Science
drorzel | January 9, 2010One of the few sad things about the recent American domination of physics (says the American physicist) is that new physical phenomena are now mostly given boring, prosaic American English names. Don't get me wrong, I like being able to pronounce and interpret new phenomena, but when the pre-WWII era of European dominance faded away, we lost those awesome German names. Like, for example, zitterbewegung, a word that just demands an exclamation point: Zitterbewegung!
The phenomenon it describes, ironically, comes out of work by the great English physicist and odd duck Paul Dirac. Dirac's…
awild | January 9, 2010
Nylanderia guatemalensis
What are ant taxonomists buzzing about this week?*
Well. A hot new paper by John LaPolla, Seán Brady, and Steve Shattuck in Systematic Entomology has killed Paratrechina as we know it.Â
Nearly all those adorable, hairy little formicines we knew as Paratrechina- like the phantom sand ant and the rasberry crazy ant- have been pulled out and placed in a resurrected genus Nylanderia. All that remains of Paratrechina is but a single species, the fabled Black Crazy Ant Paratrechina longicornis. Which, incidentally, is the species in this blog's header photo.
Here's…
awild | January 9, 2010
Benoit Guenard notes that 2009 was a busy year for new ant genera
The NCSU insect blog has moved to a new URL: http://blog.insectmuseum.org/
Bug Girl blogs snow fleas
This is an amazing wasp
xkcd shows the difference between movie science and real science
Also, this:
drorzel | January 8, 2010Picking on stupid things that sports commentators say is the ultimate "Fish. Barrel. BLAM!" sort of activity, but this morning on the way to drop SteelyKid at day care, Mike and Mike kept repeating one of the absolute dumbest things that football commentators say. They were talking about Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals, and praising his ability as a receiver. In particular, they heaped praise on his ability to "go up and get the ball at its highest point."
That would be a pretty neat trick, if he could manage it. A football pass spends a second or two in the air-- let's call it two…
awild | January 8, 2010ANT COURSE 2010
Danum Valley Field Centre, Sabah Borneo, August 16 - 26
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: April 1, 2010
click here for application form
COURSE OBJECTIVES. â ANT COURSE is designed for systematists, ecologists, behaviorists, conservation biologists, and other biologists whose research responsibilities require a greater understanding of ant taxonomy and field research techniques. Emphasis is on the identification of the ant genera and species occurring in Southeast Asia. Lectures will include background information on the ecology, life histories and evolution of ants. Field trips…
drorzel | January 8, 2010Two new links for today's Obsessive Update:
The first is a nice article from Union's press office, with the headline "You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but what about physics?". I spent half an hour or so talking with one of the staff writers (who has a science background, which is a nice bonus) on Wednesday, so it's a fast turnaround, too.
The second is a passing mention in a possibly skeevy Russian site's article about the golden retriever physics video that went around a couple of months ago. Amazing what the vanity search turns up...
The sales rank, for those who care, continues to…
oracknows | January 8, 2010I realize that I haven't done an installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo for a while--well over a month, in fact. Because of the gap between woo installments, I had been thinking that today was the time. There are at least a couple of really good candidates (and a host of halfway decent ones) in my Folder of Woo. However, sadly, another installment in the unfortunately never-ending story of YFDoW will have to wait at least another week. You see, the Bat Signal went up (or should I call it the Woo Signal?), and duty calls. What is the particular instance of someone being wrong on the Internet…
bioephemera | January 7, 2010It wasn't exactly a New Year's resolution, but Scibling Abel Pharmboy announced a new mission for Terra Sigillata this year:
Terra Sigillata will broaden its focus area to become an open platform for scientific and career development issues specific to underrepresented or underserved minority groups as described in the US by the National Institutes of Health: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans/Alaska Natives who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment, Hawaiian Natives and natives of the U.S. Pacific Islands, persons with disabilities, and underserved groups…
pharyngula | January 7, 2010Some stunning fossil trackways have been discovered in Poland. The remarkable thing about them is that they're very old, about 395 million years old, and they are clearly the tracks of tetrapods. Just to put that in perspective, Tiktaalik, probably the most famous specimen illustrating an early stage of the transition to land, is younger at 375 million years, but is more primitive in having less developed, more fin-like limbs. So what we've got is a set of footprints that tell us the actual age of the transition by vertebrates from water to land had to be much, much earlier than was expected…
drorzel | January 7, 2010A number of people have commented on this LA Times op-ed by Steve Giddings about what physicists expect to come out of the Large Hadron Collider. It includes a nice list of possible particle physics discoveries plus a few things that will annoy Peter Woit, and also includes the obligatory note about spin-offs:
All this may seem like impractical and esoteric knowledge. But modern society would be unrecognizable without discoveries in fundamental physics. Radio and TV, X-rays, CT scans, MRIs, PCs, iPhones, the GPS system, the Web and beyond -- much that we take for granted would not exist…
grrlscientist | January 7, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The writing-about-science-for-the-people blog carnival, Scientia Pro Publica, should have been published this past Monday, 4 January 2010. So what happened to it? Like you, I am curious to know the answer to this question. Despite excellent support from its regular contributors, this carnival has been struggling to survive mostly due to my own life situation.
