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drorzel | May 15, 2009DAMOP is next week, and Tom uses this to talk about socialization at conferences:
The DAMOP conference is coming up, and that reminds me of a conference-related phenomenon related to gathering a group to go off to a meal. This doesn't manifest itself when the conference provides meals, so it wasn't an issue last fall; when the meals are being served you can just grab some people that you know and sit, or if you are so inclined, sit with some strangers and strike up a conversation. "What is your research" is a pretty safe way to begin. (etiquette tip: if your conversation partner has a really…
cwilcox | May 15, 2009Some neat things you should check out:
Who knew? Monkeys Think âCoulda, Woulda, Shouldaâ, as explained by Allie of Oh For The Love of Science!
It may seem backward, but Ed of Not Exactly Rocket Science explains how we might be able to restore preadator numbers by culling their prey.
And Shark Diver from Underwater Thrills seems to think it's women's fault that men are so anxious to kill sharks for trophies. Sure, it's always a woman's fault, right?
grrlscientist | May 15, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The host for the upcoming 18 May edition of Scientia Pro Publica is Eric, author of The Primate Diaries. To send your science, nature or medical writing to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (keep in mind that widget sometimes disappears when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "permalink", the essay title and, to make life easier for the host, please include a 2-3…
gregladen | May 14, 2009Maria Reiche was an archaeologist and mathematician who worked on the Nazca lines in Peru. Originally, she worked with Paul Kosok, who discovered the remarkable drawings, and starting in the mid 1940s, Reiche mapped in the drawings. She believed that the lines represented a calendar and a sort of observatory. She is probably single handedly responsible for the preservation of these important archaeological features.
She died in Lima in 1998.
Several crackpots have suggested that the Nazca lines, since they can only be taken in visually from a height achievable only with flying machines…
sb admin | May 14, 2009Three Indiana men â Stoney Powell, 45 and Roy Mathis, 60 of Wheatfield, and William Decker, 48 of Scottsburg â were killed near Searcy, Arkansas on Wednesday, May 14 in an explosion at a fuel storage facility. The three men worked for the Kentucky-based firm C&C Welding.  Losing a loved one is difficult in any circumstance, but it must be especially painful when your love is killed so far away from home. An Associated Press story reports that the storage facility is owned by TEPPCO Partners LP (NYSE: TPP) and the firm's spokesman Rick Rainey noted:
"the explosion occurred just…
cortex | May 14, 2009One question that came up yesterday during the radio show was whether or not Americans can learn, once again, to delay gratification and save money. Can we get back the thriftiness of earlier generations? Or are we destined to be a nation with a negative savings rate?
I certainly wouldn't want to underestimate the malleability of consumer habits, or the motivating force of seeing foreclosure signs in your neighborhood, but I think it's worth pointing out that the steep decline in American savings rates coincided with lots of financial innovations that make it much easier for us to spend…
mspringer | May 14, 2009Somewhat apropos of yesterday's entry in the perennial "what's science?" discussion comes this graph from Innocent Bystanders. The graph is originally from a report put out in January by the government's Council of Economic Advisers and the (then) Office of the Vice President-Elect, projecting the level of unemployment with and without the proposed stimulus. The stimulus was duly passed.
Innocent Bystanders plonked down two data points on top of it in Photoshop: the actual unemployment figures that have since resulted. The result:
I'm told economics is the dismal science. I'll grant that…
cortex | May 14, 20091) The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, by Freedarko.
This book is perpetually on my coffee table, if only so I can read through it (again and again) every time there's a commercial break during the NBA playoffs. It's a really hard book to describe, but if you think you might enjoy Langston Hughes references in an essay on Lamar Odom, or might like a digression into Shanghai architecture and globalization while reading about Yao Ming, then get this book. On a related note, I really enjoyed the email conversation between Simmons and Gladwell.
2) The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle.
Where…
gregladen | May 14, 2009Readers, as I look back at the last TWO years (as I did with one year, yesterday) I find that May 2007 was ALSO a slow month for my blogging, even though job related effects could not have been at play (my job has changed since then, IIRC).
So whereas yesterday was Stephanie Zvan Day, I declare this day, May 14th, to be "Blogging is Hard Day."
