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gregladen | October 21, 2014Sins of Our Fathers, by Shaw Otto, is coming out shortly but can be preordered.
JW, protagonist, is a flawed hero. He is not exactly an anti-hero because he is not a bad guy, though one does become annoyed at where he places his values. As his character unfolds in the first several chapters of Shawn Otto's novel, Sins of Our Fathers, we like him, we are worried about him, we wonder what he is thinking, we sit on the edge of our proverbial seats as he takes risk after risk and we are sitting thusly because we learn that he does not have a rational concept of risk. We learn that his inner…
gregladen | October 21, 2014Parrots are smarter than Nebo the dog
"Nebo."
The dog's name came from the direction of the enclosed front porch of the tin-roofed concrete block home of my friend Bwana Ndege, in Isiro, Zaire.
"Nebo."
It sounded like an older woman, a somewhat crackly voice, insistent.
"Nebo. Kuya. Nebo."
The old woman was calling the dog, in Swahili. Nebo, sleeping at first on the cool concrete floor under the dining room table startled awake, ears scanning. Nebo was a large Doberman who had never learned that one-man one-dog thing. He was gentle. And listening carefully.
"Nebo." Louder, more…
gregladen | October 18, 2014How many lakes are there? We don't actually know. Lakes are often undercounted, or small lakes ignored, in larger scale geophysical surveys. It is hard to count the small lakes, or in some cases, even to define them. A recent study (published in Geophysical Research Letters) examines this question. We want to know how many lakes there are, and how much surface area they take up, in order to understand better the global Carbon cycle (and for other reasons). From the Abstract of this study:
An accurate description of the abundance and size distribution of lakes is critical to quantifying…
gregladen | October 16, 2014Atlantic Hurricane Gonzalo is a Major Hurricane, Category 3 at the moment, and it is heading towards Bermuda. The storm will weaken a little bit before getting there but it will still be major. This is a significant event. It is possible that a storm surge of about 10 feet could occur there. Gonzales will be very near Bermuda in by Friday Evening, and past it by Saturday morning.
Interestingly, Gonzalo is expected to remain a hurricane strength storm (though it may be called a "post-tropical cyclone" it will still have sustained winds at hurricane level) as it passes the Canadian…
gregladen | October 16, 2014Given the current and developing situation in Dallas, where two health workers have become infected with Ebola while caring for a patient, it is reasonable to ask if health workers might decide to call in sick for a few months until this whole highly infectious often fatal disease thing blows over. Daniel Barnett, of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has looked into health workers’ unwillingness to report to work when there is a potential for infectious-disease transmission to themselves and their family members.
The…
gregladen | October 16, 2014Apply for an all-expenses-paid eight-day raft trip down the Grand Canyon with the National Center for Science Education! Winners will receive free airfare, lodging before and after the trip, and the trip of a lifetime, exploring the wonders of Grand Canyon with a team of scientists, educators, and science fans. The application form is at the bottom of the page, but please review this information on eligibility, requirements, and what to expect from the trip before submitting an application.
Apply here
gregladen | October 16, 2014Peter Sinclair has done some nice work to clarify the famous Methane Bomb thing.
Briefly, the Methane Bomb is where methane trapped on the floor of the Arctic ocean gets out in large quantities because it is warm. This makes more warming. So, more of this Methane comes out, causing it to get warmer, then this cycle keeps up for a while and in short order civilization collapses and we all die.
It turns out that the science DOES NOT SUPPORT A METHANE BOMB OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. It just doesn't. Unfortunately this has become a point of contention among people who are truly, seriously,…
gregladen | October 15, 2014Monday, the 20th, I'll be in Saint Cloud. More information here.
Details:
On October 20,2014 the Central Minnesota Freethinkers are proud to present a program by Greg Laden, noted writer about climate change, evolution, science education and more at National Geographic, Science Blogs and other venues. His presentation will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall in St. Cloud at 7:00. The admission is free and the program is open to all who wish to attend.
While trained as a biological anthropologist and archeologist and having research experience at many locations in the…
carlyo | October 15, 2014Nearly 800 volunteers and exhibitors brought the Lockheed Martin 2014 USA Science & Engineering Festival pavilion to life last April 25-27, including more than 40 hands-on demonstrations from across the corporation in the areas of nanotechnology, data analytics, robotics, energy, advanced aeronautics, and scientific discovery.
A photo album is available online here, where you will see participants, young and old, flying cockpit simulators, trying on Antarctica cold weather gear, building and flying gliders, learning about 3D printing, and enjoying the many others activities in our…
gregladen | October 14, 2014I might.
This is a preliminary look, based just on the web site and some tweets with the developer, of the imp (all lower case), a small computer somewhere in technology and power, perhaps, between a Raspberry pi (which is mainly a hobbiest toy) and the Intel Nuk (which is sort of a non-Mac Mac Mini). It is called by its makers "The Open Source Computer: Made for consumers." It is a Linux-installed device, as is your smart phone and, well, the entire Internet. So the technology is well tested at that level.
