Uncategorized
gregladen | February 1, 2013Hey, did anybody go to the 2012 fair? I couldn't make it. Let me know how it went.
Anyway, the 2013 fair will be at a new location, leading Har Mar to say "Creation Science Fair, why hath thou forsaken me?"
Here's the details for this year's Creation Science Fair:
2013 Home School Science Fair
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Northwestern College, Totino Fine Arts Center, Lobby
3003 North Snelling Ave.
Roseville Minnesota
Details here.
They say that last year there were 60 entries, but there are only photographs of 20. I wonder why those other children's work was left out? I sure hope they don'…
carlyo | January 30, 2013Are you a talented artist that loves science? The USA Science & Engineering Festival is looking for a Mascot and we need YOUR help to design the new face of the largest celebration of science and engineering!
We are looking for a mascot design that captures the spirit of the USA Science & Engineering Festival! The mascot will transcend our love of all things STEM and will be something or someone that will excite others about our mission! Our mission is to re-invigorate the interest of our nation's youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting…
illconsidered | January 30, 2013NASA's JPL division has an interesting article on thawing dry ice (frozen CO2) near the polar regions of Mars.
Aside from its being interesting, I only bring it up as it reminds me of the faux skeptic talking point about Mars warming, ergo the sun drives warming here on earth. It is about as far from a truly skeptical argument one could imagine as it rests (or at least it did when it originated) on the flimsiest of evidence that there is climate change on Mars at all. A truly skeptical approach would not make the leap from two photos of one spot to a global trend. Even if you establish the…
denialism | January 30, 2013Go by and check out Matt's second response on gun control.
I think this response is a good argument. After all, my arguments are correlative. It is impossible to do randomized controlled trials on whole countries after all.
I would ask a few questions in response to this rebuttal, however. Matt, what do you think about about data that demonstrates, within our own country, higher gun prevalence correlates with higher homicide, independent of other risk factors? Can we really dismiss the potential impact of federal gun laws using local gun laws as an example? Its pretty clear from…
gregladen | January 30, 2013Common misconceptions and unproven assumptions about the aquatic ape theory
A Guest Post by Marc Verhaegen
*2013 m_verhaegen@skynet.be
It is often assumed that Alister Hardy’s and Elaine Morgan’s aquatic ape theory (AAT) suggests that more than 5 Ma (million years ago) there was a semi-aquatic phase in our past (explaining e.g. human fur loss, fatness and upright bipedalism), which was followed by a savanna phase on the African plains. In 2011, AAT proponents published an eBook, Was Man more aquatic in the past?, which showed a rather different picture of AAT. Here I very briefly describe my…
gregladen | January 30, 2013There is a new anti-science bill in Arizona. Go read about it here. It is interesting that these anti-science bills are sounding more and more like pro science bills except for just a few words that allow, encourage, and even require funding for the teaching of climate science denialism and creationism.
Michael Zimmerman has a nice write up on how the big boys in creationism have been rather flustered by a former High School Student (now College Student) Zach Kopplin who, as I'm sure you know, has been challenging creationists in halls of government and elsewhere for a few years now.
When…
gregladen | January 29, 2013I just want to point you to these two items:
It's 10:00. Do you know where your handgun is?
Did you know that several, as far as I know uncounted, teenagers living in the Twin Cities have died tragically over the last year, with the cause of death being a gunshot wound, self inflicted. Typically, it is a handgun. The details for most of these tragedies are not available, but I would imagine that few, if any, of these teenagers killed themselves with their own handgun. Most likely, they used a gun owned by someone else in the household, and I'm guessing that it is usually dad's gun,…
gregladen | January 29, 2013There is now a Graphic Book (which is apparently some kind of cartoony thing kids these days read) which is a biography of Darwin. I've not read it but I have a free chapter for you, here. That's courtesy of the NCSE.
Here's the Amazon Link and from that site, a description:
Darwin: A Graphic Biography is an inspiring expedition into the physical and intellectual adventures of Charles Darwin. Presenting Darwin's life in a smart and entertaining graphic novel, Darwin: A Graphic Biography attempts to not only educate the reader about Darwin but also the scientific world of the 1800s. The…
gregladen | January 29, 2013Whispers from the Ghosting Trees
A guest post by Gail Zawacki, who blogs at Wit's End.
