Misc
tlambert | April 10, 2006Someone edited John Lott's wikipedia entry to state that he left AEI in 2006. Sure enough, he is no longer included on the AEI's list of scholars and fellows. The person who made the edit was anonymous, but the IP address tracks to Washington DC.
ksharpe | April 7, 2006Polish science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem, author of The Cyberiad, Solaris and His Master's Voice, died on March 27. His ashes have been buried in the Salwatorski Cemetery in Krakow.
Link to a short article on Candada.com, here.
Born in 1921 in Poland, Lem began training as a medical student in Krakow in 1946. Afterwards, he worked in a science lab and took up writing on the side.
His 1961 novel Solaris was made into a film by Andrei Tartovsky in 1972 (and remade, with the addition of George Clooney, by Steven Soderbergh in 2002).
According to Wikipedia,
"[Lem] wrote about human…
ksharpe | April 7, 2006Earlier this week I asked about the best science books of all time.
Today, a related question crossed my mind: what novels do scientists like to read...and why?
A couple of years ago, I took a grad-school English class devoted to postmodern fiction. Six weeks of the thirteen-week semester were devoted to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. And I remember hearing along the way that Gravity's Rainbow was supposedly huge with engineers and physicists. In one way, this surprised me: I'm a literature nerd by training and temperament--a professional reader, ferchrissake--and I found Gravity's…
apalazzo | April 7, 2006If you've ever read or saw The Last Temptation of Christ, you'll somehow recognize some of the passages from the newly discovered Gospel according to Judas. From the NY Times article:
In this text, scholars reported yesterday, the account of events leading to the Crucifixion differs sharply from the four gospels in the New Testament. Here Jesus is said to entrust Judas with special knowledge and ask him to betray him to the Roman authorities. By doing so, he tells Judas, "you will exceed" the other disciples.
"You will be cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them,"…
maggie wittlin | April 5, 2006Hey there, budding Stochastic fans. If you're reading us now, you can officially say you listened to us when we were underground. I'm new to this whole blogging-and-being-read thing, so please be kind while I stand in the shadows of giants.
A couple of months ago the Blogosphere was abuzz with news of Kurt Vonnegut proclaiming that we are "miracles of design" and "natural selection couldn't possibly have produced such machines." Around the same time, Orson Scott Card published an essay criticizing biologists and saying Darwinism currently functions as a religion.
Heavens above! Are all of…
ksharpe | April 4, 2006I'm not the first here to post about it, but sharpen your pencils, because Seed Magazine has just announced its first annual nonfiction science-writing contest.
The instructions ask people to write an essay, in 2000 words or less, about the future of science in America, and what the country can do to preserve and leverage its leadership role in the sciences.
The deadline for entries is June 30. Winners will have their essays published or excerpted in Seed Magazine and on seedmagazine.com, and will also be rewarded with cash-money.
Link to full contest details, here.
Hmm...what would you say…
ksharpe | April 4, 2006I'm between books right now. As an inveterate reader, this makes me feel antsy and unmoored. I want to get my hands on something good--and specifically, I'm thinking of going on a science-book spree.
The science-books-for-laypeople genre is one that I haven't explored as much as I would like. (Bloggers--any recommendations? Can we put together an ultimate science book list, a science-reader's garden of prose?)
Partly, this interest is sparked by recent days spent in the Seed offices. And partly it's sparked by one recent discovery of mine, a book that dazzled me with a vision of what…
ksharpe | April 4, 2006Welcome to Stochastic, the new in-house blog from Seed Media Group. This is the place where Seed editors weigh in about matters great and small. In case the launch passed you by unawares, check the link back to the first entry, which will give you a clue what we're all about.
stoat | April 3, 2006The NYT profiles Gavin Schmidt: Dr. Schmidt's demeanor melds the subtle elegance of an Oxford-educated Englishman (which he is) with the savvy of a street-smart New Yorker... ah how true (though there is more of the blood-lust of the NY lawyer in his question style at conferences). Thanks to PT for the tip.
