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gregladen | September 11, 2010Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation's success by its productivity -- instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn't have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.
jwilbanks | September 10, 2010Last month I was on Dr. Kiki's Science Hour. Besides being a lot of fun (despite my technical problems, which were part of my recent move to GNU/Linux and away from Mac!), I also discovered that at least one person I went to high school with is a fan of Dr. Kiki, because he told everyone about the show at my recent high school reunion. Good stuff.
In the show, I did my usual rant about the web being built for documents, not for data. And that got me a great question by email. I wrote a long answer that I decided was a better blog post than anything else. Here goes.
Although I'm familiar with…
gregladen | September 10, 2010Really. If a dam is not an important current hydroelectric source, why not remove it next time it needs major renovation? Oh, and if you live downstream, move.
That's my idea for World Rivers Day which is traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday in September. I'll be at the river! Here's the details.
cwilcox | September 9, 2010So, Shark Diver set out a challenge for Ocean of Pseudoscience Week that I simply had to look into. He wanted to know whether there's any science backing the notion that Bull Sharks, Carcharhinus leucas, have extraordinarily high testosterone levels and might thus be usable as a source for legally obtainable steroids - an idea, apparently, started by some video game.
The rumor, as I'd heard it, is that the fierce attitudes of these large and aggressive sharks is due to unfathomably high circulating levels of testosterone. Specifically, these menacing monsters supposedly have higher serum…
gregladen | September 9, 2010Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
dolittle | September 9, 2010In a recent issue of Science magazine, researchers Li et al., were able to determine the plumage color of an extinct non-avian theropod dinosaur. This was possible due to the presence of melanin-containing melanosomes, which were preserved in the fossilized feathers. The fossilized remains were from a Jurassic troodontid, Anchiornis huxleyi, an ancestor of Archaeopteryx and modern birds. The presence of colored feather patterns in a bird prior to the evolution of true flight, suggests that feather coloration may have evolved for reproductive or communication purposes.
Click here for more…
gregladen | September 9, 2010The Institute for Creation "Research" moved from California to Texas a few years ago in part, it is believed, to set up a masters program for teachers in life sciences. I'm guessing they figured they could get Texas to certify a bogus Masters program more easily than California. They did make some progress, but it went to court, and just recently they lost that case and had to give up on the idea.
Subsequently, they've pulled another rabbit out of the hat: A degree in "Christian Apologetics" which would serve a similar purpose as the Creationist MA (and it would have a "Creation 'Science…
gregladen | September 9, 2010Live from Skeptrack at Dragon*Con, we talk to the women of skepticism about the contributions they're making to science and critical thinking.
In this episode:
Panelists: Kylie Sturgess of The Token Skeptic, Robynn "Swoopy" McCarthy of Skepticality, and Heidi Anderson and Jenna Marie Griffith of SheThought.
Live on September 10th, as a podcast Sunday. Details here.
gregladen | September 9, 2010The U.S. Army honors soldiers wounded or killed in combat with the Purple Heart, a powerful symbol designed to recognize their sacrifice and service.
Yet Army commanders have routinely denied Purple Hearts to soldiers who have sustained concussions in Iraq, despite regulations that make such wounds eligible for the medal, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found.
gregladen | September 9, 2010Technically, Igor is no longer a tropical storm, but the National Hurricane Center had decided to let Igor keep it's Tropical Storm Symbol and that status that goes along with that for the rest of the day. If Igor shapes up and gets its act in gear, then, well, we'll see.
Igor is in the vicinity of Cape Verde and is expected to move west or west/northwest through an area with conditions very favorable to hurricane development. By the end of the coming weekend, Igor is expected to be a respectable hurricane. Indeed, this may be one to keep an eye on.
