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gregladen | July 5, 2011Scientific American has launched a new blog network.
Here is a post by Bora Zivkovic announcing the network, and here is the press release.
Today Scientific American launched a new blog network which unites editorial, independent and group blogs under the magazine's banner. The community of 60 bloggers provides authoritative information and insights about science and technology, and their roles in global affairs. The blog network, overseen by Blog Editor Bora Zivkovic, who serves as moderator for the community, encourages discussion and facilitates the exchange of ideas with both the…
cwilcox | July 5, 2011Though you see it cheaply plastered across postcards and knick-knacks, aloha is a very deep and meaningful word in Hawaiian. Its exact origin is somewhat up for debate, though etymologists have said it comes from alo, which means sharing or present, oha meaning joy or affection, and ha, meaning energy, life or breath. In Hawaiian, it means everything from hello and goodbye to love, affection, compassion, and to be fond of something or someone.
Yes, this post is about goodbyes and hellos. I am saying goodbye to ScienceBlogs and Observations of a Nerd. I have spent just over a year here at…
gregladen | July 2, 2011Charles Darwin did a lot of work with birds. Darwin was a consumer of information, constantly attempting experiments, interviewing locals, making observations, and so on. For this reason, his writing about birds provides not only interesting information about birds, but also insight into his methods and thought process. I'm writing a weekly blog post about this, and the current exemplar of Darin and his "other" birds is about the Andean Condor.
Read more.
mikethemadbiologist | July 1, 2011Links for you. Science:
Process: How Horseshoe Crab Blood Helps Save Lives
UCHIME: Fast, accurate chimera detection
What sort of user are you?
Why Your Mentor Sucks (and how to fix it)
Other:
God has called me to defend Michele Bachmann (another must-read by Lance Mannion)
DO YOU SMELL THAT? I THINK IT'S THE ZEITGEIST
Michele Bachmann rejects the whole of conservative economic theory in one typed sentence (not surprising, since it's just the economic version of the conservative cultural ethos of "do as I say, not as I do")
Anti-racism: DoJ sues modern-day sundown town in Wisconsin (Holder…
krandall | June 29, 2011By Dr. Friedemann Freund; Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs
Friedemann Freund doesn't shrink from taking on the really big problems. His research has elucidated such important phenomena as the fact that rocks under stress behave like batteries that can produce currents deep within the crust of the Earth. These are not piddling electron flows, either - the currents could be as large as millions of amperes, sufficient to be measured above ground, and perhaps even from orbit. Understanding and exploiting this phenomenon could lead to a…
gregladen | June 27, 2011The first nuclear power plant ever was built in Obninsk, Russia. It was the first electricity generating plant on a civilian grid. The plant operated until April 29th 2002.
The exact date of the plant's "birth" varies, but as I understand it, it began operating on the 26th and went to large scale production on the 27th.
mspringer | June 27, 2011Phil at Bad Astronomy opined (and it is a common opinion) that the supernatural is incoherent:
If you posit some thing that has no perceivable or measurable effect, then it may as well not exist. And as soon as you claim it does have an effect -- it can be seen, heard, recorded, felt -- then it must be in some way testable, and therefore subject to science.
Joshua was not so sure about this. The supernatural could, perhaps, interact observably with the universe at some times but not at others. Under normal circumstances the normal laws apply, under others, supernatural stuff happens. Chad…
gregladen | June 27, 2011My old friend Mark Moffett is one of the pioneers of high canopy research, dragging his cameras into the upper reached of the rain forest to learn amazing new things and take some amazing photographs. He's also spent considerable time on and beneath the forest floor studying ants. You know those research projects where they excavate an entire leaf cutter ant colony in order to understand how their underground labyrinths are laid out and function as a sort of earth-encrusted organism? That was Mark. Well, others have done it but he was a pioneer in that research.
I met Mark when he was in…
mspringer | June 26, 2011Head down to Box Office Mojo and pull up the list of the top grossing films of the year thus far. Seven of the top ten have a dollar gross beginning with the number 1. Okay, that's not too weird. Big films tend to pull down somewhere between $100-200 million, while only the real monsters have high grosses. So what if we look at the inflation-adjusted all-time list, which is less likely to be fixed by the coincidental size of the film-going public and ticket prices? Again, seven of the 10 have grosses beginning with 1.
