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pharyngula | April 9, 2009Sad news: I was not able to make it to Miller's talk at St. Catherine's last night. We're down to one car right now, and the choice was between me indulging myself with a long drive and a Ken Miller talk at the end of it, or my wife could have the vehicle so she could do the responsible thing and go to work. She won.
However, I have received some email about it (maybe I'll get permission to post some of it), and there is one account on the web. It sounds like it was about what I expected: almost entirely good stuff, with a few wacky bits around the edges about his weird cult's beliefs. He did…
gregladen | April 9, 2009... isn't just for plants anymore. It's a new blog here at the Blorg, a Scienceblogs Dot Com production.
The internet is home to a wealth of captivating science images, from the many microscopic components of a cell to the remote corners of the universe captured by Hubble. On Photo Synthesis, we aim to bring you the best of what's out there. Every month we will feature the work of a different photoblogger, exposing worlds both small and large, familiar and exotic. We will let the power of the lens take us where we ourselves are not able to go.
Photo Synthesis presents its first photo-…
jwilbanks | April 9, 2009Michael Nielsen gets it right, again.
This is what I'm on about when I talk about ontologies and object-orientation of knowledge. In science, the code is the knowledge. Unlike computer programming, the code is locked up PDF and XML formats, and behind firewalls and copyrights (at least in code you could write your own if you knew what you wanted.). On top of that, ontologies are a royal pain in the ass.
But it's worth it - if the pain is big enough. Standard ontologies and common names mean we at lest get a speck of modularity in database aggregation, for example. You can do some cool stuff…
cortex | April 9, 2009Over at Mind Matters, I've got an interview with Judith Rich Harris, author of the influential and infamous The Nurture Assumption, which provocatively argued that parents aren't particularly important when it comes to determining the behavior of their children, at least outside of the home. Instead, Harris argued that the most important variable was the child's peer group. The Nurture Assumption has recently been reissued in an expanded version to celebrate its tenth anniversary.
LEHRER: Why do you think this is such a controversial idea? In other words, why are we so convinced that parents…
gregladen | April 9, 2009Voters in a small town in ... Missouri have re-elected their popular mayor to a fourth term, several weeks after he died of a heart attack.
Harry Stonebraker died at the age of 69 in March ...
He won by a landslide, securing 90% of the vote in the 723-population town.
Winfield [town] will appoint a temporary mayor to serve until a special election is held in April 2010.
...
source
mspringer | April 9, 2009I have a project for you, since I know practical physics is pretty popular around here. This one involves orbital dynamics, optics, and astronomy. The required experimental apparatus is just your eyes, a clock, and an internet connection.
There are these satellites orbiting overhead by the name of the Iridium constellation, working diligently to provide various communications services to its customers. We're not so interested in that. What we are interested in is the fact that these satellites have highly reflective mirror-like antennas which reflect sunlight down to the earth. With a…
moleculeoftheday | April 9, 2009Yesterday, I mentioned naphthoresorcinol as a reagent for aldehyde testing. Did you know: at one point during the Cold War, the Soviets used to put a certain aldehyde on American operatives in the USSR as a tracer?
That aldehyde, NPPD, caused a kerfuffle in the 80's. There was outrage that Americans were being "tagged," and speculation as to whether it might be dangerous. Some analytical chemists leaned back, scratched their beards, and said "sounds kind of neat." And even recently, the compound was re-examined.
Anyone have any NPPD stories?
cortex | April 9, 2009Sometimes, the human brain can seem astonishingly ill-equipped for modern life. Our Pleistocene olfactory cortex craves glucose and lipids, which makes us vulnerable to high-fructose corn syrup and Egg McMuffins. We've got an impulsive set of emotions, which makes us think subprime mortgages are a good idea. And so on.
If I could only fix one design flaw, however, I'd focus on our stress response. We're stuck with a mind that reacts to the mundane mundane worries of modern life - a falling stock market, a troubled marriage, taking the SAT - with a powerful set of primal chemicals that, once…
gregladen | April 9, 2009 Negotiations are continuing for the release of an American captain held by Somali pirates in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa.
He was taken from cargo ship Maersk Alabama after it was briefly seized by pirates a day earlier.
A US warship on anti-pirate patrol in the high-risk area sailed to the ship.
It remains unclear what the pirates want, but maritime sources say it could be a ransom or compensation for their boat which sank during the attack. ...
More with the BBC
tqa | April 8, 2009
Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Wilkins:
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.
Bertrand Russell
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Doorway
Natural History Museum
Oxford
gregladen | April 8, 2009Discover Magazine Dot Com, which has been expanding its blogospheric presence recently, has just reached the one million plus monthly page view mark, having shown a steady expansion since last year. Since Science Blogs has also been growing (though I'm guessing much more slowly since we are not brand new ... I don't really know) this is great news. It means the science blogosphere is growing, and hopefully because more people are paying attention to science stuff. Of coruse, without a more sophisticated analysis, it is hard to say.
Of course, I question the wisdom of Phil Plait and…
pharyngula | April 8, 2009How about some dismissive humor aimed at Bullyin' Bill O'Reilly? The mouse joke isn't bad, either.
grrlscientist | April 8, 2009Okay, I hate "microblogging" since I view it as a form of electronic trivial pursuit, which is anathema to any real learning or knowledge, unlike .. erm, blog writing.
Okay, you can all stop laughing out there (yes, I can hear you!) since I set up my very own twitter account, which means you all can communicate with each other and with me using your iPhone, or you can text me (and each other, of course!) using your mobile phone or whatever else you drag around with you from one wifi source to another. (Personally, I use my laptop, a gorgeous new MacBookPro, but it is rather large and heavy…
moleculeoftheday | April 8, 2009Before the advent of modern spectrometry techniques (NMR and mass spectrometry), there was a compendium of tests to suss out what sort of things were hanging off a molecule. You took your stuff, added some eye of newt, and if black (but not white) soot rose up, you knew you had an arylamine (or at least had some evidence you did). You still see them occasionally in sophomore Organic chemistry labs, but they're going by the wayside, too.
One such reagent was naphthoresorcinol:
This one will give you a red adduct with an aldehyde in acidic solution. Anyone know the pathway or care to guess??
gregladen | April 8, 2009I havn't served up any real Linux Jingoism in several hours, so here's a dose. From Ben Zvan via facebook, we have YAhead10 list of why you should use Linux. Here.
And, for you Windows users, here's a little item on Windows Explorer.
gregladen | April 8, 2009Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters -- the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines -- could produce at least 20% of the power demand for most coastal states, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, unveiling a report by the Minerals Management Service that details the potential for oil, gas and renewable development on the outer continental shelf.
The biggest wind potential lies off the nation's Atlantic coast, which the Interior report estimates could produce 1,000 gigawatts of electricity -- enough to meet a quarter of the national demand.
The…
gregladen | April 8, 2009For the first time in 200 years, a ship of the sea sailing under a US flag has been taken by pirates. And, in an unusual move, the ship's crew went ahead and took the ship back.
"It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew control - the other three were trying to flee."
Reports suggest the other three pirates jumped overboard.
Details here.
It is not sure yet how this will affect global warming.
UPDATE: The pirates are in a life boat and are holding the ship's captain hostage. A US destroyer is about 10 hours away, but in six hours or so will be in helicopter range.
The good…