On Blogging is Hard Day bloggers are allowed to reach back into their past and repost really old things that they suddenly realized are exactly in lie with the writing or research in which they are currently engaged. The blogger must reach back a…
palmd | May 13, 2009Sorry I'm short on content right now. It's really busy around here and I don't want to torture you with reposts. Stay tuned.
cortex | May 13, 2009I was on On Point today with Walter Mischel, the subject of my recent New Yorker article. As usual, he was incredibly eloquent. One thing we both got a chance to emphasize was the plasticity of personality - as I mention in the article, Mischel has found a significant subset of subjects who, although they couldn't wait for a second marshmallow as four-year olds, ended up becoming "high-delaying" adults. How'd they get better? Nobody quite knows. Nevertheless, this group is an important reminder that just because you're an impulsive kid (and I certainly was) doesn't mean you're destined to…
grrlscientist | May 13, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The host for the upcoming 18 May edition of Scientia Pro Publica is Eric, author of The Primate Diaries. To send your science, nature or medical writing to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right (keep in mind that widget sometimes disappears when the mother site is sick). Be sure to include the URL or "permalink", the essay title and, to make life easier for the host, please include a 2-3…
mspringer | May 13, 2009If you're reading this the morning it's published, there's a good chance that right at this very second I am sitting with pen in hand doing battle with a statistical mechanics final. Topics: fermions at zero and low temperature, virial expansion of the equation of state, critical constants and critical exponents of a Van der Walls like equation, and critical constants and exponents in an Ising lattice. The first two (I hope) aren't so bad, the third is difficult, the fourth may be well-nigh impossible. We'll see.
I do have something for y'all to cogitate over while I'm sweating. I came…
gregladen | May 13, 2009It would appear that Rocket Scientist Steve Jurvetson has moved into Photo Synthesis, the photogenic science blog. Check it out!
gregladen | May 13, 2009The 'Atiras'
The first asteroid ever discovered that has an orbit completely inside the Earth's, found by an MIT Lincoln Laboratory telescope in 2003 (with multiple exposures marked in red), has been formally named Atira by its discoverers. Seven more such inner-Earth orbit (IEO) asteroids have been found since, and the group is now classed as the Atiras.
Click the link above for a picture.
Successful translocation sees first petrel chick
The first Bermuda Petrel Pterodroma cahow chick to be born on Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, for almost 400 years, has recently hatched, the result of a…
cortex | May 13, 2009I've got a short column for the Seed website on the neuroscience of improvisation. I begin with one of my favorite stories of improv, which is Al Kooper's organ playing during the studio sessions for "Like A Rolling Stone":
Al Kooper didn't know what to play. He'd told some half-truths to get into Bob Dylan's recording sessionâ--âthe musicians were working on some song tentatively titled "Like A Rolling Stone"â--âand Kooper had been assigned the Hammond organ. There was only one problem: Kooper didn't play the organ. He was a guitarist.
The first takes were predictably terribleâ--âKooper was…
gregladen | May 12, 2009The Spirit Mars Robot is getting stuck in the dust, but it is still sending back data. But mostly about dust.
From NASA:
PASADENA, Calif. -- The five wheels that still rotate on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit have been slipping severely in soft soil during recent attempts to drive, sinking the wheels about halfway into the ground.
The rover team of engineers and scientists has suspended driving Spirit temporarily while studying the ground around the rover and planning simulation tests of driving options with a test rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
"…
mikethemadbiologist | May 12, 2009Venetia Phair, who suggested the name Pluto for the planet orbitting body space thingee we call Pluto died recently. How it came to be called Pluto is fascinating:
Frozen and lonely, Planet X circled the far reaches of the solar system awaiting discovery and a name. It got one thanks to an 11-year-old British girl named Venetia Burney, an enthusiast of the planets and classical myth.
On March 14, 1930, the day newspapers reported that the long-suspected "trans-Neptunian body" had been photographed for the first time, she proposed to her well-connected grandfather that it be named Pluto,…
gregladen | May 12, 2009I think this is how my wife does it. I'm not sure. All I know is that every morning she's gone and I'm laying somewhere unconscious.
How To Put On A Bra 101 - The funniest home videos are here
Hat Tip: Miss Cellania
pharyngula | May 12, 2009Speaking of ridiculous parsing of newspaper articles, here's something Simon Singh wrote:
The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.
The US has some deep problems with an overly credulous culture, but at least we don't labor under the libel laws of the UK, which are destructive of the basic…