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gregladen | November 30, 2015I thought I'd share this update from the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
We have much to be grateful for at CSLDF – this year, we became an independent 501(c)(3) organization, provided legal services to 30+ researchers, and took on some of the worst groups attacking climate scientists. Thank you for your support! We truly couldn’t have done it without you.
Unfortunately, assaults on climate scientists continue. Most notably, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has launched an investigation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), claiming that NOAA “alters data to get the…
gregladen | November 25, 2015Here we look mainly at bird books, but I wanted to also mention a couple of other items on non-birds. I've mixed in some new books along with a few other books that have come out over the last couple of years, but that are still very current, very amazing books, and since they have been out for a while, may in some cases be picked up used or otherwise less expensively.
Let's start with the least-bird like book, one that will be a must have for anyone traveling to or studying Africa. This is The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals: Second edition. This is a newly produced edition of this…
gregladen | November 25, 2015I mention a couple of kids books in my overviews on Fossil and Evolution Books and Books about Climate Change. Here are a few excellent science and computer programming (aka coding) books for kids.
Geology book for kids
The Incredible Plate Tectonics Comic: The Adventures of Geo, Vol. 1 is a good stab at making a comic that teaches some science.
We follow the adventures of Geo and his robotic dog, Rocky as the visit the ancient supercontinent of Pangea. This journey is pursuant to Geo's upcoming test in his geology class.
What is the center of the Earth made out of? How do volcanoes work?…
jrosenhouse | November 25, 2015I'm currently working out of my New Jersey office, which is to say that I'm visiting my family for Thanksgiving. But if you're looking for a little light reading, try this short post by Andy Borowitz at The New Yorker:
Many Americans are tired of explaining things to idiots, particularly when the things in question are so painfully obvious, a new poll indicates.
According to the poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, while millions have been vexed for some time by their failure to explain incredibly basic information to dolts, that frustration has now…
jrosenhouse | November 20, 2015Colleges and universities have been in the news lately. This has been for a variety of reasons, some good, some silly, some bad. Hanging it over it all, however, is something that's bothering me. We'll come to that shortly.
Let's start with the good. Threats and “fighting words” are not protected speech. Shouting the N word at a group of black students is plainly a threat, so I have no problem taking measures against it. This is what was going on at the University of Missouri. There were frequent, threatening racist incidents with nothing being done about them. So congratulations to…
gregladen | November 19, 2015In 1817, Karl August Weinhold had a go at a real-life Frankenstein's monster -- only in his version he uses a cat. The German scooped out the brain and spinal cord of a recently dead cat. He then pured a molten mixture of zinc and silver into the skull and spinal cavity. He was attempting to make the two metals work like an electric pile, or battery, inside the unfortunate cate, replacing the electrical of the nerves. Weinhold reported that the cat was revived momentarily by the currents and stood up and stretched in a rather robotic fashion!
It's Alive!!!!
Weinhold's reanimated cat was…
gregladen | November 19, 2015Albert Einstein finished up his General Theory of Relativity in November, 1915, 100 years ago. Because we use Base 10, this is significant.
General Relativity ties together curvature in spacetime with the energy and momentum of matter and radiation. This has a lot to do with gravity. Einstein himself wrote the book on General Relativity, but it has been covered in a lot of other places as well, including a recent treatment by historian of science Tom Levenson, The Hunt for Vulcan: ... And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe.
Nature…
gregladen | November 18, 2015Mike Haubrich and I are developing a science oriented podcasting effort. It will be called "Ikonokast" (all the good names, like "The New York Times" and "Apple" were taken). We decided to enhance the podcast with a WordPress based blog site, perhaps with each page representing one podcast, and containing backup and supplementary information.
Here is the site, set up and running.
After considering our options, we decided to try using a Digital Ocean "Droplet" to host a WordPress blog. Here, I want to tell you how that went, and give a few pointers. This might be a good idea for some of…
jrosenhouse | November 16, 2015Sunday Chess Problem is taking the week off. But in other sporting news, Holly Holm defeated Ronda Rousey in their big fight on Saturday.
