention that the strategy behind this was to get the US to do something about global warming which seems to be harming the species, but it provides plenty of info on how the govt. will be able to escape a change in policy.
For one thing, there's no consensus that global warming alone is what's harming the coral. And we've seen what Republicans can do with a…
stoat | May 21, 2006 Today (and to a lesser extent yesterday) was a deeply depressing grey day of rain. To make it worse, it would occaisionally stop, and lighten a bit, just to tempt you into the idea things were getting better. Left alone I would have curled up by the fire with a book and/or an internet connection; but with two young children thats not an option. Still, we survived.
True to form, my pic shows not the rain but the sun that came out just before sunset. Sorry I jogged it a bit, its OK as long as you don't look at a hi-res version.
stoat | May 21, 2006I've just had my 400th comment. You can't see it, cos I deleted it as distasteful :-)
Williams blog rule for lots of comments: don't talk about science :-)))
stoat | May 20, 2006Apparently Seed has a feature called "ask a science blogger" and there is a question of the week. This weeks is "If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?". If anyone can tell me where to find this, though, I'd be grateful. I found it via Kevin V, and here is his answer.
I don't have a burning answer, but following on from some discussion down the pub this week I shall go with "as far as physics is concerned, we have no free will". People have been bashing their heads against this one for ages, because the obvious answer is obviously…
ksharpe | May 17, 2006For this week, ScienceBlogs editorial asked its cabal of bloggers to answer, if the spirit moved them, the following question:
Will the 'human' race be around in 100 years?
More consensus this week than last -- but that is the nature of a yes/no question. Luckily, there was some fine exposition along the way.
The good news: at least 7 out of 10 ScienceBloggers expect humanity as such to endure for at least ten more fun-filled decades.
Their answers, glossed and linked, below the fold.
At Cognitive Daily, the Mungers answer: yes, but.... In 100 or, more likely, 1000 years, advances in…
stoat | May 14, 2006When I were a lad (a long time ago) I went to the science museum (with my mother? father? both? I forget...) and remember the wonderful gallery of models of steam engine valve gear, models of old engines (some original models by the actual engineers made as demos before the full-sized ones were built), many of which you could turn and watch the bits move. A few years back I started taking my son there, and to my surprise and delight I found that the same old models were still there, the same as ever (or at least much the same as my fading memories).
But yesterday we went to the science museum…
apalazzo | May 14, 2006I'm in the lab on a rainy Sunday. This week I was too busy to really blog.
Fortunately other people had interesting stories ...
Ed Brayton discusses an interesting (but flawed) OpEd in the Wall Street Journal on the misplaced support of Inteligent Design by NeoCons.
Speaking of ID, here's an OpEd in Friday's NY Times on evolution and ID in the classroom.
Although some think that nuclear energy was a bad idea, I think that it's the undeniable future of our powersupply. And it's green. The NY Times editorial staff seems to agree. WIRED as well:
Solar. Wind. Hydro. As replacements for fossil…
stoat | May 14, 2006For one reason or another, I usually seem to disagree with Kevin Vranes about most things (actually I suspect that we *agree* on most things, and the disagreements are only about the exciting stuff on blogs). But I do like his recent post on the U.S. and torture.
maggie wittlin | May 12, 2006Steve Petermann of ID blog Telic Thoughts just posted (warning, link to ID blog) on Google Trends. He says:
Check this one out. Looks like interest in Darwinism has stayed pretty steady but ID had a big jump around the Dover trial. Also since then it doesn't appear that ID has dropped back to its earlier levels.
This is great news! Despite the insistence of the ID movement on using the word "Darwinism," it apparently hasn't actually caught on. Woo-hoo! Oh, and in case you're curious, the graph of ID vs. evolution shows there's no contest in terms of their popularity or the magnitude (not…
ksharpe | May 11, 2006Last week, we at the Seed mother-ship taxed the collective brain-power of the ScienceBloggers with the following question:
If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?
Their responses have swooped from the sublime to the ridiculous...and back again.
ScienceBloggers' picks for most despicable invention, below the fold.
Janet Stemwedel, of Adventres in Ethics and Science, fingered "embedded advertising", like product placements in TV shows and movies, after toying with nominating cell phones and realizing she's mostly…
ksharpe | May 8, 2006Thanks, Tim, for the link to this story in Kuro5hin, by an individual who claims to have cured himself of hay fever and asthma by deliberately infesting himself with hookworms.
This first-hand story, as its author notes, "isn't for the faint hearted and for some should not be read while eating."
But I recommend putting that afternoon snack down, and checking it out.
ksharpe | May 8, 2006This is the debut of a new weekly feature on ScienceBlogs. It's called Ask A ScienceBlogger, and it is Sb's own mini blog carnival -- a chance for the bloggers to weigh in, briefly, about a question of general interest.
This week's question is:
If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?
Check back to Stochastic on Wednesday for a full, annotated run-down of the bloggers' answers. In the meantime, check a few early responses here, here, and here. Oh, and here.
To suggest a question for the next Ask A ScienceBlogger…
stoat | May 7, 2006I needed a new pair of trousers (shorts, actually) at short notice. My wife bought me a pair at Tesco's (sort of like Wal-Mart, if you're not from the UK). Looked very nice, cost £4. At that price, I joked, its cheaper to throw them away rather than wash them.
And indeed it might be best. After 1 (2?) washes, the seams are coming apart. So I get to spend far more than £4's worth of my time sewing them up again...
Is this the price of globalisation? Or just one bad pair of trousers?
apalazzo | May 5, 2006After coming back from a vacation, how many days does it take you before you can work? It seems like I can't even blog.
So instead here are some photos from my last trip...
lee billings | May 4, 2006Despite this entry's title, this isn't an announcement of a new tour for Tutankhamen's remains and relics through high-profile museums around the globe. For those of you astute enough to realize a streak of ribaldry runs through Seed's editorial department, your initial lowbrow impression of this post was correct:
The lost penis of King Tut has at last been found! (update: 5.5.06 - looks like Discovery removed the story... Does anyone have an updated link?)
Apparently I've been living under a rock - I didn't know it was missing.
From the Discovery Channel story:
Photographed intact by Harry…
apalazzo | May 3, 2006I guess that's why I study it. I usually never take these dumb online quiz things but provoked by another science blogger's entry I did this one anyway ... and yes I'm the ER.
You scored 46 Industriousness, 48 Centrality, and 7 Causticity!
You're the Endoplasmic reticulum! The ER modifies proteins, makes macromolecules, and transfers substances throughout the cell. It has its own membrane, and translation of mRNA happens within it. You tend to have two sides to you - sort of a jekyll and Hyde kind of story. One side of you tends to be rough and tumble, but also very useful. Your other side…