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stoat | December 9, 2010David Appell's recent post is excellent, so I'll steal most of it, a quote from Hillary Clinton in January:
During his visit to China in November, President Obama held a town hall meeting with an online component to highlight the importance of the internet. In response to a question that was sent in over the internet, he defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages…
gregladen | December 8, 2010Just a quick note. As the Minnesota Governor's Race recount proceeds, it became apparent, as many of us predicted, that Emmer's standing in that context has moved in the wrong direction from his perspective. He will end up losing this race by more votes than had he simply conceded to begin with. It is now expected that Emmer will concede the race any moment now, which has apparently (though this is unofficial) prompted the Electio Canvassing Board to cancel today's meeting at which the contested votes would have been examined.
This allows the Republicans to say "We lost by fewer than 9,000…
gregladen | December 7, 2010Elizabeth Edwards -- who catapulted into the public eye in 2004, when her husband, Sen. John Edwards, ran for president and was John Kerry's running mate on the Democratic ticket, has died, a close family friend tells NPR. She was 61.
Over the past few years, Edwards wrote two best-selling books, fought a well-publicized battle against cancer and saw her marriage crumble after her husband fathered a child with another woman.
NPR
gregladen | December 7, 2010My father was a housing authority executive director during much of the 1970s and 1980s. He was fairly well known, having established one or two of the main housing authority directors' professional associations, and having developed the shared risk pool insurance system which reduced the cost of running public housing projects buy tens of percent. Jimmy Carter offered him the HUD directorship, but he asked to be relieved of that request but reconsidered when Carter was re-elected. Which he wasn't, else we may have spent a few years in Washington.
Anyway, it was not terribly unlikely for…
gregladen | December 6, 2010
Lamont Ekker experienced what some people might consider a Thanksgiving miracle when he cut through a 15-pound chunk of sandstone at his Torrey rock shop last week.
Ekker cuts and polishes rocks at his shop, Jurassic Rocks, to expose interesting internal patterns and striations. Three days before Thanksgiving, he was "baking" in his oven some rocks he picked up that day in a quarry near Teasdale in southern Utah. The heat causes the iron in the yellow sandstone to oxidize, turning it a brilliant orangish red.
"When I took those pieces out of the oven, I saw this one had turned into what it…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2010It's cold here. Warm up with some nice links. Science:
The National Science Foundation calls it "peer review" for a reason, Mr. Smith!
Imagine A World Where Aspergers Was The Norm
(Don't) Keep it Simple: Why a Culture of Journalism Isn't Working for Science
NIH study identifies ideal body mass index
Other:
There's no crying in baseball and, apparently, no laughing in football
John Brown's body
Freezing Out Hope
Wikileaks Exposes Complicity of the Press
The corporate takeover of American schools: The trend for appointing CEOs to the top jobs is symptomatic of a declining commitment to public…
cwilcox | December 4, 2010So, I've been totally MIA lately. I want to apologize - I had two major grant application deadlined and my qualifying exams (to keep me in my PhD program) which, with their powers combined, totally ate up my free time. But that's all done, so I'm back, and will be blogging again soon!
sb admin | December 3, 2010A reminder to anyone who reads my other blog Genomes Unzipped that we have a reader survey underway there now, which includes some questions about genetic testing experiences and attitudes towards genetics. We're closing the survey to responses this weekend, so if you're an Unzipped reader but haven't had a chance to fill in the survey, please do so now.
gregladen | December 2, 2010The recount in the Minnesota Governor's race is almost done. As of yesterday evening, only five counties had counting to do. The state "canvassing board" (in charge of the recount, headed by the Secretary of State), is scheduled to meet on December 8th to resolve the recount. That may get done in one day, but is more likely to take about three days. Because there will be lawyers for both sides there and a state supreme court judge on the board who seems bent on dragging out the process (in my humble opinion).
So, how's it going? Well, in order to know how it is going, you have to know…
gregladen | December 2, 2010Looking for life zillions of miles away:
Jill Tarter on why looking for life elsewhere is good.
stoat | December 2, 2010SE has an excellent post about Validating Climate Models. It is all good, but I particularly liked
when we ask climate scientists for future projections, we're asking the question of the scientists, not of their models. The scientists will apply their judgement to select appropriate versions/configurations of the models to use, they will set up the runs, and they will interpret the results in the light of what is known about the models' strengths and weaknesses and about any gaps between the comptuational models and the current theoretical understanding. And they will add all sorts of caveats…
stoat | December 2, 2010We did it refers. Killed Linda Norgrove, that is. You can listen to Hague make excuses, if you can bear it. The foreign secretary said that with the agreement of the prime minister he had agreed to a rescue bid because of fears that Ms Norgrove's life was in "grave danger". Well yes, indeed her life was in great danger, from the Americans. Who said that yes, they did it, but since they were the Good Guys and the other side were the Bad Guys, clearly it wasn't actually their fault, it was the other guys fault.
Oddly, although Hague says "a number of soldiers had been disciplined" (not for…
gregladen | December 1, 2010
I'm fine with this. But first, remove all politicization of science funding. All of it. Stem cells anyone?
krandall | December 1, 2010By Dr. Rosalba Bonaccorsi
Environmental Scientist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute, and Gail Jacobs
Rosalba, what first sparked your interest in science?
I've always had big dreams -- even as a young girl. As soon as I started to walk, I took an interest in conducting experiments with whatever was available around such as household plants and various chemical compounds. I'm lucky I didn't end up poisoned or otherwise hurt! I remember dismantling alarm clocks. I was so curious!
As a young girl, I was in poor health and as a result spent a lot of…
pharyngula | December 1, 2010The Guardian is running a series on the Heroes and Villains of 2010, and Richard Dawkins writes up Christopher Hitchens. As a hero, of course.
stoat | November 30, 2010 Exciting news just in - its cold in Cambridgeshire. All over the UK I expect, but I haven't checked. indeed I haven't checked out all of Cambridgeshire, let alone Cambridge, but never mind I'll trust the reports. I tried putting my foot onto the snow and I can confirm: yes, it is cold. Not much snow mind: maybe 1 cm when fresh.
Cycling is fun too. I haven't come off, but then again it is dry-cold mostly in the evening coming back, and in the morning the streets at least are ice-free. Rowing this evening was distinctly chilly. Don't click on the photo to the left - its rubbish. See the Fort…