The imp team describes it this way:
imp is a small, yet powerful computer designed…
gregladen | October 14, 2014Live blogging.
Dr. Tom Frieden talking.
Don't say "hand in glove!"
What the are doing in Dallas:
1) Site manager on the site in Dallas every hour of the day, checking protective gear use.
2) Enhanced training, including by experienced nurses with Ebola experience.
3) Limit number of care staff so they can be more expert.
Have been hearing concern from health care workers everywhere, working to minimize concerns.
Working to prepare all nurses and docs in all ER's to ID Ebola, asking "where have you been in the past month/21 days"
Infections more likely to spread from someone not…
gregladen | October 12, 2014Science Online was an amazing annual unconference that started a few years back and grew and became part of the reshaping of public communication about science. This year, the people running the conference started out with the plan to move the conference to a new venue, Atlanta, and last week abruptly announced that the conference would not happen and the ScienceOnline organization would be shut down. Those who paid the registration fee would be refunded.
A few science writers and bloggers are writing about how great ScienceOnline was and how much it will be missed, and some are providing a…
jrosenhouse | October 12, 2014If you're in the mood, go have a look at the new Problem of the Week. It's a Shakespeare-themed alphametic this week, with bonus sonnet! It's a bit more challenging than last week's problem (a solution to which has now been posted at the above link), but still doable if you look at it right. So give it a shot!
Incidentally, just to clarify a point that was raised in the comments to last week's POTW, in working out problems of this sort it is taken for granted that the first digit of a number cannot be 0. So, keep that in mind.
jrosenhouse | October 12, 2014The Spetember 2014 issue of The Problemist showed up in my mailbox this week. That's the official magazine of the British Chess Problem Society, as I'm sure you're aware. It included the problem below. It's one of those delightful compositions that makes you wish you had thought it of it yourself. It was composed by Ladislav Packa in 2012. White to move and mate in three:
White certainly has overwhelming force! The problem is that black is very close to being stalemated. For example, after a waiting move like 1. Bc2, we might have 1. ... hxg5 2. Rxg5,
but white won't get to…
gregladen | October 10, 2014This is an endorsement by Climate Hawks Vote, which I support.
Climate Hawks Vote announces endorsements of two Michigan Democrats: Paul Clements for Congress in Michigan’s Sixth District, and Gary Peters for Senate, because the Koch brothers and Big Oil need to stop using Michigan’s shores as a dumping ground for their pollution and Michigan’s politicians for their agenda.
Paul Clements is challenging none other than Fred Upton, chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee - these days, the House Big Oil Lackey Committee. As the face of Big Oil, Upton was named the number one enemy of…
jrosenhouse | October 9, 2014Recently I discussed an essay by David Barash that appeared in The New York Times. Barash discussed a talk he gives to his animal behavior class about evolution and religion. More specifically, he explains why, in his view, evolution and religion are just incompatible. I mostly agreed with the substantive points that he made, but disagreed that such a talk was appropriate. Opening your class by attacking the religious beliefs of your students does not seem like good pedagogy to me.
The Times has now published multiple letters to the editors regarding Barash's talk. Incredibly, all of…
gregladen | October 8, 2014UPDATE: They killed the dog.
UPDATE: I'm adding this here because it is my current post on Ebola. Thomas Eric Duncan, the person who became symptomatic with Ebola in Dallas, had died at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital (according to news alerts).
A nurse's assistant in Spain caring for Spanish nationals returned with Ebola from West Africa contracted the disease, gaining the dubious distinction of being the first person to be infected with Ebola outside of that disease's normal range in West Africa, Central Africa and western East Africa. There is speculation that she contracted the…
jrosenhouse | October 7, 2014I have written before about my admiration for Bill Maher. I think he is generally one of the funniest and most insightful commentators on American culture and politics, and I rarely miss his show on Friday night. Sometimes he goes south, as with his views on vaccination, and sometimes he goes for cheap jokes based on crude stereotypes, but I don't require perfection out of the people I admire.
On last week's show Maher got into it with Ben Affleck on the subject of Islam. Click here to see the video of the segment. Now, as much as I like Maher's show, and as much as I think he does a…
gregladen | October 7, 2014Last Sunday, I interviewed climate scientist Michael Mann on Atheist Talk Radio. I do occasional interviews there on science related topics (see this list of previous shows).
You can listen to the interview here:
Play Now
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Minnesota Atheists for giving me the opportunity to do these science interviews, which are admittedly different from the usual topics covered by the show.
Prior to the show, I wrote a post indicating that we would be doing this interview, noting that people were welcome to past questions I might ask Mann during the interview. I…