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cortex | February 15, 2010Mark Bittman wonders if soda is the new tobacco, and explores the possibility of a tax on sugary, carbonated beverages:
A tax on soda was one option considered to help pay for health care reform (the Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that a 3-cent tax on each 12-ounce sugared soda would raise $51.6 billion over a decade), and President Obama told Men's Health magazine last fall that such a tax is "an idea that we should be exploring. There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda."
But with all the junk food and U.F.O.'s (unidentifiable food-like objects) out there, why soda? Why…
cortex | February 15, 2010In the latest New York Review of Books, Charles Petersen has an interesting and even-handed analysis of Facebook and social networking:
What many find most enticing about Facebook is the steady stream of updates from "friends," new and old, which sociologists refer to as "ambient awareness." This is not a new phenomenon: everyone from our Cro-Magnon ancestors to Jane Austen has known how it feels to be surrounded by the constant chatter of other people. Facebook's continuing attraction comes from its ability to reduce the Internet's worldwide chatter to the size of a college, or a village, or…
gregladen | February 14, 2010Don't forget:
Meal and Reel, Feb 19, Creation w/special guest Greg Laden at Edina Cinema
We have established a plan: The Great Wall at 6:00, the movie is at the theater, about one mile to the south at 7:20. So, arriving at the restaurant in a timely fashion, and ordering right away is essential. There will be a section of the theater blocked off for us. Thanks to Jack Caravela for organizing this.
Details here
gregladen | February 14, 2010Please visit JH's site for an interesting post on C:\ drives and an ensuing spirited discussion.
agelman | February 14, 2010Elissa Brown sends these in. They're actually pretty good, with a quite reasonable Ogden-Nash-style rhythm and a certain amount of statistical content. It's good to know that the kids today are learning useful skills in their graduate programs.
You are perfect; I'd make no substitutions
You remind me of my favorite distributions
With a shape and a scale that I find reliable
You're as comforting as a two parameter Weibull
When I ask you a question and hope you answer truly
You speak as clearly as a draw from a Bernoulli
Your love of adventure is most influential
Just like the constant hazard…
gregladen | February 14, 2010
Forget flying cars. I want a waterproof home!
Bad things that can happen to you.
The Hello World computer programming collection.
gregladen | February 14, 2010Yes, Amanda's birthday happens to be Valentine's Day! (The holiday, not the movie)
gregladen | February 14, 2010A slew of bad spam has been showing up (most of which you've not seen because I've been busy deleting it) but I've cranked the moderation sensitivity up.
If your comment gets held in moderation, that is likely the reason. I'm sure things will settled down soon.
grrlscientist | February 13, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is almost here once more and it is still seeking submissions for tomorrow's edition of this blog carnival! Can you help by sending URLs for well-written blog essays to me?
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.
The most…
jwilbanks | February 13, 2010I'll start my final post on the Tech4Society conference by giving thanks to the Ashoka folks for getting me here to be a part of this conference. Most of the time, even in the developing world, I'm surrounded by digital natives, or people who emigrated to the digital nation. It's an enveloping culture, one that can skew the perception of the world to one where everyone worries about things like copyrights and licenses, and whether or not data should be licensed or in the public domain.
There's a big world of entrepreneurs out there just hacking in the real world. First life, if you will.…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is almost here once more and it is still seeking submissions for Monday's edition of this blog carnival! Can you help by sending URLs for well-written blog essays to me?
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing targeted specifically to the public that has been published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days.
The most…
gregladen | February 13, 2010For Darwin's Birthday Weekend, a reposting of my review of David Dobb's Reef Madness:
Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral is a book about the origins of modern science, the interplay between theory and empiricism, the machinations of the Victorian scientific gentry, epic rivalries, polyps and plankton.
Reef Madness is by David Dobbs, of Neuron Culture here on Scienceblogs. Look for an upcoming Bloggingheads.tv discussion between David and me, mainly about this book.
This is a book about the competing theories presented by Alexander Agassiz and Charles…
gregladen | February 13, 2010This is Darwin's Birthday Weekend. The following posts review and reflect on the Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin. If you've not read it, you should. If you won't, that's OK, just read these:
The Voyage of the Beagle
Darwin Crossing The Atlantic
Charles Darwin and the Rain Forest
Darwin Gets his Wellies Wet
South America on Five Dollars a Day
Darwin South of the Tropics
Darwin and The Gauchos
Fossil Quadrupeds
Rheas and the Birth of Evolutionary Theory
Elephants and Horses
gregladen | February 13, 2010This weekend we are celebrating Charles Darwin's birthday. Here are a few items you may enjoy reading and reflecting on:
Pagel on Darwin
Why didn't Darwin discover Mendel's laws?
Reflections on the Origin of Species
tlambert | February 12, 2010A couple of blog posts from people who were there
Carmen Lambert (my totally unbiased coach).
Mercurius.
And lucia and co did a chat while watching the live feed.
Update: James Annan thought estimating sensitivity from the last Ice Age was a good idea. Not surprisingly since I got the idea from him.
And Andrew Bolt responds to the debate by defaming me, calling me "vituperative, deceptive, a cherrypicker, an ideologue, a misrepresenter and a Manichean conspiracist only too keen to smear a sceptic as a crook who lies for Exxon's dollars".
Update 2: There seems to be a shortage of…