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jstemwedel | January 23, 2007If you ever wonder why state employees are so marvelously equipped to believe six impossible things before breakfast, this story from Inside Higher Education will provide some context:
Who would have thought that doing too well on a test could get you in trouble?
Certainly not Tony Williams. After passing a new online test on ethics required of all state employees, the tenured professor in the English department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale received a notice from his university ethics officer and from the state inspector general that he was not in compliance with state…
tqa | January 23, 2007I made a fairly large error when I wrote my previous article on the health care "plan" that Bush will announce during the State of the Union Address later today. When I did my back-of-the-envelope calculations of the tax breaks that different people would receive under the plan, I missed an important consideration. When I initially read the press release, I thought that everyone would get the $15,000 income deduction. I wasn't reading carefully enough.
In reality, only those who have health insurance will get any sort of tax break. This means that unless the uninsured poor can scrape…
razib | January 23, 2007Many fellow ScienceBloggers are doing a "Basic Concepts" series. Here are some of them:
Mean, Median, and Mode
Normal Distribution
Force
Gene
Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
Evolution
Clade
Instead of thinking up something new I've decided to repost a an older post where I cover the "basic" equations and models which I pretty much assume in many of my posts. The post below....
Begin repost
Occasionally I appeal to formalizations or equations on this weblog to illustrate a general verbal principle. I don't do it to obscure or needlessly technicalize a topic of interest, but rather, it is…
tqa | January 23, 2007In his State of the Union Address tonight, Bush will announce a new "plan" to address the need for more affordable health care insurance. After reading the White House "Fact Sheet" on the plan, a phrase quickly jumps to mind - "dead on arrival." That one is quickly joined by others - "smoking crack," "bloody stupid," "give me a break," and "what mentally defective chimpanzee came up with this one?"
The funniest thing about this particular proposal is exactly how stereotypically Bush it really is. Stripped down to its bearest essentials, there are two parts to this health care plan. One part…
sb admin | January 22, 2007The Science Blogging Conference, held this past weekend at UNC-Chapel Hill, wasnât just for bloggers. Many of the attendees, particularly science students and educators, came to learn how they could use blogs, and some of them launched their own blogs over the course of the weekend. The journalists in attendance seemed to be immersed in the blogosphere already: some were blogging as part of their jobs, some relied on bloggers as sources, and some were both bloggers and journalists.
During the conference, I found it particularly interesting to hear different conversations about how blogging…
tqa | January 22, 2007Earlier today, I noted that an unusual alliance consisting of representatives from both heavy industry and the environmental movement has released a report calling for mandatory action on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The list of participating industries is impressive, particularly since all of them are directly tied in one way or another to GHGs - this isn't a case of non-polluters making suggestions to polluters; these are companies who will absolutely be affected by the legislation that they are proposing. Ordinarily, I would be extraordinarily skeptical about any proposal to fight…
pharyngula | January 22, 2007Here's another account of Phil Plait's talk at TAM5, with more details. I think he threw in a little bit of snark there.
I won't complain, though—I can afford to be magnanimous after my overwhelming victory over Bad Astronomy.
grrlscientist | January 22, 2007
Normally, I receive somewhere between 900-2500 hits per day (green on above graph) with slightly more than like twice as many page views (purple on above graph), but last week, one of my articles from nearly a year ago about global warming was Dugg, producing nearly 50,000 hits in the span of a single day! This graph shows you what those stats look like when compared to my normal traffic -- which I thought was respectable (well, sorta). Now, if only I could keep my traffic at such enormous levels, I'd be so happy!
tqa | January 22, 2007The United States Climate Action Partnership has just released a report calling for mandatory greenhouse gas emission cap legislation and suggesting a specific set of mechanisms for achieving cuts in the near future. There are a number of noteworthy items in the report, but the most remarkable thing is who wrote this report.
The United States Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP) is a coalition of groups that includes both major corporations and major non-governmental organizations. On the corporate side, the group includes Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, DuPont, FPL Group,…
cevans | January 22, 2007NOBODY.
Yes, you read that correctly. Of the 57 entries submitted to the inaugural Universe/TOMS contest, not a single one was completely correct. I feel partially responsible for this! Probably it was too hard!
Before I announce the compromise, let's reveal what the damn things were. The first object, as many people surmised, was indeed a feather:
The second, however, was trickier, and nobody got it quite right. It was, of course (don't slap your foreheads too hard), a piece of felt. Cheap, regular craft felt:
So what do we do? The decent thing to do is give the prize to whomever came…
cmcclain | January 22, 2007Since this won a Fuzzy Yeti Crab (The Fuzzy) for 2006, I thought a repost was in order.
There is a great article at the San Francisco Chronicle on cosmeuceuticals and the extent people are distributing snake oil including this beauty...
