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gregladen | August 1, 2009On this day in 1971, on the second day of the Apollo 15 lunar mission, astronauts dug up a really old rock which, of course, they named "The Genesis Rock"
Details here.
gregladen | August 1, 2009Two years ago today, on a weekday afternoon during rush our, the Interstate 35W bridge, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed into the Mississippi river. Thirteen people died and about 145 people suffered injuries.
At the time this happened, Amanda, Julia and I were in the Green Kalahari in South Africa, at Augrabies Falls.
Finding out about the incident was interesting. My BFF Lynne had just heard from her husband, Chris, that "the bridge in Minnesota went down." We asked if more details could be obtained, as hearing this sort of news from that distance away probably meant a…
pharyngula | August 1, 2009The American education is a hellish mess, run by the ghastly, inefficient school board system that is too often dominated by anti-education hacks (Texas comes to mind as the preeminent example, but really, the problem is everywhere in the country). The system is so bad that Mark Twain was making jokes about it, and nothing has changed since. Could anything be worse?
Maybe. Paddy K has begun a series of articles on the Irish school system. Imagine the chaos of conflicting interests that tug our schools in different directions at every election banished…and replaced with old men in dresses…
cortex | August 1, 2009I'm a ketchup fiend. When I was a little kid, I was famous for squirting my plastic bottle of Heinz on everything, from spaghetti to vanilla ice cream. I've seen become slightly less disgusting - I no longer eat frozen dairy products with the condiment - but I still go through a disturbing number of ketchup packets when eating fast food. (French fries are a near perfect food, but they really are so much more delicious when coated in that sticky-sweet red sauce.)
So I was intrigued when Meg Favreau, in The Smart Set, wrote a short article about our lack of ketchup options, which is especially…
grrlscientist | August 1, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 3523 - 1423 - 1419 - 1257 - 1221 out of 400 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 | July 31, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
And then things went rather badly...
ejohnson | July 31, 2009Below, Josh Ruxin responds to the question:
The boundaries of science are continually expanding as scientists become increasingly integral to finding solutions for larger social issues, such as poverty, conflict, financial crises, etc. On what specific issue/problem do you feel we need to bring the scientific lens to bear?
There's no question that scientific progress can have a major social impact. However, the history of science suggests that the adoption of major breakthroughs, particularly to benefit the poor, can actually be an overwrought and lengthy process. Further, science tends to…
sciencepunk | July 31, 2009Earlier this week, the Food Standards Agency upset the organic apple cart when they published a review of available literature that failed to find any health benefits associated with organic food. Moreover, the nutritional value of organically-produced food was little different to that produced by conventional farming.
As the Islington set choked on their (Duchy Originals) cornflakes, the backlash was as quick as it was predictable. Nobody likes to feel they've been taken for a fool, especially those who can afford to pay £3 for a loaf of bread.
The Soil Association, accused of over-…
ejohnson | July 31, 2009Since 2006, the Seed Revolutionary Minds series has identified over 50 individuals who are breaking the barriers between science and art, architecture, design, and communication—the interpreters, the game changers, the re-envisionaries.
Earlier this year, we posed three questions to these Revolutionary Minds, asking them to reflect on the role of science in relation to pressing global issues and how a cross-disciplinary approach to problem solving might advise them. We will post their responses here, over the course of the next three months, and invite additional responses from…
gregladen | July 31, 2009Berry Go Round, the blog carnival about plants, is up an running here at quiche moraine
jwilbanks | July 31, 2009Following on to yesterday's post, where I wrote about the four functions that traditional publishers claim as their space (registration, certification, dissemination, preservation), I want to revisit an argument I made last week at the British Library.
In my slides, I argued that the web brings us at least three additional functions: integration, annotation, and federation. I wanted to get this argument out onto the web and get some feedback...
Let's start with integration. The article no longer sits on a piece of dead tree, inside a journal formatted by date and volume and page number. It…
rallain | July 31, 2009Two things. First, my wife started blogging. The best thing about this is that she can no longer complain about my blogging. Her blog is over at HyperHomeschool.com. Basically, she is keeping up with her homeschooling stuff online. I see great potential here.
I guess this gets to the second thing. I made a little screen cast tutorial on Scratch. I figured this would be good material for her blog. In case you are not familiar with Scratch, it is a graphical programming language developed at MIT. It is very similar to the Lego Mindstorms programming language. You can do tons of stuff…
grrlscientist | July 31, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 3483 - 1384 - 1341 - 1251 - 1215 out of 398 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 | July 31, 2009I'm a bibliophile. I read books at an inordinate rate and have a tendency to buy them at an even faster rate. Here at Texas A&M I'm fortunate to have access to a library of more than four million volumes, a fantastic interlibrary loan service, and a breathtaking special collections library that among other things houses one of the largest and most comprehensive science fiction collections in the nation.
I also very much love the aesthetics of the physical books themselves, and if/when electronic books finally displace the old paper copies it will be a sad day. But it could also be the…
grrlscientist | July 30, 2009
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 a 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. To send your submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (sometimes that widget doesn't upload when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "…
grrlscientist | July 30, 2009My fifth blogoversary is coming on 4 August 2009 (FIVE YEARS of continuous blog writing!), and I'd like to celebrate with all of you. I'd like to meet my readers and all those who write for ScienceBlogs and for Nature Networks who are in NYC for a party. We will meet this Saturday at 10am at the front door to the AMNH (I might be able to arrange tix for my readers if I know how many people will be coming), and then will go out for food and drinks at a nearby pub (precise pub to be determined and will be announced) at 6pm.
I am also planning to go to see the 6pm IMAX showing of the Harry…
purepedantry | July 30, 2009There is a great conversation going on at Megan McArdle's blog with Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth. I say great because it give me the opportunity to show how astonishingly wrong Campos in suggesting that the obesity at the lower end of the BMI spectrum -- not just morbid obesity -- is not bad for your health. Frankly, contrary to his statements, the data is definitive, and I am amazed about how he gets away with publishing this trash.
A core argument that Campos makes in the interview is that there is no negative consequences for going over what he considers the very arbitrary…
gregladen | July 30, 2009"Here," dad to girl, "Get your ID out and have it with your ticket."
"Excuse me, sir," said the TSA officer, pointing to the young female, "She does not need to have her ID out, she's a minor."
Dad: "How do you know she's a minor if you don't look at her ID?"
.... (silence as everyone waits for answer)....
Dad again: "Kind of a hole in the system, isn't it?"
TSA Officer, voice lowered ... "There are a LOT of holes in the system, sir." ... walks away.
Young girl, "Good one, dad. Now tell her our name is LADEN and see what happens!"