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thescian | October 13, 2008Somini Sengupta writes about the recent religion incited violence in Orissa at NY Times. A Bajrang Dal leader offers an explanation that is the veneer on the surface of the violent brand of nationalism based on religious identity that's the trademark of the saffron brigade:
Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state's highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as "a spontaneous reaction."
This the line used by Modi government during the Gujarat riots in 2002 when the same Bajrang Dal killed many Muslims and looted much,…
cortex | October 13, 2008Michael Pollan makes so much sense it's actually a little painful, since such basic agricultural reforms will never, ever get through Congress. At some point in the twentieth century, American lawmakers forgot that the sole goal of farming wasn't efficiency; high-fructose corn syrup should not be the epitome of modern agriculture.
It must be recognized that the current food system -- characterized by monocultures of corn and soy in the field and cheap calories of fat, sugar and feedlot meat on the table -- is not simply the product of the free market. Rather, it is the product of a specific…
cortex | October 13, 2008Over at Mind Matters, I've got an interview with Dr. Robert Burton on the danger of certainty and its relevance during a presidential election:
LEHRER: To what extent does the certainty bias come into play during a presidential election? It seems like we all turn into such partisan hacks every four years, completely certain that our side is right.
BURTON: The present presidential debates and associated media commentary feel like laboratory confirmation that the involuntary feeling of certainty plays a greater role in decision-making than conscious contemplation and reason.
I suspect that…
gregladen | October 13, 2008Carnival Of the Godless 102: Mission Impossible
Gene Genie 38: Back in action!
Praxis #2
The Giant's Shoulders: third edition
Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival
Carnival of the Green #148
Carnival of Homeschooling presents: The Simple Pleasures of Homeschooling
October Scribes Blog Carnival
Book Review Blog Carnival - Second Edition
sciencetolife | October 12, 2008This will be the last post for Science To Life. Due to changes in my professional life I will no longer maintain the blog. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing here and I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog. Take care!
gregladen | October 11, 2008 Minnesota Atheists' "Atheists Talk" radio show.
Sunday, October 12, 2008, 9-10 a.m. Central Time
Hector Avalos will discuss "How to Fight Intelligent Design and Win."
Also, an interview with Scott Lohman, president of the Humanists of Minnesota.
"Atheists Talk" airs live on AM 950 KTNF in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
To stream live, go here.
Podcasts of past shows are available at Minnesota Atheists or
through iTunes. For all other podcast systems, such as one you might be running on Linux, use this feed.
mspringer | October 11, 2008This post is skimpy, that is. No scantily-clad women, though I bet it would drive up traffic!
The post is skimpy because yesterday I spend several hours grading exams and six more driving to Louisiana. No time to write a good post and do the usual Saturday random observations and links. But usually everything on my blogroll is very good, and I can assure you that you'll enjoy your time spent around the physics blogosphere.
To hold you over until tomorrow's Sunday Function, here's the inimitable genius Richard Feynman discussing just exactly what physics is. Enjoy, and have a great weekend…
grrlscientist | October 10, 2008I have been nearly completely unable to write, even though I have no lack of ideas to write about (I am sitting on a pile of interesting scientific papers at this moment, but find myself too worried and upset to be able to focus on them long enough to write a coherent story). So I am going to ask you, what's on your mind? I'd really like to know what's happening in your lives and how you are all faring in these wild and insecure times.
mspringer | October 10, 2008I see that bailout is working wonderfully. Of course if it hadn't passed and the stock market had behaved identically, we be hearing that we were fools not to pass the bailout. And they would be wrong. Yes, I know God Emperor Paulson hasn't actually used any of his trillion dollar blank check yet. It won't make a difference. Give a cowboy all the expensive equipment in the world and he still won't be able to herd clouds. C'est la vie.
There's nothing to be done about that though so let's talk about gravity. The force due to gravity between objects with masses M and m is given by the…
gregladen | October 9, 2008I'm still not doing much with this blog as the back end is still in shambles. With my schedule this week, I have minutes-long blocks of time to blog, and the back end takes minutes-long to do little beyond producing error messages. I've been putting some items on my old site, and I may switch to that site for the medium term if I judge that this situation is not changing (perhaps through the end of the election period?). The old site is here.
