Science
drorzel | March 16, 2009Scientific American has an article by David Albert and Rivka Galchen with the New Scientist-ish headline Was Einstein Wrong?: A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity and the sub-head "Entanglement, like many quantum effects, violates some of our deepest intuitions about the world. It may also undermine Einstein's special theory of relativity."
An alternate title for this post might be "Son Of Why I Won't Make It as a Philosopher," because I really don't know what to make of it. The authors make authoritative-sounding references to a bunch of papers I haven't read, but then they also drop in…
drorzel | March 16, 2009EurekAlert offered a press release from the American Physical Society over the weekend that may indicate that someone in the press office has won a round of drinks:
The American Physical Society (APS) is elated that the Senate has approved the FYO9 Omnibus Bill, which will allow scientists to continue cutting-edge research that will lead to innovation, job creation and economic growth for the United States.
"Elated" is not a word I expect to see in a press release. I suspect. Somebody in the press office may just have won a bet.
bioephemera | March 15, 2009About two weeks ago I went to Politics and Prose for a great talk by the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, who was in DC promoting his new book, Angels and Ages, a book of essays about Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. The words and actions of these two influential men - some would call them secular saints - still reverberate today. And coincidentally, they were also born just hours apart, on the same day: February 12, 1809.
Gopnik explicitly said that he did not intend to suss out any mystical or astrological significance to the shared birthday: it's a coincidence, and nothing more. But as he…
bioephemera | March 13, 2009
I don't know how in hell I missed this one, but thank heavens A Repository for Bottled Monsters alerted me to the "Uterine Plush Recall" over at I Heart Guts! Apparently the uterus "failed a pull test" and "the ovaries may be pulled off and become a choking hazard"! I do not think I am alone in saying eeeuuuuww!
I Heart Guts assures us that rest of their smiling fuzzy internal organs are perfectly safe for all ages, but if you are in possession of a smug, Thriller video-dancing, pink plush uterus with hazardous trachea-sized violet ovaries, please contact appropriate support personnel…
bioephemera | March 12, 2009The Pi Day bill went up for a vote today and passed 391-10. Now Congressman Jason Chaffetz explains (via Twitter, natch) why he dared vote against the hallowed number:
Fie, fie! No Yes PeCan Pi for you, Representative Chaffetz (R-Utah)! But kudos for a creative excuse.
tqa | March 12, 2009
A moderately large piece of space debris has only recently been identified as a threat to the International Space Station - too recently for the station to be moved out of the way. The object is now projected to pass close enough to the ISS to put it into the high threat category. As a result, the astronauts onboard the ISS will be moving from the station into the Soyuz escape capsule as a safety precaution.
The closest approach is predicted to occur at 11:39 CDT - about 20 minutes from now. The crew is currently preparing to board the Soyuz. If all goes well, they'll be in the Soyuz from…
drorzel | March 12, 2009There's a really good article from Martin Rees in the latest issue of Seed, on the scientific challenges that won't be affected by the LHC:
The LHC hasn't yet provided its first results, the much-anticipated answers to questions we've been asking for so long. But they should surely come in 2009, bringing us closer to understanding the bedrock nature of particles, space, and timeâ--âtoward a unified theory of the basic forces. This would push forward a program that started with Newton (who showed that the force that made the apple fall was same one holding the planets in orbit), and continued…
drorzel | March 12, 2009Inside Higher Ed has an article on grade inflation this morning, which reminds me of my improbable research theory.
Academic scolds are always talking about grade inflation, saying that the average grade years ago used to be lower than it is now. Medical scolds are always talking about the obesity epidemic, saying that average weights used to be lower than they are now.
Has anyone ever considered that the two might be related? That is, might it be that the grade points per pound has remained constant over the years?
Using some government reports on weight, and totally bias free GPA trends…
razib | March 11, 2009A few years ago I pointed to a paper which surveyed variation in health across the United States as a function of geography. Today Andrew Gelman points to a new map put out by the heath insurance industry. I've placed the two maps side by side below.
bioephemera | March 11, 2009
As of today, SEED has a new look and a new occasional writer. . . me! ;)
See my little essay on Christopher Reiger's Synesthesia #1 here, on the culture page. Then go explore the rest of the site. . . the new design is pretty sweet. They even have a SCIART tag for pieces like mine.
drorzel | March 11, 2009Most people's first exposure to the ideas of modern atomic physics comes through the Bohr model of hydrogen, which treats the atom as something like a little solar system, with the positively charged nucleus as the sun, and negatively charged electrons orbiting in well-defined circular orbits. It's a very compelling picture, and works well for hydrogen (provided you make a couple of really odd assumptions), but it's completely wrong on the details. Electrons do not move in well-defined orbits, but rather exists as fuzzy wavefunctions spread over the space near the nucleus.
