Science
catdynamics | August 27, 2006Grauniad article reports...
Unfortunate Dr Coyne will not be available to lend his perspective on the meeting of the scholar's circle.
oracknows | August 27, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
pharyngula | August 27, 2006A neurobiologist at UCLA, Dario Ringach, has stopped doing research on primates. The reason?
Colleagues suggested that Ringach, who did not return e-mails seeking comment, was spooked by an attack on a colleague. In June, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for trying to put a Molotov cocktail on the doorstep of Lynn Fairbanks, another UCLA researcher who does experimentation on animals. The explosive was accidentally placed on the doorstep of Fairbanks's elderly neighbor's house, and did not detonate.
Whoa. Incompetence and thuggish violence—what a combination. I love animals and think…
drorzel | August 25, 2006I've talked before about the tension between the desire to encourage students to major in physics and the tight job market in academia. Every time I talk about ways to draw more students into physics, it seems that somebody pops up to call me irresponsible for trying to lure them into a dead-end career track, saying that we don't really need more physics majors.
Eugene Wallingford quotes the best concise response to this argument that I've heard:
Another colleague spoke eloquently of why we need to work hard to convince young people to enter the sciences at the university level. He said…
pharyngula | August 24, 2006
This article is part of a series of critiques of Jonathan Wells' The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design that will be appearing at the Panda's Thumb over the course of the next week or so. Previously, I'd dissected the summary of chapter 3. This is a longer criticism of the whole of the chapter, which is purportedly a critique of evo-devo.
Jonathan Wells is a titular developmental biologist, so you'd expect he'd at least get something right in his chapter on development and evolution in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, but no:…
drorzel | August 24, 2006There's been a lot of hand-wringing in the science blogosphere about the low numbers of women in science, and I've contributed my share of comments. On the theory that you shouldn't curse the darkness when you could be fumbling for a book of matches, I'll pass along this call for proposals from the Feminist Press:
The Feminist Press, as part of our National Science Foundation Women Working: Thinking, Creating, Making Science project, is exploring new ways to get girls and young women interested in science. While there are many library resources featuring biographies of women scientists that…
oracknows | August 24, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
drorzel | August 24, 2006In the comments to the recent post on BMI, commenter Colst pointed to another study of mortality and BMI that found significantly higher risks for overweight people. Today, I see that Kevin Beck at Dr. Bushwell's Chimpanzee refuge has a post describing what I think is the same study, with the title Risk of death much higher in overweight and obese. Which is true, if you look at the data in the right way.
Kevin posted a bunch of graphs from the study, and I'll excerpt two of them to keep things readable. The first is the relative risk of death for all the men in the study, as a function of BMI…
oracknows | August 24, 2006While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have probably never seen many of these old posts.) These will appear at least twice a day while I'm gone (and that will probably leave some leftover for Christmas vacation, even). Enjoy, and please feel free to comment. I will be checking in from time to time when I have Internet access to see if the reaction…
pharyngula | August 23, 2006
Chris Mooney is trying to kill me.
It's true. He sent me this book, The Republican War on Science(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) (now available in a new paperback edition!), that he knew would send my blood pressure skyrocketing, give me apoplexy, and cause me to stroke out and die, gasping, clawing in futile spasms at the floor. Fortunately, I've been inoculating myself for the past few years by reading his weblog (now also in a new edition!), so I managed to survive, although there were a few chest-clutching moments and one or two life-flashing-past-my-eyes experiences, which will be handy if I…
drorzel | August 23, 2006Via Arcane Gazebo (who adds a category), an entertainingly snarky taxonomy of lab scientists:
Weird and Whacky
Consider the "mad scientist" of popular fiction, someone so obsessed with their subject that they forget to dress and show up to the lab in their pyjamas. Without wishing to indulge in stereotypes there are scientists who are highly creative and imaginative, it's just that you do wonder when the Mother Ship is going to come and collect them. On a good day they are self sufficient, enjoy thinking laterally and are great at finding ingenious ways of tackling a difficult piece of…
pharyngula | August 23, 2006
Wow…so this mysterious stuff called dark matter actually exists? Sean Carroll gives us the context and the beautiful pictures, while MarkCC explains the math.
drorzel | August 23, 2006This morning's Times bring a story saying that astronomers are still dithering about Pluto. The latest plan would create a new category of "dwarf planets," and presumably get the International Astronomical Union eaten by Cthullu.