I've put some polling data over there if you are interested.
cortex | October 9, 2008At any given moment, the cortex is riven by disagreement, as rival bits of tissue contradict each other. Different brain areas think different things for different reasons; all those mental components stuffed inside our head are constantly fighting for influence and attention. In this sense, the mind is really an extended argument. This vociferous debate is made clear in this new paper, which shows that different brain areas are activated by risk and reward when people make a risky decision:
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task that simulates risky decisions, we found that…
grrlscientist | October 9, 2008Here's the latest carnivalia for you to enjoy;
Carnival of the Vanities, 9 October edition. This blog carnival focuses on excellent blog writing on any topic. I love this blog carnival and always find something interesting to read here.
Brain Blogging, the 40th edition. This blog carnival deals with the brain and this issue discusses how to beat the aging process, what really is cognition, fooling the doctors, and many more interesting topics.
Carnival of the Blue, a deep sea blog carnival. This blog carnival represents the other 70% of this wonderful planet that we live on.
Carnival of…
cwilcox | October 9, 2008I have another blog now - up on the Nature Network. You'll have to forgive me, and if you have a lot of free time, feel free to check it out. It's more oceanography based (or will be, when I have more than two posts, anyway). Our relationship can withstand my indiscretion, can't it? God, I hope so! I still love you, you know!
moleculeoftheday | October 9, 2008Takin' off that TBDMS? TBAF isn't your only choice:
TEA.(HF)3 is another source of the fluoride ion. Neat TEA-HF3 is a liquid, so it's about 10 M vs typical 1 M TBAF. A little nastier than TBAF, since it's able to liberate HF.
gregladen | October 8, 2008... break. Minnesota has the hottest Senate race in the US (more money is being spent on this race than any other). In the Greater Twin Cities are one or two of the hottest congressional races. Then there's the presidential campaign. And this business about how unions vote. And all the special interest ads (more about those racist bastards later).
So, our local TV station has been running ads like this:
Here's one more below the fold:
sb admin | October 8, 2008On the Googles, Common Knowledge gets more than 25,000,000 hits. It's a market research company, a scholarship foundation, a non profit fundraising firm, and in its inverse as Uncommon Knowledge part of a conservative group site, and an interview series at the Hoover Institution.
We can take the Wikipedia entry:
Common knowledge is what "everybody knows", usually with reference to the community in which the term is used.
or we can take an anti-plagiarism guide to heart:
The two criteria that are most commonly used in deciding whether or not something is common knowledge relate to quantity…
jwilbanks | October 8, 2008On the Googles, Common Knowledge gets more than 25,000,000 hits. It's a market research company, a scholarship foundation, a non profit fundraising firm, and in its inverse as Uncommon Knowledge part of a conservative group site, and an interview series at the Hoover Institution.
We can take the Wikipedia entry:
Common knowledge is what "everybody knows", usually with reference to the community in which the term is used.
or we can take an anti-plagiarism guide to heart:
The two criteria that are most commonly used in deciding whether or not something is common knowledge relate to quantity…
grrlscientist | October 8, 2008Here's the latest carnivalia for you to enjoy!
Cancer research blog carnival, issue #14. This blog caarnival actually includes personal cancer stories in addition to research.
The Health & Fitness carnival. This is a HUGE blog carnival, filled with lots of articles that focus on preserving or improving one's health!
The carnival of the cities, 8 October 2008 issue. This focuses on cities; information, stories, and photographs of cities!
mspringer | October 8, 2008Physicists like to name things after their discoverers. Sometimes if there's a unit of measurement that doesn't have someone's name attached to it, they'll grab the name of somebody who worked in that field and use it. Let's take a look at some units, first a few examples not named after people:
Length - meter
Mass - kilogram
Time - second
There's a couple more slightly obscure units not named after people, but most units are named after somebody. Sometimes repeatedly:
Temperature - Kelvin, Celsius
Current - Ampere
Electric Potential - Volt (the guy's name was Volta, but close enough)…