[Update; I'm too sexy for my model says Gristmill on the same story (via CB on RC)]
apalazzo | March 31, 2006I just couldn't believe it ... read the confession here.
Yeah I know ... crazy. But now that I have your attention, click here to contact your house representative to tell him/her to support the NIH by increasing funding in the new House budget resolution.
What is the NIH? ... the National Institute of Health is the most important source of funding for basic research in the biomedical sciences.
From capwiz:
Last week the Senate passed its FY 2006 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (H.R. 3010) with a total of $29.415 billion for NIH, a 3.7 increase over last year. In June the House…
joshua braun | March 31, 2006I saw this article today in the New York Times, "Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer." It recounts the findings of a study in the American Heart Journal, which attempted to measure the effect of prayer by strangers on the outcome of coronary bypass surgery in over 1,800 patients.
It was an incredibly ambitious study. The problem, of course, is that this is impossible to test. I'm not arguing for or against the efficacy of intercessory prayer here, lest people from either camp jump on my case. But seriously, doesn't rigorous scientific testing defeat the very idea of…
ksharpe | March 30, 2006...long live Stochastic.
Hello, and welcome to Stochastic, the new in-house blog from Seed Media Group, the makers of Seed Magazine and Scienceblogs.com. Come on in and make yourself at home.
Stochastic is our contribution to Scienceblogs--because we couldn't let the other bloggers have all the fun.
As you may know, and as I just found out, the word 'stochastic' is a mathematical term connoting randomness. Stochastic is the opposite of deterministic; that which is stochastic is subject to chance, to wild and unpredictable variation.
In other words: What comes after is not determined by…
apalazzo | March 27, 2006Want to be a Cell Biologist? Take a look at this phase image of a rat hepathocyte (liver cell) that I took sometime last year. Try to identify the three mystery organelles A through C
And to be totally clear:
A) The big blob in the lower right hand corner
B) The dark round organelles
C) The squiggles
Bonus question:
Which of these organelles contains DNA?
apalazzo | March 24, 2006
Damn those Intellectual terrorists! Click here to read the rest of this episode of Dinosaur Comics.
apalazzo | March 22, 2006Yes this video has been going around. But if you haven't seen it ... from the vaults of SubGenius .... here's
Reproduction Cycle In Lower Life Forms Under the Rocks of Mars
stoat | March 20, 2006A reader foams at the mouth:
You see, I set up Mozilla Firefox so that the default font is Verdana 18 point, because that's a size I am comfortable with, being a quintedecarian. Then all these WWW graphic designers say, "The default font for most of the browsers in the world (ie. Internet Explorer) is too large and clunky, rather like the sort of thing old people like to read, so I'm going to set my body style to 80% of that (or whatever to make it small and elegant and youthful." Thanks a lot, guys. As a result I look at your blog, along with many other sites, with the Page Style suppressed…
apalazzo | March 19, 2006Well I finally posted photos from the last bookclub meeting, although some call it the food orgy club.
Then someone alerted me that a new challenge was posted on the Socart blog. Paint and burn. Cool. Can't wait.
apalazzo | March 19, 2006I'm not a big fan of March Madness (for non-Americans March Madness is the term used to describe the huge college basketball tournament held this time of year). Why? Perhaps because I'm Canadian. Perhaps because I don't think the lure of entertainment money and collegial athletic glory is good for a school. The greed that comes with these programs brings havoc to the infrastructure of these educational institutions.
And there are the scandals to prove it.
So in a column by Derrick Jackson, in yesterday's Boston Globe, I wasn't surprised to see that the graduation rates for black college…
apalazzo | March 18, 2006OK a pet peeve of mine is how scientists are portrayed in the mass media (especially biologists aka those mad lab coat dressed, atheists who play god and create GMOs). Having said that, I just love Pinky and the Brain (although it's been about 5 years since I've seen an episode). But through the wonders of the internet (and random blog surfing) I present Brainie the Pooh via Youtube.
apalazzo | March 15, 2006My brother posted some videos of the autonomous sumo wrestling competition he holds every year at Concordia University in Montreal. To see the videoclips from the 2006 (and previous) competition(s) visit robowars.ca.