You might recall, I started this blog carnival in March 2009 to replace the defunct Tangled Bank. You…
bioephemera | January 7, 2010
"Labyrinthine Meditation, Middle Stage"
Brian Knep, 2009
Brian Knep, an artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School, just ended a solo exhibition at Boston's judi rotenberg gallery. Interestingly, the exhibition press release is unabashedly critical of science:
Through the scientific study of microscopic worms, Knep engages metaphysical questions of human behavior, the passage of time, and our inevitable transition to death. Knep's study of Caenorhabditis elegans, was inspired by the studies being conducted by scientists at the Harvard lab, specifically the study of aging, or the "…
pharyngula | January 6, 2010Some people seem to react to the autotuned stuff with a kind of automatic detestation. So how about this? The unaltered words of Carl Sagan wrapped in a musical accompaniment.
pharyngula | January 6, 2010The National Library of Medicine has released scans of classic science texts from the 15th-16th century — they're beautiful.
And the amazing thing is, they're still better science than anything you'll find from a creationist!
jrosenhouse | January 6, 2010The Huffington Post is not usually the go-to place for intelligent commentary on scientific issues, but sometimes they come through. Go have a look at this essay by Steven Newton, Project Director for the National Center for Science Education.
Science requires conclusions about how nature works to be rooted in evidence-based testing. Sometimes progress is slow. But through a difficult and often frustrating process, we learn more about the world.
Science denialism works differently. Creationists are unmoved by the wealth of fossil, molecular, and anatomical evidence for evolution. Global-…
drorzel | January 6, 2010I forgot to include an option about this in the previous Dorky Poll, but this is one of the best ways I know to sort out righteous physicists from heathen mathematicians:
How do you like your angular coordinates?(polls)
Choose wisely.
drorzel | January 6, 2010Today's lecture in intro mechanics is a whirlwind survey of vectors. While I struggle to clear my head enough to be able to teach this stuff, here's a Dorky Poll to pass the time:
What's your favorite three-dimensional coordinate system?(survey)
This is a strictly classical subject, so please choose only one.
drorzel | January 6, 2010Not a whole lot new, but it's been a few days. Also, it's a challenge to remain ambulatory at the moment, thanks to this cursed cold, so I'm not really prepared to turn out Significant Blogging.
-- This morning's vanity search (why yes, I am searching for "How to Teach Physics to Your Dog" on a daily basis. Aren't you?) turned up this Current Geek podcast, which talks about the book. They haven't read it yet, but picked up the BoingBoing mention, and are enthusiastic about the idea. They pretty well nail the thinking behind the book.
-- The vanity search also turned up this discussion of my…
grrlscientist | January 5, 2010
Who: Richard Wiseman
What: free public presentation, "Investigating the Impossible"
Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (and Rivington St.) [map]
When: Tonight at 730pm (Tuesday, 5 January 2010)
Cost: FREE and open to the public!
Join the New York City Skeptics as they kick off their 2010 Public Lecture Series with noted skeptic, psychologist, and magician Richard Wiseman.
For over 20 years, Professor Richard Wiseman has investigated a variety of strange psychological phenomena. In this talk, he describes some of his more colorful adventures, including his work into why…
bioephemera | January 5, 2010Call to artists: ALCHEMY: Art and Science
Call to Artists at the Schiltkamp Gallery, Traina Center for the Arts, Clark University. This show will explore the intersections of art and science; art that is inspired by science or scientific images/models that are transcendent. The concept of "science" is open and may include new technology as well as the traditional sciences.
Application Instructions: 10-20 images in slides or as jpegs on a CD (no power point or slide shows). List of art work or other materials submitted, including titles, date, media, dimensions. C.V. or bio and a brief (one…