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mspringer | July 28, 2009We're not too far from the end of the Physics 202 class I'm helping teach, and as we finish things out we're learning about the particle nature of light and the wave nature of matter. It's really the very basics of quantum mechanics. One of the applications of this kind of knowledge is the electron microscope.
Light microscopes have a problem. As a rule, you can't resolve features smaller than the wavelength of the light you're using. Since this might be in the neighborhood of 600 nanometers for visible light, you have no real hope of seeing smaller things, or even of seeing objects a few…
gregladen | July 28, 2009Hi everyone; this morning at 8:00am, July 14/09, I proceeded to the Denny Island aerodrome, located on Denny Island in the midst of the BC Central Coast archipelago, aka "The Great Bear Rainforest" where I broke open the welded steel cover and dismantled and destroyed a large seismic shot which was slated for blasting in the early morning hours of July 17th, 2009. I took this action alone, without the participation or knowledge of any other person, association or organization. I accept full and sole responsibilty for my action and look forward to the consequences.
And so reads the on line…
sb admin | July 28, 2009by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
CDC wants us to get vaccinated for flu every year. Always for seasonal flu, and this year, if there is a vaccine available, for swine flu. They want us to get vaccinated because they think the vaccine works and they want to prevent people from getting influenza, always a dangerous and unpredictable disease, even if most of us usually escape with just a flesh wound. CDC backs up its recommendations by a quite a few scientific studies demonstrating the vaccine is effective, citing figures that the vaccine is 58% effective or 91% or effective or some…
cortex | July 28, 2009Over at the Times, Benedict Carey has a fascinating article on the crucial importance of intuition on the battlefield, where soldiers are often forced to make decisions without knowing why, exactly, they are making them:
The United States military has spent billions on hardware, like signal jamming technology, to detect and destroy what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, the roadside bombs that have proved to be the greatest threat in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, where Sergeant Tierney is training soldiers to foil bomb attacks.
Still, high-tech gear, while helping…
grrlscientist | July 28, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 2620 - 1208 - 1201 - 1172 - 1154 out of 397 candidates registered. I received just SIX VOTES in the past 24 hours and now a new third place contender is catching up with me! I need your help 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…
mspringer | July 27, 2009This weekend I was at the movies with my lovely significant other watching The Proposal (verdict: about what you'd expect). Unusually for a by-the-numbers romcom, the pre-film previews showed no fewer than two promising science fiction films.
Science fiction is difficult to cleanly describe - it's almost more of a flavor than a formula. The best I can do at the moment is to say that science fiction speculates on the consequences of some fundamental but scientifically plausible difference(s) between now and some other time. That time doesn't necessarily have to be the future, by the way.…
sb admin | July 27, 2009by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recently rolled out their 2009 Recommendations. It's for seasonal flu, for which a vaccine exists, not for swine flu, for which there is (as yet) no vaccine. There is a lot to say on the subject of vaccines (see what we've said over the years under the vaccine category), but this seems like a good time to review some basic terminology, including what is meant by vaccine efficacy or effectiveness and how it is measured or estimated. There's a lot to say, so we'll split this into two posts, and…
grrlscientist | July 27, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 2151 - 1202 - 1164 - 1147 - 1116 out of 392 candidates registered. I received just ONE VOTE in the past 24 hours -- I need your help to get more votes than this to recapture first place, so please ask your friends and relatives to vote for me!
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;…
cortex | July 27, 2009I've got an article in the Observer Sports Monthly on athletes and choking, which is adapted from my book:
We call such failures "choking", if only because a person frayed by pressure might as well not have oxygen. What makes choking so morbidly fascinating is that the performers are incapacitated by their own thoughts. Perry, for example, was so worried about not making a mistake on the 17th that he played a disastrous chip. His mind sabotaged itself.
Scientists have begun to uncover the causes of choking, diagnosing the particular mental differences that allow some people to succeed while…
grrlscientist | July 26, 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 "…
gregladen | July 26, 2009Cambridge Police: A matter of black and white is revised (just the first several paragraphs)
grrlscientist | July 26, 2009The current Antarctic Trip Vote count is as follows; 2121 - 1201 - 1158 - 1086 - 1028 out of 383 candidates registered. I am in second place, trying to recapture first place.
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 a very well-qualified candidate for this job opportunity. Voting ends at noon EDT 30…
grrlscientist | July 25, 2009My fifth blogoversary is coming on 4 August 2009 (FIVE years of blog writing!), and I'd like to celebrate with all of you. I have no idea if the ScienceBlogs site is so completely borked that I cannot post anything new (STILL!!!), nor if you can comment, but I'd like to meet my readers and those who write for ScienceBlogs and for Nature Networks who are in NYC for a party next weekend, preferably on either Friday or Saturday evening for a drink- and food-fest. If you cannot comment here, please email me at GrrlScientist@scienceblogs.com so we can arrange something fun in the Big Apple. If you…
gregladen | July 25, 2009Carl Zimmer tells us:
Facebook lets 3rd party advertisers use your posted photos without your permission. To opt out: Click on SETTINGS (located on top of page in blue bar, next to logout); Select PRIVACY SETTINGS; Select NEWS FEEDS and WALL; Select the TAB that reads Facebook Ads. There will be a drop down box; Select NO ONE. Save your changes & then pass this on. [Thanks to Virginia Postrel]
ADDED: You may need to turn off ad blocking to make this work.
razib | July 25, 2009Tyler Cowen linked to a Time article on the phenomenon of Southern Americans being relatively overweight vis-a-vis Americans from other regions of the country. Several reasons are offered, from the lower per capita income of Southern states, to the fact that Southern food tends to be fried and less healthful. But the article doesn't mention one very salient fact: black Americans are heavier than white Americans, and are disproportionately concentrated in Southern states. What is a regional disparity could be accounted for by underlying differences in the distribution of races.
State Health…
gregladen | July 25, 2009My friend Car2D2 told me about this, so I eventually tracked it down to share it with you.
Check it out. .
Snap on tools, indeed.
gregladen | July 25, 2009This fall, Harry Potter fans will get the chance to step inside the famous wizard's magical world through Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which opens at the Museum of Science, Boston on October 25, 2009, at 9 a.m. Tickets are now available online at mos.org or by calling 617-723-2500, 617-589-0417 (TTY). Visitors will be able to experience dramatic displays inspired...
The Exhibition made its highly successful global premiere at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry last April and will run there through September 27, 2009,
details from BMS
mspringer | July 25, 2009Roughly a week or so ago the ScienceBlogs front page was discussing the new online videos of the Feynman lectures. Somehow they found one of my old posts on the subject.
What I haven't really seen pointed out that the new online video isn't actually "the" Feynman Lectures. "The" lectures were given as an actual class for Caltech physics undergrads, and the point was to teach them physics. There's not a lot of point reiterating the detail in my old post, but the main thrust is that the lectures are not far removed from what you'd hear if you wandered into your local university intro physics…