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carlyo | November 7, 2012His invention of the gas mask has saved countless lives since World War I, and his patent of the first traffic signal led to the modern-day traffic light.
Garrett Morgan, the son of former slaves, was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1877 (the seventh of 11 children). His formal education never went beyond elementary school, and he spent much of his time working on the family farm with his brothers and sisters. While still a teenager, he left Kentucky and moved north to Cincinnati, Ohio in search of opportunity. His talents later led him in 1895 to Cleveland, Ohio, where he went to work as a…
mspringer | November 7, 2012If you're one of the probably four people who haven't heard about Nate Silver, you've missed out. He's a statistics guy who runs the always interesting 538 Blog at the New York Times. He made his name in baseball statistics, Moneyball style, and moved into politics where he made state-by-state statistical forecasts of the last couple national elections. His track record is pretty good. The final prediction for this election was an Obama win with 90.9% probability, and it duly came to pass. On a state-by-state basis, he seems to have been correct in every case. (Much of this was blind luck, as…
gregladen | November 6, 2012I'll be jotting notes here. Feel free to jot notes in the comments.
Bernie Sanders re-elected
6:22 PM Central: Virginia reporting good numbers for Obama. Larger turnouts than 2008 in VA.
6:54 PM Central: Senate: 30 DEM seats called, 37 GOP seats.
Leaving the polling place today, there was a couple behind me. She said, "Well, that didn't take long." He said "And it was easy. I have a system." "What's the system." "If the person is an incumbent, I don't vote for them."
Then, me, in my head "... idiot ..."
More money spent this year in Minnesota's 8th district than in all races in that…
lbock | November 6, 2012His invention improved Edison’s electric light bulb, and he executed the patent drawing for Bell’s telephone. Get to know this creative genius!
With his mind frequently in motion as a child, Lewis Howard Latimer -- born in 1848 in Chelsea, Massachusetts -- loved drawing at an early age and found himself doodling no matter where he would be. Little did he know these pastimes would evolve into a career as a noted draftsman and inventor, and result in him collaborating with two of the most famous innovators of his era.
Lewis, the fourth child of George and Rebecca Latimer, was reared in Boston.…
gregladen | November 6, 2012Earlier today I posted pictures of the politically motivated signboard at the church that is just down the street from my house. Click here to review. Later in the day, after picking Julia up at the local Minnesotans United for All Families, where she's been volunteering many hours a week, and dropping her off to be an Election Judge, on my way to Vote No Twice, I saw this:
Coon Rapids, Minnesota
This wonderful woman was standing out in the rain across from the largest Megachurch in the area and in front of my local Baptist church, right next to their sign board, on public property, with…
gregladen | November 6, 2012I have no idea if the Coon Rapids Baptist Church, is a real church with tax exempt status, but let's assume for the moment that they are. The question then would be, is this church jeopradizing their tax exempt status by taking and explicit stand on a certain issue and telling people how they should vote on it? Here are two photographs I snapped this morning:
Sign in front of the Coon Rapids Baptist Church and Christian School, North Bound on Hanson Blvd, Coon Rapids, MN, on election day, 2012.
Sign in front of Coon Rapids Baptist Church and Christian School, South Bound on Hanson Blvd,…
gregladen | November 6, 2012I just wanted to show you this histogram. I love this histogram because it demonstrates the underlying chunkiness of the electoral college. This is not at all an uncommon phenomenon in nature and culture, even though we tend to conceptualize and model things as nice curvy well behaved lines.
This also shows the underlying pattern from which people like Nate Silver get these percentages of who is likely to win. Each little chunkette (one electoral vote = one chunkette) of data on this histogram is a possible coin flip with a coin with two heads or two tails. You put all the biased coins…
lbock | November 5, 2012Most famous for inventing Clinistix® -- the "dip-and-read" test that for the first time allowed diabetics to monitor their blood glucose level instantly at home. Her contributions to laboratory science have even been recognized on the show, Jeopardy!
PLEASE SHARE IF YOU ARE INSPIRED BY THIS STORY
Helen Murray Free first wanted to be an English and Latin teacher, but World War II changed all that. In December 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, many young men either enlisted or were drafted into military service. Because of this, many women were encouraged to pursue careers in science to fill…
gregladen | November 5, 2012Bottom line: In the popular vote, Obama will win over Romney by a surprisingly small margin, if he wins.
People generally think Obama is going to win, as per this graphic:
But the actual "I'm voting for X" numbers are 50% Obama, 47% Romney. That is within the margin of error.
The poll, which is here, indicates that while the numbers are close, Obama's support is slightly (but only slightly) more enthusiastic than Romney's. Obama has a good approval number compared to Romney's but for some reason people, who are apparently all idiots, think that Romney will do a better job than Obama at…
gregladen | November 5, 2012I’m a guy who “gets” nasty threats from haters. I receive anti-atheist threats and icky comments, I receive a LOT of nasty stuff from climate science denialists (and that often comes along with bogus threats of law suits), I receive nasty emails and tweets from the sexist and racist SlymePitters and those folks seem to spend more time than is healthy for them making Greg-hating memes and videos and comments on web sites I would not normally visit.
So, I receive nasty horrid verbal attacks from people who hate me and what I stand for, but do I get these nasty horrid verbal attacks in the way…
lbock | November 4, 2012PLEASE SHARE IF YOU ARE INSPIRED BY THIS STORY!
(Send Us Your Opinion Today: Have you ever been inspired to greatness in scientific invention at the age of 12 like Rachel? Let us know what you think about her achievement!)
Rachel Zimmerman undoubtedly had her teacher’s inspiring "Go for it" advice in mind when she, at the age of 12 in the mid-1980s used her love of science to develop an invention that continues to significantly help the way people with severe speaking disabilities communicate with others.
Why She's Important: While exploring possible topics for a school science fair…
gregladen | November 4, 2012The Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA fired him for performance reasons.
Ars Technica's John Timmer has the story:
Coppedge had worked on the Cassini mission to Saturn, starting as a contractor in 1996, and later becoming a full-time employee. But one of the projects he pursued on his own time was the promotion of intelligent design, the notion that the Universe and, most prominently, life itself, is too orderly to have come about without a designer. (Like many others in that movement, Coppedge is a self-identified evangelical Christian.)\
In 2009, he apparently got a bit aggressive about…
lbock | November 2, 2012Molly Stevens -- Materials scientist
Internationally known for her work in nanotechnology to regenerate bone and tissue growth, and to design bioactive materials for early detection of disease
Nanotechnology (the science of manipulating matter at the atomic or molecular level, especially to build microscopic materials) has the potential to transform key areas of science and engineering. Molly Stevens, a materials scientist at the Imperial College of London (England), is using nanotechnology to push the boundaries of biotechnology through advances in bone and tissue regeneration, and…
gregladen | November 2, 2012Personally, I can give you a half dozen reasons. But why listen to me, when you can listen to Desiree Schell speaking with John Zeller, Nicole Gugliucci, John Matson, and Cynthia Phillips??? Which you can do on Sunday. Check out: #188 Why Should I Care About Space?
gregladen | November 2, 2012Climate change denialism is on its last legs and will soon be no more relevant than Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists or Obama birthers. But on the way out they are making me laugh. In the last 48 hours I've heard one denialist's claim that Superstorm Sandy was not relevant to climate change and storminess because it was not a hurricane (it was, and it is relevant). Most recently I've seen an email that is getting passed around that claims that the Arctic ice that melted last summer was melted on purpose using Tesla Technology operated by a conspiracy between the Russian and…