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gregladen | April 3, 2009It being Twitter
While the "news" that Google was in "late-stage" talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn't accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.
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gregladen | April 3, 2009Although there has been plenty of blogosphere gossip regarding the monetisation of Twitter, the hugely popular social networking in 140 characters service, not a great deal of sense has been spoken. Until now. It would appear that an acquisition of Twitter by no less than Google is on the cards....
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grrlscientist | April 3, 2009Here's the latest carnivalia for you to read and enjoy;
I and the Bird, #97. As the name implies, this is the blog carnival about wild birds and birding.
Canival of the Vanities, G20 edition. This is the granddaddy of all blog carnivals, the one that spawned a million or so other blog carnivals.
Festival of the Trees, #34. By reading this festival, you will learn all sorts of interesting things, from photographs of trees to soft toilet paper rolls being more ecologically damaging than driving a hummer.
Carnival of Evolution, #10. This blog carnival focuses on writings about evolution.
mspringer | April 3, 2009I'm going to be out of pocket most of this weekend, though with any luck I'll still have the standard Saturday miscellany and Sunday Function posted. Today I'll be on the road, and leave you with a slightly useless bit of trivia:
The average density of books in my apartment is 1.83 per square meter.
Fortunately books are pretty compact and so in actuality there's a very small number of square meters with many books on them. Nonetheless, I was still a but surprised that the average was as high as it was. I keep a spreadsheet with all my books listed by title, author, and LoC call number, so…
gregladen | April 3, 2009Rachel looks different. Didn't she used to wear glasses or something?
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
But srsly, Powell on Gitmo and related topics:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
clock | April 3, 2009
The 2008 anthology was noted in the American Scientist's Bookshelf yesterday!
Here are the 2009 submissions to date and, below them, codes for Submission buttons. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts:
A Blog Around The Clock: Circadian Rhythm of Aggression in Crayfish
A Blog Around The Clock: Co-Researching spaces for Freelance Scientists?
A Blog Around The Clock: The Shock Value of Science Blogs
A Blog Around The Clock: Defining the Journalism vs. Blogging Debate, with a Science Reporting angle
a k8, a cat, a mission: Moms asking for help
a k8, a cat,…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2009
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
Since Tangled Bank has gone the way of the Dodo (Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker -- insert the name of your favorite extinct species here) and will probably never be seen again, despite promises to the contrary, there is a huge hole in the science writing blogosphere. A hole that must be filled. So I am proposing to do just that: I am starting a new science blog carnival, Scientia, which will be be THE science blog writing carnival.…
cortex | April 3, 2009Here's a question:
Consider two individuals, Ann and Barbara, who graudated from the same college a year apart. Upon graduation, both took similar jobs with publishing firms. Ann started with a yearly salary of $30,000. During her first year on the job there was no inflation, and in her second year Ann recieved a 2% ($600) raise in salary. Barbara also started with a yearly salary of $30,000. During her first year on the job, there was 4% inflation, and in her second year Barbara received a 5% ($1500) raise in salary.
As they entered their second year on the job, who was doing better in…
gregladen | April 3, 2009Hardly anyone ever visits us in our remote location in the northern Prairies, but when they do, they are important people such as Sarah Palin. So I suppose I should not have been surprized last night when the door knocker signaled a visit from ... MARTHA WASHINGTON!!!
grrlscientist | April 2, 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 is seeking your recently published blog entries (within the previous 60 days) about science, nature and medicine for inclusion in tomorrow's edition. To send submissions to Scientia Pro Publica, either use this automated submission form or use the cute little widget on the right. Be sure to include the URL or "permalink", the essay title and, to make life easier for the host, a 2-3 sentence summary.…
gregladen | April 2, 2009I am at present engaged in a conversation with a person who sailed very unexpectedly out of my distant past, and it is quite a bit of fun. Well, OK, it was not unexpected. I conjured her up. But these details are unimportant at this time. What I wanted to share with you is a parallel finding that fell out of this conversation. This blog site has essays written by a number of people who attended the Free School, in Albany New York. I did not attend the Free School, which was a grade school, but I did attend the Community School, which was the High School version of the Free School. Some…
nisbetmc | April 2, 2009
This week's NY Times magazine runs a cover story by Nicholas Dawidoff on Freeman Dyson and his doubts about the urgency of climate change. Many critics have decried the article as another leading example of false journalistic balance.
Yet I think there are much deeper issues at play here. On one hand, the social scientist in me views Dawidoff's journalistic narrative as a sociologically nuanced take on what happens when policy debates are simplistically reduced down to a matter of "sound science" and "inconvenient truths" rather than decisions involving values and trade-offs. On the other…
mspringer | April 2, 2009I've wanted to do some writing about statistical mechanics, but it's difficult to do without it turning into deathly boring strings of equations. There's ways to make it interesting, I'm sure, and I think webcomic artist Randal Munroe has found one:
Full size at the link. "Hmm," thought I when I read it. "that sounds about right. Where's the factor of 2 from?" It's a reflection of the fact that it takes two to tango, as it were, and so you have to convert the population density into tango density.
But really for certain unorthodox folks that 2 may not be accurate. Maybe they enjoy those…
gregladen | April 2, 2009... is here at A Neotropical Savanna
It is a great issue, please go check it out!!!
The next edition will be hosted at Quiche Moraine, so please send your entires to this location.
pharyngula | April 2, 2009A retraction: I've talked with Lanny Boswell, and he is most definitely NOT a creationist. I've edited the post below.
Candidates are busy running for election to the Lincoln school board in Nebraska right now, and guess what's been found? Creationists! Running for election! A newspaper story neatly summarizes the positions of many of the candidates, and here is a set you Nebraskans should not vote for.
Kevin Keller "wished creationism was taught in place of evolution, but should at least be taught alongside evolution"…although now that he has been exposed, he is frantically backtracking…
cortex | April 2, 2009A new study has demonstrated, once again, that being poor is stressful, and that chronic stress is poison for the brain. Here's the paper:
The income-achievement gap is a formidable societal problem, but little is known about either neurocognitive or biological mechanisms that might account for income-related deficits in academic achievement. We show that childhood poverty is inversely related to working memory in young adults. Furthermore, this prospective relationship is mediated by elevated chronic stress during childhood.
The scientists measured stress by looking at the "allostatic load"…
sb admin | April 2, 2009By Nalini Padmanabhan, cross-posted from Target Population
Anyone whoâs ever taken a psychology class would be able to tell the story of Kitty Genovese and the societal observation it gave birth to, known as the Genovese effect or the bystander effect. Her story is not easily forgotten. According to Michael Dorman of NewsDay, her 1964 murder in Queens - witnessed by 38 neighbors, none of whom acted to help her - became âa symbol of Americansâ failure to get involved.â Two weeks after the murder, the New York Timesâ Martin Gansberg described that failure to get involved as an example of the…
gregladen | April 1, 2009According to recent press reports, the creationist organization Answers in Genesis will merge with the troubled insurance giant American International Group. The new corporation will be named AIG, for American Indulgences Group.
AIG chairman Edward Liddy will become the chairman of AIG. AIG chairman Ken Ham will be second in command and will continue to direct the Creation Museum, which will be renamed Credit Management. CM will rate bonds that are based on credit-default swaps on a scale from AAA to aaa. AIG will also subcontract with the Vatican to market indulgences in the United States.…
gregladen | April 1, 2009(Colin Powell told me it was your birthday, but he did not say how old you are.)
RMS