At the highest end of the skin-care spectrum, Saks Fifth Avenue on Union Square sells Estee Lauder's Re-Creation daytime and nighttime cream set (a store exclusive), which contains "deep sea water" for minerals and sells for $900.
So what are the purported effects of deep-sea water? I collected some claims from around the internet which range from plain…
cmcclain | January 22, 2007In the last 10 years, the average temperature of the earth as increased by 0.75 degrees Celsius. In less you have not read a newspaper or watched the news in the last 15 years, you would know that a majority of scientists have linked this to increasing C02 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Currently those levels are about 7 gigatons of carbon per year (GtC y-1) are expected to reach double that by 2050.
So what do we do with all this extra carbon dioxide?
One phenomenally poor thought out plan is ocean seeding. Another, the superseafloor injection, is direct injection of CO2…
grrlscientist | January 21, 2007
This finger-tip sized Cyphochilus beetle, found in south-east Asia, has a shell whiter than most materials found in nature.
Image: Pete Vukusic.
Researchers found that the Cyphochilus beetle, endemic to south-east Asia, was much brighter and whiter than either milk or the average human tooth.
"You do see the odd bit of whiteness here and there, mainly in butterflies, but the whiteness is really incomparable with this little beetle," observed lead scientist, Pete Vukusic of Exeter University.
Close inspection of the beetle reveals a unique surface structure covered with scales that are 10…
grrlscientist | January 20, 2007The 10th Carnival of Children's Literature has been posted for your (and your kids') reading pleasure. Be sure to check it out for good book recommendations for your kids!
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tags: children's literature, blog carnival, books
cmcclain | January 20, 2007Urged by a reader for a more "dampened" shot, I have changed my profile picture to a recent photography taken by a colloborator and friend. There were also some comments about our disgruntled mug shots. You guys are relentless! This picture may qualify me for the sexiest Sb blogger! I just have to figure how to get Peter out of the running.
Off topic, but I am trying to convince this friend, a terrestrial ecologist, to write up his experiences for DSN about a ROV dive I took him on last year.
cmcclain | January 19, 2007From the dark abyss to the darkness of Space. On Jan. 26th* Deep-Sea Scientist Tim Shank in the Alvin and Astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams at the International Space Station will have a conversation about exploration and science. If that is not cool enough you can listen, or watch on the NASA channel, and even ask a question! This is way to cool and I am soo jealous of Shank!
* Due to busy and sometimes unpredictable schedules on the space station and on the Alvin sub, the conversation may be rescheduled to January 27 or 28. Please check this page for updates.
cortex | January 19, 2007From Steven Shapin's recent New Yorker article on the history of vegetarianism:
A recent report by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization reckons that at least eighteen per cent of the global-warming effect comes from livestock, more than is caused by all the world's transportation systems.
The number of vegetarians in developed countries is evidently on the increase, but the world's per-capita consumption of meat rises relentlessly: in 1981, it was 62 pounds per year; in 2002, the figure stood at 87.5 pounds. In carnivorous America, it increased from 238.1 to 275.1 pounds, and the…
clock | January 19, 2007The dinner tonight is starting to look like a huge blogger meetup! Who will be there?
Suzanne Franks aka Zuska
Janet D. Stemwedel aka Dr.Free-ride
Anton Zuiker aka Mistersugar
Dave and Greta Munger
Brian Russell
Larry Moran and his daughter Jane
Paul Jones and his son Tucker
Bill Hooker
Cathy Davies aka Lab Cat
Reed Cartwright and Professor Steve Steve
Sarah Greene
Rob Knop
Bharat Chandramouli
Eric Roach
Adnaan Wasey
Xan Gregg
Will Raymond
George Birchard
Bonnie Springer
Amy Hughes
probably a couple of others who have not officially signed up, and me.
Pictures will follow.... (watch here and…
cmcclain | January 19, 2007A new series for you Friday Deep-Sea Picture. Feel free to email us great pictures you find about the web or from you personal collection.
Starfish graze on an extensive bed of mussels on the outer flanks of the cone. Image courtesy of New Zealand-American Submarine Ring of Fire 2005 Exploration, NOAA Vents Program.
razib | January 18, 2007There is now a sign up page for A Week of Science. Basically I'll take the feeds and load them up on Justscience.net with Feedpress the day before the 5th. You can see the current list here. You can insert the sign up page with this code into you're own site (remove the styling if you wish of course):
<form action="http://www.justscience.net/signup.php" method="GET">
<style>
#justScienceInputs { border:#CCCCCC thin groove; width: 250px; padding:5px;
background-color:#FFFFCC;
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:12px;}
input {width:150px;}
</style>
<div…