It turns out,…
bioephemera | March 11, 2009
Thought Patterns #1
blood on watercolor paper
Laura Splan, 2003
The International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago is calling for proposals for "Anatomy in the Gallery:"
[This program] showcases medically themed contemporary art within the unique context of the Museum's historical collections and exhibits. The program was begun in 1998 to help fulfill the Museum's mission of enriching its visitors' lives by enhancing their knowledge and understanding of surgery and related sciences.
Previous exhibitors include Laura Splan (above), Laura Kurtenbach, Geraldine Ondrizek, and Dominic Paul…
oracknows | March 11, 2009Advocates of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) frequently make the claim that they are the victims of a "double standard," in which (or so they claim) they are subjected to harsher standards than what they often refer to as "conventional" or "orthodox" medicine, usually because, don't you know, big pharma controls everything and rigs the game. Whatever the sins of big pharma (and they are legion), this claim is, of course, a whole lot of hooey. If there is a double standard (and, indeed there is), it favors CAM. Indeed, CAM itself is a "wedge strategy" to apply a…
bioephemera | March 10, 2009So I observed Pi day by baking a pie. But Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee, Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, has a much grander idea: let's pass a resolution!
Witness H.Res.224, introduced yesterday:
Supporting the designation of Pi Day, and for other purposes.
Whereas the Greek letter (Pi) is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter;Whereas the ratio Pi is an irrational number, which will continue infinitely without repeating, and has been calculated to over one trillion digits;Whereas Pi is a recurring constant that has…
jrosenhouse | March 10, 2009As you have probably noticed, I haven't been blogging lately. This is largely because I have been working on some other writing projects, which involves many hours spent in frustrated contemplation of a blank computer screen, which leaves me decidedly unmotivated to then embark on lengthy blog entries. Having just read this insufferably pompous, not to mention poorly argued, essay from William Saletan at Slate, I suddenly feel moved to emerge from my blog sabbatical.
Saletan is in full lecture mode, informing those of us who are happy about Obama's recent decision regarding stem-cell…
ddobbs | March 10, 2009Evolutionary Novelties ponders placentas:
For me one of the most visceral confirmations of the common descent of humans and other mammals came while witnessing the birth of my children. Having grown up on a small farm, I have vivid memories of the birth of kittens, lambs, and goats; and after the births of my children, I was struck by the similarity of human placenta and umbilical cord to those of other mammals. Given common descent, how did something as complex as the mammalian placenta originate in the first place? The answer, according to research published last summer in Genome Research…
bioephemera | March 9, 2009Rumor has it there's going to be a no-holds-barred culinary throwdown here at Scienceblogs in honor of Pi Day. Personally, I need little excuse to make a pie. And the staffer needs little excuse to eat pie - particularly pecan pie. So here is my entry. . . .the "Yes, PeCan" Pi.
As pies go, this is a simple one that can handle some imprecision. It's a little different every time I do it. And in the spirit of 3.141592-oh-whatever-who-cares, I embrace freely rounding off quantities whenever I feel like it.* In fact, I used my ubercool but uberimprecise Equal Measure to make this Pi:
"Yes,…
bioephemera | March 9, 2009Yuval Levin has an editorial in today's WaPo that makes a very good point:
Science policy is not just a matter of science. Like all policy, it calls for a balancing of priorities and concerns, and it requires a judgment of needs and values that in a democracy we trust to our elected officials. In science policy, science informs, but politics governs, and rightly so. There are, of course, different ways for politics to exert authority over science. To distort or hide unwelcome facts is surely illegitimate. But to weigh facts against societal priorities -- economic, political and ethical -- in…
pharyngula | March 9, 2009Today, President Obama signed a bill lifting the Bush restrictions on stem cell research. You really must go listen to his speech on the occasion — he seems to get what scientific research is all about. Man, it's been a long eight years, and oh is it wonderfully good to hear an eloquent defense of scientific research from our president, for a change.
The ugly little goblins of the Bush years still plague us, though; compare the uplifting message of knowledge from Obama with this fundamentally fallacious opinion piece from the carnie barker of junk science, Steven Milloy. And by "fundamentally…
denialism | March 9, 2009President Obama has lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research enacted by Bush, but I'm left feeling that this intervention came many years too late.
Pledging that his administration will "make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology," President Obama on Monday lifted the Bush administration's strict limits on human embryonic stem cell research.
...
But Mr. Obama went on to say that the majority of Americans "have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research; that the potential it offers is great, and with proper guidelines and strict oversight the perils can be…