My immediate response is: "Jesus, people, make up your frickin' minds!"
Look, the joke is over, ok? The Pluto story has officially worn out its welcome. Pick a definition, any definition, and go home. Make room for some real science news.
Honestly, this is why physicists sneer at astronomers. Not only do they use dumb units, and have the axes backwards on most of…
pharyngula | August 22, 2006
Troutnut has put up a beautiful page of Aquatic Insects of American Trout Streams. It's all about using insects to catch fish, but it's still an excellent example of how outdoor sportsmen (and in this case, soon-to-be grad student) can put together scientifically interesting information, too. If you don't know a mayfly from a caddisfly, it's full of photographs of the different organisms that might flit out of your nearby stream and park on your screen doors to weird you out.
catdynamics | August 22, 2006I hate scum sucking psychics - Angry Professor is really angry. With good cause.
Watch the Tube. Be ready to be angry.
Bloody rip-off parasites praying on people who are at their most vulnerable.
drorzel | August 22, 2006Over at Pure Pedantry, Jake has a nice post about a study showing that the ever-popular Body Mass Index measure is not a good predictor of the risk of heart disease. He's got a lot of details about the study, including this graph of risk vs. BMI:
Now, here's the thing. This is the second study I recall hearing about that has a similar result-- there was a flurry of articles a while back about a large study (or maybe one of those meta-studies) showing that people who were slightly overweight according to BMI had lower mortality than those of "normal" weight. And now, this study shows that…
pharyngula | August 22, 2006Forbes has an article on billionaires who oppose the stem cell ban (free reg required): the subtitle is "Billionaire cash has kept embryonic stem-cell research alive—just barely," which really says it all. It discusses the extremely generous gifts private donors (and also some state funding by referendum) that have kept stem cell research afloat in the world of GW Bush and the religious right. There's quite a bit of money flying around out there.
Michael Bloomberg: A reported $100 million gift to alma mater Johns Hopkins included cash for its stem-cell institute. At a speech there, he…
catdynamics | August 22, 2006Remember in the early '90s, when people were all up at arms about the destruction of the rainforest? I haven't heard or read anything about it in the longest time. Are the rainforesets still being destroyed wholesale? Are they all gone? Is it still important? Is the coffee I drink contributing to the destruction of the rainforest? Is "free trade" and/or "shade grown" coffee better for the environment?
The forests are big, but they are still being cut.
Just because the issue is not in the headlines in the US media does not mean the problem has gone away. It will be back some other news cycle…
drorzel | August 22, 2006there's a fascinating article in the TimeS this morning about Chinese physicist Xu Liangying, a man who has led an interesting life, to say the least:
The first time he was purged, Xu Liangying was 27, an up-and-coming physicist, philosopher and historian and a veteran of the Communist underground. He had to divorce his wife, leave his sons and go live on his mother's farm in the country.
Three decades later, only a heart attack saved him from imprisonment or worse during the massacre that ended the democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
During the Cultural…
catdynamics | August 21, 2006Chad asks if we could charge grown-ups for fantasy science camps...
I suppose idle millionaire trips to the International Space Station don't count, because, er, they don't actually do any science up there...
but, as always astronomy leads the way:
I happen to know that the Carnegie Institute (west coast edition), as part of their centennial function, had an auction of various astronomy related things, and one was to accompany a senior researcher (and I hope some postdocs to, like, actually do the work) on an observing run to Hawaii (I want to say Keck, but I'm not sure); it sold, for a lot…