Science
awild | August 13, 2009As if we systematists didn't have enough to worry about with the worldwide extinction crisis and the dwindling presence of taxonomists in academia, now we've got the vultures lawyers laying claim to the primary tools for our science.
Microsoft is trying to patent phylogenetics. No, seriously. Read the patent application.
I doubt that this particular application will survive. After all, Microsoft will have a hard time demonstrating the originality of their "invention" considering the thousands of published phylogenetic studies that predate their claim.
All the same, systematists should…
drorzel | August 13, 2009One of our poetry contest winners has been reading his proof copy of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, and posted some comments. Actually, it was posted last week, but I was at Worldcon, and not dealing with much of anything else.
The comments are pretty positive, but he asks a couple of questions along the way, and I figured I should respond to those here. So, below the fold are Adrian's questions and my responses:
I don't get what's so weird about the Quantum Eraser, other than things that are already weird in simpler double-slit experiments in any case. Once you've accepted that a photon…
bioephemera | August 12, 2009I missed a few weeks of Jon Stewart while we didn't have cable, so many thanks to David Bruggeman for pointing out this awesome Daily Show clip of scientists failing to communicate. I'm still chortling.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Human's Closest Relative
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Spinal Tap Performance
My favorite part is when Oliver gets the chimp guy to admit no one will read his papers.
drorzel | August 12, 2009ZapperZ links to an interview with David Saltzberg about careers for students with an undergraduate degree in physics. As is often the case, ZapperZ proclaims himself "disappointed" with things that I think are about right. In particular, he writes:
[W]hen asked on why one should major in physics, is the best that can be answered is that "... you really like it.. "? What happened to the fact that the skills one acquire majoring in it can be quite useful in one's career, be it in science or outside of science?
Actually, I think that really is the best reason for majoring in physics. Or any…
bioephemera | August 12, 2009
Japanese artist Kawano Takeshi's 2007 rendition of global warming is simple, a little funny, and a lot sad.
For another version of the same theme - using a real child's toy - check out Ours (the Bear), a video by French artist Simon Dronet. I'll try to embed it, but the link's wonky, so you might have to click through to see it.
OursUploaded by laperitel.
Via Fubiz
pontiff | August 11, 2009How did I miss this one from 2005? And how come no one told me to take off my tinfoil hat? Via @kmerritt, "On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study" by Ali Rahimi, Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, and Noah Vawter.
Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either…
drorzel | August 11, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Julie Myers-Irvin, who helps scientists put together grants.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work at the University of Pittsburgh as a "Scientist Administrator" (a terribly nondescript title that I will…
drorzel | August 11, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Ethan Allen, a program manager.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I manage education and outreach (terrible term, hate it) for two different Centers here at UW the Center for Nanotechnology and the Genetically…
awild | August 10, 2009Carol Kaesuk Yoon opines:
We are, all of us, abandoning taxonomy, the ordering and naming of life. We are willfully...losing the ability to order and name and therefore losing a connection to and a place in the living world.
No wonder so few of us can really see what is out there.
pontiff | August 10, 2009March is ages away, but it is time to start planning for the APS March meeting, to be held in the beautiful rose city, Portland, Oregon (Note to skiers that Mt. Hood is just a short distance away :) ) Anyway an important part of the March meeting are invites sessions and the quantum computing/information/foundations topical group GQI is in charge of a few of these sessions. Want to nominate a session or invited speaker? Now's your chance. Here's the email that was sent out Friday:
Dear GQI members,
This is an email to solicit from you proposals for GQI sponsored invited sessions and…
drorzel | August 10, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Joel Boyce, a high school science and math teacher in Canada.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I'm a high school science and math teacher.
2) What is your science background?
I have a B.Sc, majoring in…
awild | August 10, 2009This week, Public Radio International is hosting a forum whereby you- the fine people of the General Public- get a chance to converse online with eminent entomologist May Berenbaum about all things DDT.
The forum accompanies a piece from last week's "The World". For background, you can read Berenbaum's recent Washington Post essay about the DDT-malaria problem here:
What people aren't remembering about the history of DDT is that, in many places, it failed to eradicate malaria not because of environmentalist restrictions on its use but because it simply stopped working. Insects have a…
drorzel | August 10, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of James Annan)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I'm a research scientist at a Govt lab, working in the field of climate change research. Currently I'm in Japan, which is probably a bit off-the-wall for most…
grrlscientist | August 9, 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 | August 9, 2009In a rare bit of good environmental news, herpetologist extraordinaire Rich Glor travels to Haiti in search of a potentially extinct Anolis lizard and finds a pair of surviving populations.
drorzel | August 9, 2009The "Philosophy of Science" panel I moderated was surprisingly well-attended, and got some decent discussion going. Kate took notes, at least for a while, and I'll post a link if she writes it up on LiveJournal.
The "Knights who Say Fuck" panel was in a very remote room that was much too small to contain a panel with Guy Gavriel Kay, David Anthony Durham, and Patrick Rothfuss on it. Well, ok, it contained them just fine, but there wasn't really room for the hundred-odd people who showed up to see them.
I was one of about a dozen people who went to thie "Cross-Genre Hard SF" panel, probably…
drorzel | August 8, 2009My talk was Friday morning at 10am, on the title given above. This wasn't my choice-- when I volunteered to be on programming, I said some general areas that I'd be willing to talk about, and left it at that. Somebody else made up the title and description for the talk, which made it very slightly like PowerPoint Karaoke. Happily, this is a topic I can easily discourse about, but I think in the future I'll try to remember to suggest more specific talk titles...
I've posted the slides for the talk on SlideShare, and will attempt embedding them below:
Worldcon09
View more presentations from…
bioephemera | August 8, 2009
Le Boson de Higgs, 2008
Korner Union
Gaussian Goat , 2008
Harm van den Dorpel
Both artworks via today and tomorrow
bioephemera | August 7, 2009Reviewer Jerry Coyne appears to have some of the same reservations I do ("Mooney and Kirshenbaum also fail to support their contention that the knowledge gap between scientists and the public is increasing") - but he ends up voting thumbs down:
No matter how much atheists stifle themselves, no matter how many scientists reach out to the public via new media, we may not find the appetite for science infinitely elastic. This does not mean, of course, that we should refrain from feeding it. But figuring out where and how to intervene will take a lot more work than the shallow and unreflective…
drorzel | August 7, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Alric, a veterinary pathologist at a drug company)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am toxicologic veterinary pathologist and work at a contract research organization. We use animal models to evaluate the…