Uncategorized
grrlscientist | September 18, 2008These blog carnivals are hot off the presses, just for you to enjoy;
Here's my other favorite blog carnival, Carnival of the Vanities, the 18 September issue. This blog carnival is all about recognizing writing -- excellent writing -- in the blogosphere.
And here's the latest issue of I and the Bird, issue #84: A Beginner's Guide to Bird Blogs. The title of this carnival says it all!
Carnival of Cities, 17 September edition. This blog carnival is all about cities -- whether you live in one or are visiting.
gregladen | September 18, 2008http://i.abcnews.com/Travel/popup?id=4232823
IATB #84 A Beginner's Guide to Bird Blogs
Carnival of Evolution, #2
Carnival of Homeschooling
Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers #9
Tangled Bank #114
Carnival of the Recipes
Praxis Second Edition
cortex | September 18, 2008In the new Atlantic, Ross Douthat argues that porn is a moral slippery slope, and is part of the adultery continuum:
Yes, adultery is inevitable, but it's never been universal in the way that pornography has the potential to become--at least if we approach the use of hard-core porn as a normal outlet from the rigors of monogamy, and invest ourselves in a cultural paradigm that understands this as something all men do and all women need to live with. In the name of providing a low-risk alternative for males who would otherwise be tempted by "real" prostitutes and "real" affairs, we're…
cwilcox | September 18, 2008I just want to start this out by saying I am not a political person. Honestly, I just don't pay too much attention to the minor nuances that separate political candidates. I mean, let's be honest: how much difference does it really make on most issues? I simply don't have the fiscal understanding to choose a candidate based on their political policies. I can't argue one way or another on most of the 'issues' like economy, foreign policy, and the ever-dreaded budget. That being said, however, there is one area of a candidate's platform that I do care a whole lot about: their environmental and…
cortex | September 18, 2008One of the most depressing things about an election cycle is the way it splits America into a series of demographic and ideological tribes. There's red states and blue states, whites and blacks, liberals and conservatives, hockey moms and soccer dads. Cultural commonalities are replaced with partisan differences. It's an ugly and unhealthy process, and it happens every four years.
But where do these tribal identities come from? It would be nice if these identities were mainly positive things, so that we chose a group based on "affirmational characteristics". In other words, I would belong to…
mspringer | September 17, 2008No, I'm not dead or anything. There was no post this morning because I was absolutely bushed and bone tired. Homework, classes, teaching, and research over the last two days were ridiculous. The rest of the week looks not to be so bad. Funny how the whole "work" part of school never makes it into those films in the college-frat-party genre. I mean come on, I did my undergrad at LSU. They're a legendary party school. If those films have any relation to reality I think I'd have seen it. Now there was no shortage of parties and booze, but if there was anyone who tried to relive Animal…
cortex | September 17, 2008What a bleak day on Wall Street. Although the financial contagion long ago spread beyond subprime mortgages, it's worth remembering that this all began when lenders decided that millions of people could afford loans that were actually unaffordable, at least over the long-term. Why did people accept these onerous loans? Why did they borrow more than they could possibly repay? The answer, I think, returns us to a basic cognitive flaw, built into the brain.
gregladen | September 17, 2008It what may be little more than a turf battle among members (committees, really) in the US Congress, a major piece of legislation supporting Open Access in research may be in danger.
There is an interesting piece about this in ars technica:
The House of Representatives has seen the introduction of legislation, HR 6845 that, depending on its final format, may significantly curtail or eliminate the NIH's ability to continue its open access policy. The current bill would prevent any arm of the federal government from making research funding contingent upon "the transfer or license to or for a…
cortex | September 17, 2008Michael Ruhlman says to not waste money on store bought stock:
I cannot say this strongly or loudly enough: DO NOT use canned stock/broth. Use WATER instead. I repeat. You DO NOT NEED to buy that crappy can of Swanson's low sodium chicken broth! It will HURT your food. Use water instead. When that recipe says 1 cup of fresh chicken stock (or good quality canned broth), please know that your food, 90 percent of the time, will taste better if you use tap water instead of that "good quality" canned broth. Water is a miracle.
Last time I was doing a recipe for a book with one of the most…
grrlscientist | September 17, 2008Blog carnivals that have recently been published include;
The newest installment of one of my favorite blog carnivals, Tangled Bank, issue 114.