While we hustle busily through the necessities of our lives, wrapped up in our daily preoccupations - our obligations to our families, our jobs, and our dreams - at the same time all around the world, trees are silently expiring. For those who take the time to look, we can see that the forests are being transformed before our helpless and incredulous gaze into spectral mausoleums, as even the most ancient living wood is consumed by a raging tsunami of pathogens unprecedented in scale and virulence. What has…
mspringer | January 29, 2013The human eye is sensitive to a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that we call visible light, which extends from around 400 to 700 nanometer wavelength, peaking in the general vicinity of greenish light at 560 nanometers:
Here's the intensity (formally: power per area per unit solid angle per unit wavelength - whew!) of the radiation emitted by an object with the temperature of the sun, plotted as a function of wavelength in nanometers according to Planck's law:
$latex B_\lambda(T) =\frac{2 hc^2}{\lambda^5}\frac{1}{ e^{\frac{hc}{\lambda k_\mathrm{B}T}} - 1}&s=1$
Spectral radiance (…
gregladen | January 28, 2013Have you seen the Weather Underground's Weekly Weather Roundups, which are archived here? They are truly the funniest thing on the Internet. Also, tragic and scary. Here is a recent example:
carlyo | January 28, 2013
50,000 Fans and Counting!
We are so excited to share the news that the USA Science & Engineering Festival Facebook page now has over 50,000 fans! Facebook serves as a wonderful medium for us to reach a population of STEM enthusiasts! Facebook is a platform for us to connect with our fans using humor and intellect to spread the word about the Festival! Our mission is to re-invigorate the interest of STEM in our nation and we are seeing an amazing response to our quickly growing social media sites. The positive feedback we receive from our STEM posts, photos, tweets and news stories …
carlyo | January 26, 2013--Through her studies of air, water and food quality in the Industrial Age, she introduced the word "ecology" to the U.S. lexicon as early as 1892
--First woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and first American woman to earn a degree in chemistry
Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911), who introduced the word ecology in the United States in 1892, was an early and far-seeing exponent of that science. She was also the first woman student—and later professor—at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the first American to earn a degree in chemistry. Raised…
gregladen | January 26, 2013It has become increasingly difficult to understand the motivation behind climate science denialism. The Earth’s climate is changing, mainly in the form of increased temperatures of the oceans and the atmosphere, because of the release of copious amounts of previously trapped Carbon through the burning of fossil fuels. There is no longer a question that this is happening, and every year, the various details that one might like to see worked out, regarding the mechanisms or effects of climate change, are increasingly known. To state, with a straight face, that the jury is still out, or that we…
gregladen | January 26, 2013From the NCSE:
The Next Generation Science Standards represent a tremendous opportunity to strengthen science education in the United States, but also a tremendous risk.
Dozens of states have signed up to consider replacing their existing standards with these new ones. NGSS could revolutionize the US science curriculum, doing great good if they live up to their promise: if evolution and climate change are covered accurately, if they are integrated throughout the curriculum and across grade levels, if the nature of science is presented honestly and incorporated throughout the curriculum, and…
carlyo | January 25, 2013The Festival will be unveiling a new program called X-STEM on Thursday, April 24, 2014.
X-STEM is a special “Extreme” symposium for middle and high school students featuring interactive presentations by an exclusive group of visionaries who aim to empower and inspire kids about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These STEM role models and industry leaders are sure to ignite your students’ curiosity through storytelling and live demonstrations.
This all day event will feature multiple presentation sessions covering a wide array of subject areas including space…
gregladen | January 25, 2013The Wall Street Journal recently published and editorial by Bjorn Lomborg which uses misleading statistics to justify utterly inappropriate delays in addressing climate change. I would like to direct you to a response to that editorial:
In WSJ op-ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats
jrosenhouse | January 23, 2013Writing in the online statistics magazine Significance, Angie Wade, of University College London, has posted a review of Taking Sudoku Seriously. That's the book about the mathematics of Sudoku puzzles that I cowrote with my JMU colleague Laura Taalman, published by Oxford University Press, for those not in the know.
Anyway, did Wade like the book?
In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and do not have any criticisms to make. The authors have produced a lovely addition to any budding or practiced mathematician’s bookcase. Well-presented and readable for both the novice and the maths…
carlyo | January 23, 2013--Director of the famous Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History, New York City
-- Hosted the science TV show "NOVA scienceNOW" on PBS
--Named to host new sequel to Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" TV series on Fox later in 2013
In addition to his research, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is widely known for using his talents in astroscience to increase science literacy among students and the general public by presenting complex concepts in clear, engaging ways. Influenced by Carl Sagan, Einstein and Richard Feynman. Neil grew up in New York City, where at age 9 he took his first trip to…
gregladen | January 23, 2013I may want to do a poll here in the medium future, and I thought I'd try out some different methods to see what works. This first one is from this site.
If there was a poll on this blog, would you participate?
Yes
No
pollcode.com free polls
From the same site, a different objective and layout:
What kind of bird is depicted in each of these photos?
Photo A is a Sparrow
Photo A is a Hawk
Photo B is a Sparow
Photo B is a Hawk
Photo C is a Sparrow
Photo C is a Hawk
Photo D is a Sparrow
Photo D is a Hawk
pollcode.com free polls…