Science
awild | September 23, 2009James Trager writes in this week with a request and a photo:
I have been interested in Polyergus (âAmazon antsâ, see here) since childhood, when I first had the good fortune to observe them on summer afternoons in northern New Mexico. After decades of intermittent field observations and microscopic examination of specimens of these ants from various parts of the USA and Eurasia, and various interactions with other researchers on this group, I came to the conclusion that a taxonomic revision of the group is necessary.
Some background: Linda Goodloe, in her 1986 City University of NY…
pharyngula | September 23, 2009This is a side of women I haven't had a chance to see in such detail before — it's a series of photos of the cervix, taken every day over the course of a month. It changes, unsurprisingly. It's a little organ with a different personality every time you look at it.
There are also photos of the cervix before and after sex, which is a physiological phenomenon that also changes the configuration of that whole muscley flexible bit of the anatomy. However, she talks about the upsuck hypothesis — the idea that the activity of the cervix is adapted to physically draw semen into the opening — which is…
grrlscientist | September 22, 2009
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) was just published recently at Lab Rat. This edition is entitled Scientia Pro Publica -- 12th edition.
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 host for the upcoming 5 October edition will be me. To send your…
drorzel | September 22, 2009The scheduled release of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is three months from today. This is, as you most likely know, a book based on the frequent conversations Emmy and I have about physics:
To mark the pre-anniversary, Emmy has decided to use social media to showcase her physics knowledge: She's answering physics questions on Twitter. Post a question, tag it #dogphysics, and she'll answer it there. If you've got a philosophical objection to Twitter, you can leave a comment here, and get your answer via the Twitter link above.
So, if you've got a question about physics that you've been…
drorzel | September 22, 2009Buried in the weekend links dump at the arxiv blog was Scalable ion traps for quantum information processing:
We report on the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a 150 zone array built in a `surface-electrode' geometry microfabricated on a single substrate. We demonstrate transport of atomic ions between legs of a `Y'-type junction and measure the in-situ heating rates for the ions. The trap design demonstrates use of a basic component design library that can be quickly assembled to form structures optimized for a particular experiment.
At first glance, this isn't a sexy paper…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2009
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) was just published recently at Lab Rat. This edition is entitled Scientia Pro Publica -- 12th edition.
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 host for the upcoming 5 October edition is me. To send your…
awild | September 21, 2009
A student at the University of Illinois navigates an aphid swarm between classes.
We've had plenty of traffic here at the Myrmecos Blog as bewildered midwesterners look for answers about the swarm of tiny insects that has descended on our cities this week. As best as we can tell, here's the scoop.
Q: What are the annoying little bugs that are swarming Central Illinois this week?
A: They are soybean aphids (Aphis glycines). These small insects feed in summer on soybeans, overwinter as eggs on buckthorn (Rhamnus spp.), and feed in spring on Buckthorn before flying back to soy.
A soybean…
oracknows | September 21, 2009Given how many of you read this blog and Science-Based Medicine, I thought I should make an announcement. Sometime this morning or early this afternoon, the Science-Based Medicine blog went down, returning only a cryptic message saying that the site has been "suspended." This is the second time it's gone completely down, the first being Friday for most of the day, and the performance of the site has been painfully slow all weekend, with interminable waits for page loads, etc.
The SBM team is aware of the problem. All I can say is that the problem is being worked on, but the technical guys are…
drorzel | September 21, 2009I'm halfway through Graham Farmelo's Dirac biography at the moment, and enjoying it quite a bit. Farmelo cites Dirac as one of the first physicists to evaluate theories on their mathematical beauty, rather than waiting for experiments. This is in stark contrast to his Cambridge colleague Rutherford, who was highly skeptical of abstract theory, and preferred to deal in concrete experiments.
This is one of the great chicken-and-egg problems in science: Should data come before theory, or should theory come before data? Thus, this seems like a good topic for a poll:
How do you like your science…
bioephemera | September 21, 2009No, it's not a stupid joke. It's my candidate for the worst press release title of September? "Neurons Found To Be Similar To U.S. Electoral College":
A tiny neuron is a very complicated structure. Its complex network of dendrites, axons and synapses is constantly dealing with information, deciding whether or not to send a nerve impulse, to drive a certain action. It turns out that neurons, at one level, operate like another complicated structure -- the United States, particularly its system of electing a president, through the Electoral College. (source).
Uh. . . thanks for that bizarre free…
grrlscientist | September 20, 2009
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 a 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. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…
grrlscientist | September 20, 2009tags: 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…
awild | September 20, 2009
Soybean aphids piling up in a spider web
It's been snowing aphids the past few days here in Champaign-Urbana. Trillions of them are drifting across town, settling out on our garden, getting caught in our hair. I've never seen anything like it.
I recently learned that this sternorrhynchan storm is composed of soybean aphids (Aphis glycines). That would explain all the aphid biomass. Illinois is a major producer of soy, and there's no shortage of soy fields around here. Sensing the end of summer, the aphids are moving en masse to their winter host, buckthorn.
Soy has traditionally been…
grrlscientist | September 19, 2009tags: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmic Quandaries, NOVA, PBS, Public Television, streaming video
An out of this world event, Cosmic Quandaries, held at The Palladium in St. Petersburg at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26th drew in an audience of nearly 800! With a one in a million chance of meeting one of only 6,000 astrophysicists in the world, audience members were lined up in order to have the opportunity to ask Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson a question on any and all galactic wonders they may have. This is, without a doubt, the most fascinating hour-and-a-half I've spent watching a youtube video.
grrlscientist | September 18, 2009
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 a 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. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…
oracknows | September 18, 2009Somehow I don't think any cosmetics company today could get away with doing an experiment like this to prove how well its cold cream cleans the most dirt and makeup residue from a model's skin.
I'd also really love a copy of the "Atomic Test Booklet" that people could mail the company to request. You'd never guess from the title that it's about makeup. Also, I have to wonder. Some 50 or 60 years later:
Is the model in this commercial still alive?
How many skin cancers did she have removed from her face?
Inquiring minds wnat to know!
grrlscientist | September 18, 2009
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 a 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. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…
drorzel | September 18, 2009Over at Jim Henley's place, Thoreau further justifies his status as an essential academic-physics blogger with a really good post about the problem of introductory labs:
In freshman labs, generally you’re trying to measure something (at least as it’s done at many schools). The measurement is never as clean as the stuff being taught in lecture (or interactive discussion-based peer-involved blah blah whatever). There is nothing wrong with the fact that lab measurements are not as clean as the stuff in lecture! However, it does mean that you aren’t spending those 3 hours thinking about the…
drorzel | September 18, 2009I'm teaching Quantum Optics again this term, talking about the interaction between light and matter in circumstances where you need to account for the quantum nature of one or both of those. We're starting on the actual interactions today, albeit with a semi-classical approach (Einstein coefficients and the Fermi Golden Rule), but we've just finished a whirlwind review of quantum mechanics, including a rapid survey of the different effects that determine atomic energy levels, and some of the ways we have to move those around.
This suggests a really dorky idea for a poll, so:
What's your…
grrlscientist | September 17, 2009
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 a 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. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…