Here is a new one for me; Business Books blog carnival, the 17 September edition. I see this carnival includes mention of that incredibly stupid book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad .. grr!
pharyngula | September 17, 2008Larry has briefly floated the idea of organizing a trip to London, visiting Down House, the Natural History Museum, etc. There isn't much of a response — if you're interested, let him know.
grrlscientist | September 17, 2008I am writing a piece for the print media about scientists and science blogs, and I am running across some interesting numbers that I thought I'd share with you (with many thanks to my friend and colleague, Bob O'Hara, for his advice and help);
According to Technorati and Dave Sifry's reports, as of April 2008, 175,000 new blogs appeared in the blogosphere daily;
Image: Adam Thierer, based on Tachnorati data and data collected by Dave Sifry.
(I'll guess this rate of new blogs appearing has increased since then).
Here's an interesting counter; according to a running total, based on…
grrlscientist | September 17, 2008What's on your mind these days? I'd like to read what you are thinking about these days, so feel free to share!
Added 11pm ET: Some of my random thoughts:
I need to open another Flickr account -- my fourth! -- to hold all my images so I can share them with you. This month, I filled up my two primary Flickr accounts, and opened a third, which I also filled up in just a few days. I guess this means I have an "image heavy blog."
I inexplicably lost all of my images from the afternoon and evening of the 29th of August -- when I was in London visiting the Natural History Museum behind-the-…
cortex | September 17, 2008In response to my post yesterday which argued that Democrats and Republicans are both vulnerable to what's politely referred to as "motivated reasoning" - in other words, we're all partisan hacks - some commenters objected. They pointed out that the actual study I was discussing found that conservatives, perhaps due to their rigid beliefs, were especially vulnerable to such cognitive flaws. Here's a sample:
Imagine any other post like this generically. "A new study found something that supports my worldview! Haha. Except part of the conclusions undermine my worldview, so anecdotally I…
grrlscientist | September 17, 2008You are all invited to NYC's Apple Store (in Soho) for a free a "Pro Session" panel discussion with some of us ScienceBloggers. This session will be a conversation about the convergence of science, technology, and culture and will discuss how blogging is driving the global dialogue on scientific topics. We'll talk about what's top of mind from global warming to science education and why science literacy is more important than ever.
What: Apple Pro Session panel with ScienceBloggers
Date: Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Time: 7 - 8pm ET
Location: 103 Prince Street [map].
grrlscientist | September 16, 2008Here's a blog carnival that is hot off the presses for you to enjoy;
Festival of Frugality, 143rd edition. This is a huge blog carnival, and there's lots of great information there to help you trim your expenses (important now that so many Wall Street types are suddenly unemployed).
gregladen | September 16, 2008Not enough people are visiting A Vote for Science yet. So we've got a special offer. Go to A Vote for Science and get your free LOL Kitten!!!!!
In the mean time, I'm off to Ashwin Madia HQ to wrangle up some votes.
You do realize, yes? ... that McCain has pulled ahead of Obama in the national polling? Because of Sarah Palin apparently? You knew, this, right? Let me ask you two questions?
1) Why am I putting a question mark after ever sentence? and
2) What are you doing to try to limit the chances that the yahoos take over the US in November?
Voting, in and of itself, is not enough…
grrlscientist | September 16, 2008I just wanted to point you all to a new group blog that I am contributing to, A Vote for Science, that was started by Seed Media Group to provide readers with a one-stop blog for political coverage as it pertains to science, medicine and technology issues. I made an inaugural entry there that you might wish to read because it requires your vote within the next few days.
sb admin | September 16, 2008Iâm repeating myself here, but itâs for a good cause. At the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Washington University School of Public Health, weâve launched a multi-part study to understand the current policies surrounding scientistsâ work at government agencies and to create recommendations for policies that support strong science and the appropriate role of scientists and researchers within our health and environment agencies.
Many talented government scientists leaving the federal agencies that protect our health and environment, and one of the ways to attract and…
cortex | September 16, 2008Yesterday, we looked at some new research that found that when conservatives were exposed to evidence demonstrating the falsity of a partisan belief - such as a report demonstrating that Iraq didn't have WMD, or that lowering taxes doesn't increase government revenue - they became more convinced than ever that those beliefs were actually true. The scientists call this "the backfire effect".
The researchers argue that conservatives are particularly vulnerable to this cognitive flaw, as their beliefs tend to be more rigid and immutable. But I'm not so sure. As a liberal partisan hack, I'm very…