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mspringer | November 18, 2009There's a little bit of buzz burbling around over Al Gore's scientific goof during a Conan O'Brien interview. Discussing geothermal energy, he said the following:
It definitely is, and it's a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy -- when they think about it at all -- in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot ...
Of course the interior of the earth is extremely hot, but…
gregladen | November 18, 2009Wow. My internet connection was down for a few hours. Did I miss anything?
gregladen | November 17, 2009I'm writing an academic article and I have writers block. Lets see ... what shall I do....
Need a sentence for your latest article? Write one here! Just select a word or phrase from each drop-down list and click "Write It."
So I did that and came up with:
The eroticization of the gaze recapitulates the engendering of power/knowledge.
Perfect! Never mind that the paper is about mole rats. This is perfect..
Try it yourself.
Hat tip Digital Rabbit
cortex | November 17, 2009Bill Belichick has never been the most popular coach in the NFL, but his Sunday night decision to go for it on 4th and 2 on his own 28 with two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter has even his fans crying foul. I bring up this football decision not because I'm interested in a debate - as a Pats fan, the last five minutes of that game were excruciating - but because I think it illustrates the difficulty of making rational decisions, even when the evidence supports the call.
I've blogged about the research of UC Berkeley economist David Romer before, but his basic thesis, based on an…
gregladen | November 17, 2009I never realized that George Bush had such a bald-fetish until I saw THIS.
Follow the money
Fully automatic cute fuzzy thing.
cortex | November 17, 2009Success is intimidating. When we compete against someone who's supposed to be better than us, we start to get nervous, and then we start to worry, and then we start to make stupid mistakes. That, at least, is the lesson of a new working paper by Jennifer Brown, a professor at the Kellogg school.
Brown demonstrated this psychological flaw by analyzing data from every player in every PGA tournament from 1999 to 2006. The reason she chose golf is that Tiger Woods is an undisputed superstar, the most intimidating competitor in modern sports. (In 2007, Golf Digest noted that Woods finished with 19…
gregladen | November 16, 2009Guy Jumps Off Pier To Save Dog
"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you're providing support for a lifetime."
Logical Fallacies and How to Spot Them
grrlscientist | November 16, 2009I am leaving on Thursday (19 November), and still have a mountain of books to give away. I could give them to NYPL or I could give them to you (if you pay postage). I prefer to give them to you, but you have to act quickly because I have tons of things I need to take care of before I leave. I'll give you 24 hours to (1) claim the book in comments below (so everyone knows the book is claimed), and then (2) you MUST send me your mailing address via email. If you don't do both things, I will take all the unclaimed books to NYPL to add to their fund-raising book auction. I am really stressed out…
agelman | November 16, 2009The other day I commented on an article by Peter Bancel and Roger Nelson that reported evidence that "the coherent attention or emotional response of large populations" can affect the output of quantum-mechanical random number generators.
I was pretty dismissive of the article; in fact elsewhere I gave my post the title, "Some ESP-bashing red meat for you ScienceBlogs readers out there."
Dr. Bancel was pointed to my blog and felt I wasn't giving the full story. I'll give his comments and then at the end add some thoughts of my own. Bancel wrote:
I find it disappointing that a Columbia…
gregladen | November 16, 2009The Blog Carnival Scientia Pro Publica # 16 is up and running here, at Sharp Brains.
Braaaains!!!! Braaaiins!!!
gregladen | November 16, 2009The first is in virtual space, the second is in meat space. Both are cool.
In virtual space, Seed Magazine and Scienceblogs.com are doing the bloggy thing, and have a set of closely related interesting items for you to read. Honestly, I would really appreciate it if you would have a look at this stuff. It is hard to build an audience in new blog space, and this is good stuff and I don't want you to miss it.
Here is the list:
Into Uncanny Valley: New findings shed light on a century's worth of bizarre explanations for the eerie feeling we get around lifelike robots. An article in Seed…
cortex | November 16, 2009The WSJ discovers the unreliability of wine critics, citing the fascinating statistical work of Robert Hodgson:
In his first study, each year, for four years, Mr. Hodgson served actual panels of California State Fair Wine Competition judges--some 70 judges each year--about 100 wines over a two-day period. He employed the same blind tasting process as the actual competition. In Mr. Hodgson's study, however, every wine was presented to each judge three different times, each time drawn from the same bottle.
The results astonished Mr. Hodgson. The judges' wine ratings typically varied by ±4…
edyong | November 15, 2009Hi folks,
A couple of housekeeping issues:
ScienceBlogs have developed a set of funky widgets that allow you to share the headlines from your favourite blogs on other websites. You can find the one for Not Exactly Rocket Science here - just click Share, and then Install outside Netvibes.
The deadline is looming for this year's Open Laboratory compilation of the science blogosphere's best offerings. If any posts in this blog have tickled your fancy, stretched your brain or stoked your loins (heaven forbid, but there are some strange people on the internet), submit them for consideration…
stoat | November 15, 2009Just to show how ecumenical I am, I agree with (most of) RP Sr's post Comment On News Article On Weather Modification Titled ""Playing With Weather Stirs Debate In China". Which basically says "stop being such a bunch of credulous bozos".
I reviewed that "Human Impacts on Weather and Climate" for Weather, once, you know.