Well, maybe movies are just weird. What about cities? In the US, five of…
gregladen | June 24, 2011I can't believe that I'm like 50 something years old and never had one of these:
gregladen | June 24, 2011The Placebo Effect is rarely what people think it is, though it is often what people believe it to be. Unconvinced? Check it out.
gregladen | June 24, 2011For the next several weeks, I'll be contributing a weekly post at Birdingblogs.com. The informal title of this series of posts is Darwin's Other Birds. The idea is to identify particularly interesting passages from Darwin's writings and put them in an appropriate context. This week's post is an introduction to the series. Thanks to Gunnar for the interesting introduction to the Birdingblgos community!
I hope you enjoy the series, which will run every Friday. Next Friday, Darwin and the Andean Condor.
gregladen | June 23, 2011Apropos this, a timely repost:
This may or may not be a recent photograph of fugitive Whitey (James) Bulger of Boston's Winter Hill Gang. Most of you won't know who Whitey Bulger is. He is actually on the FBI's ten most wanted list. He may have been spotted in Italy last Spring, and the FBI is just now asking for assistance from anyone who knows where he might be. (That's not gonna work.)
Whitey was top dog in Boston's Winter Hill gang. His brother was a Senator for the Commwealth of Massachusetts, and served as Senate President for several years.
It is said that Whitey was an FBI…
gregladen | June 21, 2011She was taught evolution in her high school and she sees no problem with it today. In fact, she's a science geek. Move over Science Cheerleaders and make way for the ... no, wait, I don't think I want to go there ...
Anyway, here is the video:
One other contestant (of the presumably 51 or so) was also not a creationist, according to her answer to the question, which was asked of all of the contestants.
I couldn't hear a word she said... good think I'm an expert lip reader.
gregladen | June 20, 2011I just realized that in the recent confusion of travelling and home improvement activities, I forgot to point out to you'all that my third every-four-weeks post at 10,000 Birds (the blog) is now up for your reading pleasure: Birds Really Dinosaurs?
gregladen | June 20, 2011This is going to be a busy week. I've got three shelves to build (shelve = complex of shelves, not shelf); This must be done in a hailstorm of loud karaoke singing, interrupted only by actual hail storms, because, well, I live in Coon Rapids and that's how it is; Amanda will be away all week so I will be a single parent for a while. That's good because Huxley and I need the bonding time, but it will cut into my other activities a bit; There is preparation for the upcoming CONvergence (yes, Stephanie, I'll get you those links very soon!); And then there is the Global Water Dancing event…
lborkowski | June 20, 2011A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Julie Appleby and Jordan Rau at Kaiser Health News: 'Double' Chest Scans Increase Costs and Exposure to Radiation
Evan Bush in iWatch News: Obama administration signals higher gas royalties on public lands -- and anticipated industry resistance
Alix Spiegel for NPR: Why Seeing (The Unexpected) Is Often Not Believing
Maryn McKenna at Superbug: Goodbye, Team D? When One State's Cuts Hurt Everyone
Ezra Klein in the Washington Post: Better Medicaid coordination would cut costs, help the most seriously ill
And this one is for listening rather than reading,…
pharyngula | June 20, 2011I honestly had no idea that David Mamet had turned into a flaming right-wing moron. And now he receives his comeuppance: his latest book is reviewed by Christopher Hitchens.
pharyngula | June 19, 2011I have a Twitter account, and there's nothing special about it except one nuisance: Dennis Markuze/David Mabus spams it constantly, creating dozens of new accounts every day and sending me hundreds of messages every day, typically repetitive stuff on the lines of "You are a NAZI!" and "We're going to chop your head off!" It's awesomely tedious drivel, fortunately easily handled by a single click to block each account, causing all of the noise to quickly disappear.
Unfortunately, I have now also attracted the attention of another kook, Deepak Chopra. He recently wrote:
Did you know that…