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gregladen | August 6, 2009On this day in 1945 ...
The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
President Harry S Truman, announcing the news from the cruiser, USS Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date.
An accurate assessment of the damage caused has so far been impossible due to a huge cloud of impenetrable dust covering the target. Hiroshima is one of the chief supply depots for the Japanese army.
The bomb was dropped from an American B-29 Superfortress, known as Enola Gay, at…
pharyngula | August 6, 2009Sam Harris wrote a recent op-ed in the New York Times criticizing the nomination of Francis Collins to head the NIH. As you all know, newspapers limit the amount of space you can have, so that was the very limited version — he has now posted a lengthy critique of Collins on the Reason Project.
gregladen | August 5, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
gregladen | August 5, 2009Ginny Barbour, Part 5: Open Access, Achievements and Looking Forward from PLoS on Vimeo.
Hat Tip: ABATC
gregladen | August 5, 2009... Over the Dead."
"Hey, you can be so stupid sometimes," chimed in another of the guys. "That's a monkey tooth. I'm sure of it. Of course, how would you know, since you've never been close to a monkey!"
At Quiche Moraine
gregladen | August 5, 2009 Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis .... in her brentwood home, on this day in 1962. She was 36 years old.
A concerned housekeeper called doctors to the scene, who were forced to break into her bedroom. This was in the days when you could call a doctor to the scene, and no special group of people (like fire fighters) was particularly well trained or equipped to break into someone's bedroom .... people were kinda generalists in this area back then.
Read more here.
razib | August 5, 2009New rankings of Wikio Top Blogs for Science are up....
1
Wired Science - Wired Blog
11
Next Generation Science
2
Watts Up With That?
12
RealClimate
3
Climate Progress
13
FuturePundit
4
Environmental Capital
14
A Blog Around The Clock
5
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
15
Greg Laden's Blog
6
TierneyLab - New York Times blog
16
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted
7
Gristmill
17
Gene Expression
8
Respectful Insolence
18
Cognitive Daily
9
Effect Measure
19
Uncertain Principles
10
The Frontal Cortex
20
BPS Research Digest
Ranking by Wikio.
grrlscientist | August 5, 2009tags: Antarctica, humor, funny, streaming video
My friend, Richard Carter, made this very sweet little video to help publicize my desire to go to Antarctica as your official penguin whisperer [0:33]
Please vote for me to go to Antarctica as your official blogger.
jwilbanks | August 5, 2009I was in a roundtable yesterday talking about Health IT with a bunch of very smart people in the bay area. It was sort of a briefing of ourselves and others about the real issues underpinning what it would take to generate real disruptive innovation in health technology and health costs. The vast majority of the conversation centered on payment reform, which is outside my ambit.
But we did spend some time talking about health data standards, and the problem of getting standards that are so geared to the existing market-dominant companies that they actually froze out new market entrants. My…
mspringer | August 5, 2009Reader Scott writes in with a question:
Okay, let's assume something knocked the moon out of its orbit and it is going to crash into the earth in an arbitrary amount of time. (7 days?)
You are humanity's last hope. You have the entire nuclear salvos of the USA and Russia at your disposal, which are being fitted to be capable of being launched into outer space and to reach the moon at another arbitrary rate. Your goal is to knock the moon back onto its original orbit by striking it from the side in such a way that will redirect its net force back to a position that will result in the moon…
grrlscientist | August 4, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 3642 - 1902 - 1484 - 1281 - 1113 out of 411 candidates registered. I am now in fourth place so I need your votes more than ever to recapture first place, so please ask your friends and relatives to vote for me now!
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree that I am…
gregladen | August 4, 2009The Forest County Potawatomi Community have been very involved in environmental activism both within their own community and more broadly. They helped curtail environmentally destructive mining at Crandon Mine. They got their reservation registered as a Class I zone under the Clean Air Act and have pressured the Bush EPA to stand by Class I rules. The tribe funds research in metal and other pollutants. And, they now have a web site called "End global warming Wisconsin" which you can visit here.
mspringer | August 4, 2009P.Z. Myers is not happy about Obama's selection of Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health. Why? Well, as you probably know, Myers is an outspoken atheist and Collins is an outspoken Christian. Myers is happy to point out that his opposition is not due to Collins' beliefs per se:
Every single one of us that has come forward to voice our unhappiness with the nomination has given an argument that is not based on the simple private fact that a nominee prays or goes to church. Such a position would be insane and impractical; we live in a country that is at least 80% Christian…
gregladen | August 4, 2009We expect a press conference from the State Department any moment now, so you may want to tune in your radios if you are following this story.
Bill Clinton is reported to be in the air, or something close to in the air, on his way to North Korea to negotiate the release of journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Moments ago it was reported that ...
....Clinton had already left for the North but had not yet arrived in Pyongyang, Yonhap said in a report from Washington quoting a source familiar with the issue.
"As soon as he arrives, he will be entering negotiations with the North for the…
gregladen | August 4, 2009In Aramaic Lightning = Baraq, Heaven = Ouranos = "hight place" = Birds and Air = Satan and Hell = Ouranos = the place Baraq comes from = Isaiah 14:14 = Satan says "Like, I'm going to get most high" = Hebrew word 1116 on the word list = Bama. Oh. Oh bama! Baraq Obamah!
It is true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!
This fact is indisputable.
Hat tip Isis.
grrlscientist | August 4, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 3634 - 1878 - 1473 - 1276 - 1236 out of 408 candidates registered. I am now in fourth place so I need your votes more than ever to recapture first place, so please ask your friends and relatives to vote for me now!
If you've already voted, then please encourage your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors to vote for the person whom you think would be best for this unique job: traveling to Antarctica for the month of February 2010 and writing about it for the public on a blog. Here is my 300-word essay; hopefully, you will agree that I am…
mspringer | August 4, 2009A few days ago we calculated the radiative power output of a very radioactive source like cobalt-60. CCPhysicist suggests we also calculate its surface temperature. Sounds like a plan!
A radioactive plutonium pellet, glowing red hot. Still much less radioactive than our hypothetical cobalt.
It would be difficult to calculate the temperature of the sample by itself, as we have no clean way of determining how much energy escapes in the form of the various nuclear decay processes without heating the sample. Most but not all of the gamma rays will escape, very few of the beta rays will, and…
gregladen | August 3, 2009You are PLoS Two today! Here's an old post of mine that gives some of the background on PLoS.