Meanwhile, there is a nasty bit of…
gregladen | September 9, 2010Rachel Sussman shows photographs of the world's oldest continuously living organisms -- from 2,000-year-old brain coral off Tobago's coast to an "underground forest" in South Africa that has lived since before the dawn of agriculture.
cwilcox | September 9, 2010Sure, the field days sound exciting and magical, don't they? So, of course, it's hard not to want to paint the picture that that is what it's like to be a marine biologist. But I don't get to do that kind of work often. Here's an average day in my life, a work day, is like:
5:30 am Wake up. Roll over, look at the clock, curse loudly. Try to sleep a little longer.
6:00 am Alarm goes off. More cursing.
6:15 am Manage to stumble out of bed, clean myself up, and get dressed.
7:00 am First, read e-mail. Second, check facebook. Third, check comments and such on ScienceBlogs. Fourth, read the…
dolittle | September 8, 2010Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell is a Stanford University professor whose research focuses on how elephant vocalizations travel through the ground for great distances, and how other elephants can understand them, just as they understand acoustic sound, which travels through the air. O'Connell-Rodwell is the author of The Elephant's Secret Sense. You can see videos of some of the elephant communication experiments she describes in the podcast on her Utopia Scientific site. The links to the videos are on this page.
Early in her research, O'Connell-Rodwell noticed behavior that indicates elephants…
cwilcox | September 7, 2010Graduate Student. Marine Biologist. Science Blogger.
I put on a lot of hats in my daily life, and the end result is that when someone asks me what I do for a living, I usually want to answer "I'm a Marine Biologist." Sounds good, doesn't it? Recently I've had a few people ask to interview me, and when I agree they all ask what it is like to be me. A Marine Biologist! It sounds so exciting! So...what do you do, anyway?
Truth is, what I do depends a lot on what day it is. There are class days - those are fairly self-explanitory. There are work days, which make up the majority of my daily life.…
kcollins | September 7, 2010Shout out to CrazyEngineers for a recent interview with Festival Director Larry Bock
Larry Bock - Celebrating Science & Engineering
CEans,
Mr. Larry Bock is the Founder of Nanosys Inc. He is a General Partner of CW Ventures, a $100M life sciences venture capital fund, and a Special Limited Partner to Lux Capital a $100M nanotechnology-focused venture capital fund. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of FEI Corporation (NASDAQ: FEIC), the leading supplier of tools for nanotechnology research. He has found and/or grown about 4 dozen companies. He is the inspiration behind the most…
pharyngula | September 6, 2010Here's a little chat with the president of the Montana tea party, Tim Ravndal:
Dennis Scranton: "I think fruits are decorative. Hang up where they can be seen and appreciated. Call Wyoming for display instructions."
Tim Ravndal: "@Kieth, OOPS I forgot this aint(sic) America no more! @ Dennis, Where can I get that Wyoming printed instruction manual?"
Ravndal has since been ousted. Don't joke about murdering gays where the liberals might notice!
cwilcox | September 5, 2010The sea is a dark and often mysterious place, and it's no wonder that the fear and fascination with the marine world has led to more than a few inaccurate claims. The crew over at Southern Fried Science have decided that this week is all about busting pseudoscience and the myths that surround our ocean realm. As it turns out, I'd posted about one of these before. So here, in honor of Ocean of Pseudoscience week, is a repost busting the myth that sharks don't get cancer.
There are a lot of myths out there about the marine world, but by far the one that bothers me the most is the notion that…
gregladen | September 5, 2010
I just thought I'd put this up on Jaf's recommendation as an example of a non-dirty campaign ad. Substance free, perhaps, but at least it's not smear. Read Jaf's update on the Minnesota Campaigns and their ads.
As Jaf points out, Bruce Kennedy was such a nice guy, and Minnesotans are so nice, that Kennedy, when running for office, had to make his own attack ads against himself. Like this one:
And this one:
gregladen | September 5, 2010In the Gulf oil spill's aftermath, Lisa Margonelli says drilling moratoriums and executive ousters make for good theater, but distract from the issue at its heart: our unrestrained oil consumption. She shares her bold plan to wean America off of oil -- by confronting consumers with its real cost.