Misc
stoat | August 27, 2010Its friday, time for some lighter stuff.
* Cameron (not, not the Borkeback one) won't debate Morano, and Morano is happy to crow. All good knockabout fun, and Cameron ends up looking like a fool, but who cares? He is a film director.
* RC notes this appalling error by the Black Helicopter Gang: "I wonder if you've seen this terrible description of the greenhouse effect on a UNFCCC background page? http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2903.php
It actually says that incoming solar energy is 'reflected' by the planet's surface 'in the form of a calmer, more slow-moving…
elerner | August 24, 2010Do you like volcanoes? Italian volcanoes? If so, it's not hard to guess the one you're thinking of: the largest volcano in Europe and one of the most active in the world, Mount Etna. And if you have any questions about this famous fulminator, head over to Eruptions, where guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology examines Etna over the course of three extremely detailed posts. Starting with the volcano's geological anatomy, Dr. Behncke moves on to its cycles of eruptions, and finally, the impact these common eruptions and lava flows have…
stoat | July 29, 2010A friend pointed out just recently: we usually measure a car's fuel efficiency in Miles per Gallon. But some would like us to switch to the more logical Gallons per Mile (or 10,000 miles, to make the numbers more convenient, or whatever), which would be the fuel consumption. But that, technically, is an area, so for example a car which gets 55ish mpg actually has a fuel consumption of 0.051 mm^2 (ht: A/S).
stoat | July 26, 2010mt discusses Denialism, Informational Conformity and New Coke. Go read it now, if you didn't when he first wrote it.
Paul Graham propounds the concept of the top idea in your mind which might partly explain why rolling out a broken AUP is a really bad idea; less for the policy itself, which people will just make jokes at, but because it distracts.
Can't remember where I got the pic from now (M-san has found the source).
Listening to Peter Gabriel - I have the touch.
Rabbett attacks that dork Cuccineli but the links to the docs are interesting.
Out in the cold says Nurture, The parlous state…
tqa | July 8, 2010
This is not the post I though I'd be putting up today. This morning, I fully expected to come home from work, post my already-written "I quit" post, and point you all to a WordPress blog I set up yesterday. As of this moment, I'm not leaving Sb. As of this time next week, who knows?
As some of you have gathered, a lot of the bloggers here have frustrations with Seed that extend well beyond the Pepsipocalypse, pressures that, in some cases, have already led bloggers to quit. I'm certainly in the frustrated group, and to be honest I was strongly considering moving on well before the latest…
ably | July 8, 2010We have removed Food Frontiers from SB.
We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way.
How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? How can a large and diverse online community made up of scientists and the science-minded public help? How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage? We'll open…
stoat | July 7, 2010"The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between," he wrote. "One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to the temperature rise." - Hubert Heffner, deputy director of the administration's Office of Science and Technology under Nixon, 1970.
JA also thinks that Fred Pearce is rubbish.
And while I'm on rubbish journo's (are there any other sort? Yes of course: JF!): as I said before, Monbiot is…
elerner | July 7, 2010Yesterday, ScienceBlogs launched Food Frontiers, a blog sponsored by PepsiCo. This isn't the first time we've hosted sponsored blogs--recent ones included GE, Shell, and Invitrogen--but it is the first time we've received this level of criticism about it.
Frankly, we at ScienceBlogs did not do a good job of communicating what these sponsored blogs are for, give a proper explanation of what our relationship to Food Frontiers was going to be, or even properly explain what Food Frontiers is.
We have blogs from industry because we think it's important that the story of how and why industry…
stoat | June 30, 2010
Sorry, typo on the first letter, hope you aren't too disappointed :-). And nothing to do with the video: which is just a song I'd forgotten how much I liked. We owe so much to YouTube. Anyway, on with the show:
James Annan is ranting about Climate sensitivity again. I wouldn't normally bother remark something so commonplace (:-))) but he also disses the Lenton et al. paper that came up recently in comments and which I've snarked about before (summary for the New Bugs: does the concept of "tipping points" really mean anything and/or actually help you discuss these issues?).
DeepClimate is…
stoat | June 26, 2010
'You are old', said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray, how did you manage to do it?'
'In my youth', said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.' [1]
Yes, yet another post with zero science but don't go away - there is some rowing later after the tedious bits. And so: exhibit 1 is the glasses, which you'll immeadiately note are varifocals. I have spent the past 2 years…
ejohnson | June 22, 2010We here at ScienceBlogs are pleased to announce that beginning today, we will be helping to spark the next generation of research communications by introducing new blogs to our network from the world's top scientific institutions. The initial list includes: CERN, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), SETI Institute, Weizmann Institute of Science, and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The SETI Institute, the Weizmann Institute of Science and Brookhaven National Laboratory blogs are live now - you can find them at:
http://www.scienceblogs.com/SETI/
http://www.scienceblogs.com/weizmann/
http://…
stoat | June 6, 2010We' re recently acquired the second half of that vital twosome, the cat, to complement our Roomba. And so, here is a picture of our cat, Phoebe, on a Roomba.
I hope you're not too disappointed. Alas the book has not been much used - I've read it a bit for fun but never got round to the projects - life is too short.
Meanwhile, in other non-climate news, we went to Peterborough regatta today. It being Sunday, it was the sprints (500m). We did OK, though not well, as a mens novice VIII: 1:36 in both the heats (2nd, by 1 second) and repechage (2nd, by too small a time to measure but about 1 foot…
elerner | June 3, 2010...is over here, where you can also see a live stream and comment thread. I'm in there via the Kimmel Center's liveblogging booth, but you can also follow me (or the #WSF10 tag) on Twitter.
We're going live to Norway as we speak, so tune in!
Update: Your 2010 Kavli Prize Winners:
Astrophysics
Jerry Nelson
Raymond Wilson
Roger Angel
Nanoscience
Nadrian Seeman
Donald Eigler
Neuroscience
Thomas Suedhof
Richard Scheller
James Rothman
stoat | May 28, 2010
Peonies are lovely. It is a shame they don't last long; so here is one immortalised.
stoat | May 21, 2010Brian says it is draw Muhammad day so here is a nice pic I found:
I'm afraid I don't know the original source - it looks to have been a Frog (this *is* offend everyone day, isn't it?) - oh hold, on, it is Plantu. I've delicately altered the original, I bet you can't tell where :-).
Olde Atrichoke points me to "Jesus and Mo" which has a nice gentle one about excess internet usage, one for the climate-y folk about Denialists. And then there is Today's.
Predictably enough this offends the wackos which I presume is the point - to try to tire them out. Also predictably enough, there is a wiki…
elerner | May 20, 2010We are just two short weeks away from this year's World Science Festival, and things are heating up. For those not in the know, the World Science Festival is a one-of-a-kind series of talks, tours, performances, and panels all designed to convey the wonder and awesomeness of science to the rest of the world. And as the official blogging partner of the festival, ScienceBlogs has you covered with everything you need before, during, and after the week's festivities.
On the new 2010 World Science Festival blog, you'll find previews--like of this conversation between Chuck Close and Oliver Sacks…
stoat | May 19, 2010
About once a decade (no, I lie - the last was in 2005), our cactus flowers. Here it is again, only this time it has excelled itself and produced four (yes I know you can only see two in this pic). I also rather like the way you can see the flower structure merging into the leaf. There are more pix if you like.
This is also a sentimental cactus: my grandparents used to own it, and more: it was a gift to them from my uncle Roland.
ejohnson | May 11, 2010Do you have a burning question to put to the ScienceBlogs bloggers?
Perhaps it's ethical - should companies be able to patent specific genes? Should primates have the same rights in laboratory settings as humans?
Maybe it's silly - would you rather pet a dinosaur, or shake hands with a Neanderthal?
Or maybe you're just looking for simple facts - what is the Higgs Boson and why do physicists want to find it? How much salt is in your fast food order?
Whatever you've wondered, now is your chance to ask. ScienceBlogs is reinstating our former Ask a ScienceBlogger series, in which (you guessed…
elerner | May 3, 2010On Friday, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Chris Mooney presented "Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere," a conference that brought together Seed, Discover, The Boston Globe, ClimateProgress, and more. The ScienceBlogs contingent included Joy Moore, Seed Media Group's VP of Global Partnerships, and bloggers Jessica Palmer of Bioephemera and Dr. Isis of On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess. Our two esteemed bloggers did not always agree on matters of civility, so if you want a third perspective, MIT's professor of science writing Tom Levinson…
stoat | May 3, 2010Dr Southgate has lost his cat. Please see http://www.wheresloki.com/.
This post is most likely to be of interest to Cambridge residents. Please don't prove me wrong :-).