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nisbetmc | May 5, 2009The International Journal of Sustainability Communication is an important new open-access outlet for research and practitioner essays on environmental communication. In the latest issue, communication strategist Tom Bowman suggests that the workplace has been overlooked as a central place to engage Americans on climate change:
How can communicators engage the public in social learning and dialogue? The most obvious answer is to focus on places where social interactions already occur and where
groups of people would be predisposed to form new collective narratives and social norms.
The…
pharyngula | May 5, 2009The US military has gathered up a collection of soldier's bibles…and destroyed them. No word yet on whether Satan's imps were observed dancing in the flames; I'm sure the wingnut news services will soon be melting down with hysterical tales.
grrlscientist | May 5, 2009
A photomicrograph of pollen. It even looks painful, doesn't it?
Image: Arizona Enginnering [larger view].
Today has been another in a long series of bad days. For example, these past couple weeks, my allergies have been so bad that I have been unable to think, to write, often unable to see and at times, unable to breathe. My allergies are so severe that I have ended up in the emergency room on several occasions, due to anaphylaxis. Worse, despite the fact that it is cold and has been raining for two days straight in NYC, I am still taking 2-4 times the recommended doses of two different…
nisbetmc | May 5, 2009I'm back to the blog after a few weeks off. It's been busy to say the least, with most of my time spent submitting an NIH proposal as part of the stimulus grants program. (More to come on the focus and topic.)
In any case, look for a regular 10 or so posts a week here at Framing Science. My plan over the summer is to highlight much of the exciting new research in the field of science communication that has appeared recently in the journals or that may be coming out. I also have several forthcoming articles that propose a series of innovations in science communication that are likely to be…
drorzel | May 4, 2009
The 25 most important movies ever made about war and diplomacy. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine
"Last week, in the online edition of Slate's sister publication Foreign Policy, two of its regular bloggers, Stephen M. Walt and Daniel W. Drezner, drew up lists of what they regard as the best movies ever made about international relations.
Both are eminent international-relations professors, Walt at Harvard, Drezner at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. It's no surprise that neither of them gives our own film critic, Dana Stevensâor, for that matter, Gene Shalitâthe slightest cause…
gregladen | May 4, 2009Which is great, because I understand we have LOTS of neutrinos here ....
The University of Minnesota and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory plan to break ground south of International Falls today on a multimillion-dollar project designed to help understand the universe.
The NuMI Off-Axis Electron Neutrino Appearance Experiment (NOvA) will be the Northland's second detector studying subatomic particles being shot through the earth from near Chicago. Learning more about the mysterious particles, called neutrinos, will help scientists better understand how the universe formed and how it…
sb admin | May 4, 2009by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
There have been questions in the comments about where the CDC estimate of 36,000 to 40,000 influenza related deaths a year comes from. It's a figure I've used a number of times here to say generally that regular old seasonal influenza may be a mild disease for some but not for many others. Even if you don't die of flu, it can be a miserable illness and lay you low for several weeks of acute illness and months of fatigue and malaise. Now the 36,000 deaths number is taking on a life of its own, so it's time to explain exactly what it is and what it…
mspringer | May 4, 2009Our excellent physics blogger Chad Orzel has a post up about the thermodynamics of Goldilocks. Seems it's a little questionable to have the porridge configured as it was in the old tale. A few wags in the comments complain that in a story with talking bears physics is the least of the concerns, but I think that misses the point. Suspension of disbelief requires that we grant the story the ability to say wild things so long as it does so in an internally consistent way. Don't, for instance, make time-travel commonplace enough so that a 13-year-old girl can use it to rearrange her school…
gregladen | May 4, 2009An interesting take on the Merk Maneno:
It's a safe guess that somewhere at Merck today someone is going through the meeting minutes of the day that the hair-brained scheme for the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine was launched, and that everyone who was in the room is now going to be fired.
from the bioethics blog
grrlscientist | May 4, 2009Here are the latest blog carnivals for you to read and enjoy;
Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) blog carnival #3. This blog carnival celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing published recently in the blogosphere, and this issue focuses on "Swine Flu", better known as H1N1 Influenza.
Carnival of Evolution, #11. This carnival features a stroll through the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.
Carnival of the Horses, May edition. This blog carnival has a huge variety of essays for you to read, and the blog that is hosting it has a really cool template that I'd…
grrlscientist | May 4, 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) blog carnival was just published! This blog carnival celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing published in the blogosphere within the past 60 days. This particular issue -- the third -- is the first to be hosted at a location other than here, and I am very pleased with the result! So go read Scientia Pro Publica 3: the Swine 'flu Edition and leave a comment there!
To send your science, nature or…
tqa | May 4, 2009
...you should go and read Devilstower's truly superb article "How Freedom Was Lost" over at the Daily Kos. After you read it, you might want to send copies to the Libertarians you know.
edyong | May 3, 2009To play my part as a good denizen of the blogosphere, I'm going to start providing a weekly selection of links to great posts from other blogs. These will either run every Sunday or every whenever-I-get-the-time...
Without further ado:
Brian Switek at Laelaps discusses living mammoth legends.
SciCurious talks about ultrasonic frogs over at Neurotopia.
Christie Wilcox at Observations of a Nerd covers research that suggests the largest pterosaurs may not have been able to fly.
If it looks like a peer-reviewed journal and it sounds like a peer-reviewed journal, then it's a... massive ad for…
tqa | May 3, 2009I'm not a huge LOLcats fan, but this one is just perfect.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
rskloot | May 3, 2009
Yes, that's right folks, the end of the world is near, but at least we won't look silly wearing our N95 respirator masks. No. Thanks to Flu Fashion Respirators, we can now avoid swine flu and other plagues while looking like ... bandits from cheesy western movies! Or ... better yet ... hippie bandits! And we can even get designer swine flu respirator masks for the family dog (never mind that dogs can't get the swine flu -- we wouldn't want them to feel left out). What could possibly go better with an over-hyped pandemic threat than
fashion accessories? This press release speaks for…
gregladen | May 3, 2009...the Minnesota Supreme Court has upheld the right of drunk-driving defendants to request the source code for the breathalyzer machines used as evidence against them, but only when the defendant provides sufficient arguments to suggest that a review of the code may have an impact on the case.
... follow this story here.
mspringer | May 3, 2009"I'd like to open a savings account," you tell your banker.
"Excellent!, the banker says, "our savings accounts have an interest rate of 5% and an annual percentage yield of 5.127%. It's a great deal and I think you'll like it."
5% interest is a great deal on a savings account these days. But what's all this about the difference between interest rates and annual percentage yield? You often hear about the magic of compound interest, and this particular distinction between the various types of rates are a consequence of the way this magic works.
Say you've got $100, and your banker agrees to…