I've been a casual MAA fan for a while, and I like Ronda Rousey, so I actually bought the Pay-Per-View to watch the fight. Now, the thing about fighters is that they seem unbeatable right up until someone beats them. Chuck Liddell was untouchable for several years, then Quinton Jackson knocked him out. Anderson Silva was embarrassing everyone he faced, until he got too cocky against Chris Weidman. Then Weidman won the rematch too. Now it's Rousey's…
jrosenhouse | November 14, 2015I've started reading Michael Ruse's book Atheism: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press earlier this year. Ruse is a philosopher at Florida State University, but he has turned himself into something of a crackpot over the last ten years. He's edited two books with ID proponent Bill Dembski, has picked foolish fights with his colleagues, and has engaged in laughably over-the-top rhetoric towards the New Atheists. Most memorably, he once said in an interview: “And this is why I think the New Atheists are a disaster, a danger to the wellbeing of America comparable…
gregladen | November 11, 2015We have to stop making new veterans, especially VFWs, but until we do we should honor them for their service.
Huxley's grandpa, who served in the Navy in the Asian theater during Viet Nam, is stopping by Huxley's school today for a flag raising ceremony. I'm always on the fence when dealing with issues of patriotism in child raising. My family is not big on American Exceptionalism, and jingoistic patriotism is part of that. But honoring vets is fine. Of course, I had to explain to Huxley what a "veteran" was, and that opened a whole can of worms. It is rather amazing what kids put…
jrosenhouse | November 8, 2015My new issue of Chess Life showed up in the mail, and it included coverage of the Sinquefield Cup from this summer. (Chess Life has a long lead time). Anyway, in the game between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, Nakamura played the Queen's Gambit Declined as black. He was very lucky to draw the game. Nakamura is better known for playing very aggressive openings like the King's Indian and Dutch; the cramped maneuvering of the QGD is less well-fitted to his style. Commenting on the game, Gary Kasparov recommended that Nakamura stop playing the QGD. He said, “At least if you lose with…
jrosenhouse | November 2, 2015The eight Problem Of the Week has now been posted, along with a solution to last week's problem. Enjoy!
jrosenhouse | November 2, 2015Yes, granted, it's actually Monday. But it was only a technical glitch that kept me from posting this yesterday, so it still counts as Sunday Chess Problem!
We're going to stick with endgame studies for this week. This one was composed by a fellow named Seletsky in 1933. It's white to play and win:
That's a lot of firepower on an open board! At first blush it seems that white's only advantage is his passed pawn on d7. But that little fellow is firmly under control. It turns out, though, that white has a mating attack. He will have to sacrifice his pawn, bishop, and queen to bring…
jrosenhouse | October 30, 2015Since I didn't have any grading this time, and since Republicans are harder to listen to than Democrats (and remember, I used to spend hours at a time listening to Creationists), I couldn't bring myself to watch the entirety of the recent Republican debate. I kept flipping back and forth between it and game two of the World Series (which, as a Mets fan, was also hard to watch.) But I saw enough of it to form a few impressions.
The first is that the CNBC folks absolutely disgraced themselves. They all need to go home and resign. I actually briefly cheered Ted Cruz, for heaven's sake, when…
gregladen | October 30, 2015I don't have anything to say right now about the flooding in Texas. But I am watching, and learning, and paying attention to various sources.
But, for now, you've got to see this:
jrosenhouse | October 28, 2015If you spend any time talking to ID folks, you know that they are very touchy about being called creationists. As they see it, the creationists have been so incompetent in making their case, and so extreme in their religious views, that they discredit the cause of anti-evolutionism every time they open their mouths.
For this reason, they are endlessly differentiating themselves from the creationists. The script is always the same: Whereas creationists discuss science through the lens of their religious beliefs, ID folks are just honestly trying to come to the conclusions best justified by…
jdupuis | October 28, 2015My library is hosting a Ada Lovelace Day event tomorrow (ok, a little late...). Continuing in a tradition of having Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, we're hosting our own Wikipedia Women in Science Edit-a-thon!
I've been doing a fair bit of reading over the last couple of years about Wikipedia culture and especially how it relates to the under-representation of women both as editors and as subjects of articles. So I thought I'd share some of my readings here with all of you.
Of course, this list is in no way comprehensive or complete. I welcome suggestions for further readings in the…
jrosenhouse | October 26, 2015The latest Problem of the Week has now been posted. This one (and next week's as well) involve calculus. Fun!
gregladen | October 26, 2015Here's a question for you: Historical records show that another pandemic will occur, but no one knows when. How do we create a mind shift among world leaders and people in general to start planning for the next one now?
This question is being posed in connection with the series premiere of National Geographic's "Fighting Pandemics" (November 1 at 9 pm ET on National Geographic Channel). The question is about pandemics, but the inspiration for the series, and the question, is the recent ebola pandemic in West Africa. I have a few thoughts, and I've been thinking about Ebola for a long time…