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gregladen | September 12, 2012NASA's Earth Now Android App
One of the top iPhone education apps in the iTunes store is now available for Android. The free NASA "Earth Now" Android app immerses cyber explorers in dazzling visualizations of near-real-time global climate data from NASA's fleet of Earth science satellites, bringing a world of ever-changing climate data to users' fingertips. Available HERE.
TruthMarket by Rick Hayes-Roth on Point of Inquiry
Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to make American politics just a little more rational, just a little more evidence based?
Wouldn't it be even nicer if there was a…
gregladen | September 12, 2012The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has acquired data that seems to indicate that Mars has dry-ice snowfalls.
From a press release by NASA:
Frozen carbon dioxide, better known as "dry ice," requires temperatures of about minus 193 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 125 Celsius), which is much colder than needed for freezing water. Carbon-dioxide snow reminds scientists that although some parts of Mars may look quite Earth-like, the Red Planet is very different. The report is being published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
"These are the first definitive detections of carbon-dioxide snow clouds,"…
gregladen | September 12, 2012A number of lines of evidence have converged on the apparent fact that how you feel about Cilantro is a relatively simple genetic system. That Cilantro hatred is inherited genetically and not culturally has long been suspected, but now it is becoming clear enough that this could be a new module in the Science Classroom where kids are forced to taste it and record their level of disgust. It's all written up here, in Nature.
In hopes of identifying the genetic basis for these traits, researchers led by Nicholas Eriksson at the consumer genetics firm 23andMe, based in Mountain View, California…
choofnagle | September 12, 2012Gawker reports that on the first day of Katie Couric's new show, Sheryl Crow discusses her theory that cell phone use caused her to have a brain tumor.
Update: The Chronicle reports that the show is just a celebrity infomercial, with softball questions, and no critical discussion:
You would be forgiven for mistakenly thinking you'd tuned in to an infomercial for Weight Watchers in the first half hour of Katie Couric's new syndicated talk show, "Katie," which premiered Monday afternoon...
jrosenhouse | September 11, 2012If I told you that evolution was in crisis, what would you think I meant? You would probably think I meant that the theory was on its way out. You would think that new discoveries had shown the untenability of evolution, and that biologists were in despair over their lack of a central organizing principle. You would think that maybe those creationists and ID folks weren't as crazy as you had been told. If you're an old hand at this you might even recall Michael Denton's 1986 book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which proved so inspirational to ID folks in the years before Philip Johnson…
gregladen | September 11, 2012It is said that the national conventions of the two main parties in the US influence polls. This is sometimes called the "Convention Bump" but that term is used for a lot of other things, like a network getting more viewership during a convention, or a candidate getting more funding or larger crowds for a while.
The convention bump probably has two different causes. One is the tendency of the party about to have the convention to pile on lots of ad time on many TV markets, and to continue those ads during the convention. The other is the added attention to the candidate from the convention…
gregladen | September 11, 2012A young woman was driving along the road, at night, and needed to focus her attention on a cell phone call, so she pulled into an open parking lot of a closed restaurant along side the road and visible to passing motorists. She pulled her car into a parking space, switched it off, and made the call.
