Science
awild | February 23, 2010A video from Cambridge University highlights an infectiously enthusiastic Chris Clemente as he figures out how ants stick to smooth surfaces:
Wow.
Two things strike me about the video. First, they simplified the science for a lay audience without fundamentally changing it. That's something of a rarity, as any scientist who has seen their work covered in the media can attest. Second, they did this while retaining a sense of humor and the strong sense of humanity in the scientific process.
Most scientists I know have a similarly intense fascination with their subjects- that's a rich vein for…
drorzel | February 23, 2010A couple of weeks ago, I announced a contest to determine the Most Amazing Laser Application. What with one thing and another, this didn't get posted last week, but I don't intend to drop it completely, and will be finishing the series up in the next week or so. Here's the list of finalists, with links to those already written up:
Cat toy/ dog toy/ laser light show
Laser cooling/ BEC
Lunar laser ranging
Optical tweezers
Optical storage media (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray)
LIGO
Telecommunications
Holography
Laser ignited fusion
Laser eye surgery
Laser frequency comb/ spectroscopy
Laser guide stars/…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is almost here once more and it is still seeking submissions for Monday's edition of this blog carnival! Can you help by sending URLs for well-written blog essays to the host?
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, environment and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days…
pontiff | February 22, 2010The Singularity University is crazy. I like crazy. If I were a grad student with copious time on my hands (trust me, in comparison, you have copious time, dear GradStudent) I'd apply to attend the Singularity University summer school:
SU's Graduate Studies Program (GSP) is a 10-week summer program (June 19 through August 28) located at NASA Ames Research Park in Silicon Valley. The program is for top graduate and postgraduate students worldwide to learn about the various exponentially growing cross-disciplinary technologies (biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, artificial…
bioephemera | February 21, 2010FYI: the winners of the AAAS Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge are up! You may recognize some of them - including PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) cartoonist Jorge Cham. Check 'em out and share your opinions; I'll have more to say when I'm back from blogcation!
grrlscientist | February 21, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is almost here once more and it is still seeking submissions for Monday's edition of this blog carnival! Can you help by sending URLs for well-written blog essays to the host?
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, environment and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days…
grrlscientist | February 21, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
rallain | February 20, 2010The kind folks over at BloggingHeads TV were nice enough to offer me an opportunity to discuss some science stuff with Ed Grabianowski from io9.com. Here it is:
In this discussion, we talk about:
Learning physics and physics education research
The value of science educators
Good and not so good science on TV
Journalism and 'balance' with regards to science
Science fiction as a guide to the future
grrlscientist | February 20, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is almost here once more and it is still seeking submissions for Monday's edition of this blog carnival! Can you help by sending URLs for well-written blog essays to the host?
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, environment and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days…
sastyk | February 19, 2010Crunchy Chicken , goddess of environmentalism and yours truly have something really, really cool to announce. Actually, no, it is really, really hot - sizzling in fact. Unfortunately, we can't tell you what it is until next week, except that it involves seriously awesome science and extreme hotness.
What we can tell you is that we are planning to donate the profits from our next enterprise to an enviromental charity, but we're having some trouble picking our favorite. So I thought I'd ask you - what environmental charity do you like best? We're taking suggestions!
Cheers,
Sharon
edyong | February 18, 2010
This post is written by a special guest - Ivan Oransky, executive editor at Reuters Health, who I had the pleasure of meeting in person at Science Online 2010. I was delighted when Ivan accepted my invitation to follow up a recent Twitter exchange with a guest-post, and shocked that he even turned down my generous honorarium of some magic beans. Here, he expounds on the tricky issues of journalistic balance and how journalists can choose their sources to avoid "he-said-she-said" journalism. Over to him:
The other day, a tweet by Maggie Koerth-Baker, a freelance science journalist in…
drorzel | February 17, 2010A couple of reviews, an offer, and a mystery regarding How to Teach Physics to Your Dog:
The reviews:
A review at suite101 that went up a while ago, but I somehow missed in the vanity search. It's a nice, detailed review, and if I had to pick a pull quote it would probably be: "You can be prepared for a good scientific romp throughout Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Thinking like a dog is a big help."
Scott at a physics teaching blog has a more recent review: "I often pick up books and don't bother finishing them. This book kept pulling me back to discover what oddity was next. I…
bioephemera | February 17, 2010
Last week, I braved a nasty sleety Cambridge evening to see Rebecca Skloot read from her excellent new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I'm thrilled to tell you it's finally being released on Amazon tomorrow, so if you haven't already been to your local bookstore, go snag a copy (or enter to win one from Sb, through 2/23/10!)
In case you don't know the story, Henrietta Lacks was a young African-American mother who was stricken with a particularly invasive form of cervical cancer back in the early 1950s. She died within months, but her cancer cells remain alive today - millions of…
awild | February 16, 2010The online early section of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution this week has the first comprehensive phylogeny of a rather important genus of ants: Myrmica.
Myrmica is ubiquitous in the colder climates of North America and Eurasia, with a few seemingly incongruous species inhabiting the mountains of tropical southeast Asia. The genus contains about 200 species, many that are common soil-nesting ants in lawns and gardens, and at least one damaging invasive species, M. rubra. The taxonomy ranks among the most difficult of any ant genus, as workers of different species tend to be numbingly…
drorzel | February 16, 2010Boskone this past weekend was held at the Westin Waterfront in Boston, which has these funky double showerheads that they charmingly call the "Heavenly(R) Shower" (hype aside, they are very nice showers). The picture at right is courtesy of lannalee on Twitter, as I didn't bring a camera.
Why am I telling you this? Because there was a sign glued to the wall in the shower that read:
Refresh yourself, restore our world
One of your Heavenly(R) Shower heads has been turned off in an effort to minimize water usage and protect one of our most precious natural resources.
The smarmy enviroweenieness…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2010tags: Scientia Pro Publica, Science for the People, biology, evolution, medicine, earth science, behavioral ecology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, blog carnival
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Welcome to the 21st edition of Scientia Pro Publica, the blog carnival devoted to nurturing and encouraging an online community of blog writers who communicate with the public about science, environment and medicine. Since it was the 201st anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, I think it is important to…
grrlscientist | February 15, 2010tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Director of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell, Héctor Abruña
What: free public presentation, "Energy Through Chemistry"
When: Wednesday, 3 March at 700pm
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: FREE, and there is a cash bar too! (must be 21+ with ID)
Our energy future -- from powering cell phones, laptops, and cars to harnessing alternative sources like solar…
oracknows | February 14, 2010A couple of months ago, I wrote about a case that demonstrated conclusively just how easily even respected researchers can be taken in by psuedoscience. Of course, I was not alone. A number of others, including Steve Novella, James Randi, bioethicist Art Caplan, Hank Schlinger, and myself, recognized the reports that a Belgian man named Rom Houben, who had been in a coma for 23 years, was actually conscious and could communicate with the help of a "facilitator" named Linda Wouters was in fact nothing more than the example of the quackery known as facilitated communication. This is a…
grrlscientist | February 14, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is almost here once more and it is still seeking submissions for tomorrow's edition of this blog carnival! Can you help by sending URLs for well-written blog essays to me?
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.
The most…