A passing police officer noticed the young woman alone in her car talking on the cell phone. He pulled into the parking lot and switched on his emergency lights, got out of his police cruiser and approached her. He started asking her questions about what she was doing, who she was talking to,…
mspringer | September 10, 2012If you've been reading ScienceBlogs for a while, you might remember this little physics blog I used to write. It and I sort of vanished off the internet for a long while. More than a year, I'm sad to say. Long story short, being a grad student takes up a huge amount of time. While I sort of thought being done with classes and going to pure research would give me some breathing room, it did the opposite. Also, I got married. Being married is nice. But did it add to my quantity of free time? It did not. And after a while of not doing something which is not mandatory - like writing a blog - you…
jrosenhouse | September 10, 2012OMG! Did you see the game between U. S. first board Hikaru Nakamura and Russia's first board (and former World Champion) Vladimir Kramnik at the big Chess Olympiad last week? No? It saw one of the rarest and coolest moves in chess. In the following position, it is Nakamura, playing white, to move:
Let me remind you that when a pawn makes it all the way to the other side of the board, it can become either a queen, rook, bishop or knight. This is called pawn promotion. In nearly all situations you are going to promote to a queen, since that is the most powerful piece. When a person…
gregladen | September 10, 2012A while ago, I wrote Who is to blame for politically shaded shootings? in which I made this rather extreme statement which was only weakly opposed by any commenters:
Generally speaking these days, progressive movements and for the most part the “left” in America speaks out against violence, is more or less either anti-gun or pro gun regulation, mostly anti-war, and mostly pacifist, while the right wing tends to form heavily armed paramilitary militias, is totally against almost any kind of gun related regulations, is pro war, and bellicose. So when someone from the right shoots someone on the…
lborkowski | September 7, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Another study, another support beam in the argument that access to insurance coverage matters — a lot.
In a study published this month in the journal Health Affairs, researchers took a look at rates of amenable mortality deaths — in other words, deaths that shouldn't happen in the presence of timely and effective care — between the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Their conclusion? The U.S. — home to the world's highest rate of health care spending — is lagging behind.
Between 1999 and 2007, amenable mortality rates among men fell by 18.5 percent in the U…
gregladen | September 7, 2012
The so-called "Galilean thermometer."
The object known as the Galileo Thermometer is a vertical glass tube filled with a liquid in which are suspended a number of weighted glass balls. As the temperature of the liquid changes, so does the density. Since each glass ball is set to float at equilibrium in a sightly different density of the liquid, as the temperature increases, each glass ball sinks to the bottom. It turns out that this thermometer was actually invented by a team of instrument inventors that formed a scientific society who had the impressive motto "Probando e Reprobando,"…
gregladen | September 6, 2012The Twin Cities Metro Transit (which we voted some time ago to call "The T" but still haven't really started doing yet) has added a very cool bus to its fleet. It is Minnesota Made which is nice, and super efficient in part for reasons that I had not realized were important. From the T's web site:
Advanced engine and hybrid technology
Optimized onboard systems for improved efficiency
Reduced emissions from less time spent idling
Less idling + more efficiency = buses that run cleaner and pollute less
Unlike other buses, even some hybrids, the Xcelsior uses super efficient All Electric…
gregladen | September 6, 2012In case you were not noticing, a few items have come up on the X Blog for your attention. I made a few observations from Bill Clinton's amazing speech last night and have a suggestion for my Republican friends. There's a wonderful bit of video in which Mitt Romney sits down with a plaid flannel jacket wearing Vet to hob-nob with the masses, and accidentally ends up in a conversation about gay marriage with a guy who would really like to share is veteran's benefits with his significant other. Be sure to watch it through to the end! And, there's been several special editions of the Sunday…
gregladen | September 6, 2012
Minda Berbeco
Minda Berbeco is a biologist who is an expert on the carbon cycle, climate change, and science education. She'll be joining the NCSE staff's new initiative on climate change related education.
"I have long respected NCSE's defense of evolution education and I am thrilled that the organization has taken up climate change" says Berbeco. "I'm even more thrilled to be part of NCSE's new climate change team."
From droughts to rising sea levels, climate change will have global effects. "Ignoring the science won't change the realities of climate change", says Berbeco. "We need a…
gregladen | September 6, 2012NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott received the Atheist Alliance of America's Richard Dawkins Award at the group's annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, on September 1, 2012. Unable to attend the ceremony in person, the namesake of the award began his video introduction by saying, "Eugenie Scott is one of my very favorite people, although we have our civilized disagreements, as I shall tell," and adding, "it's impossible to meet Genie without loving her, whether you agree with her or not." Scott began her acceptance speech by joking, "I now possess awards in the names of both Stephen…
gregladen | September 5, 2012Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak speaking in support of President Obama at the DNC: