updates
cmooney | September 18, 2007Drum roll please...
We are now officially able to announce that Andrew Binder, a graduate student in life sciences communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has won our "Crash the Intersection" banner contest.
Andrew's successful banner--which I've taken to calling the Sign & Cross-Genes--can be viewed at the top of the page, or here. You'll notice that we're still having technical difficulties in putting it up, though these should soon subside. Meanwhile, Andrew's various promised goodies are wending their way to Madison. (Cool town, by the way.)
We will display the banner…
cmooney | September 17, 2007It was tough, but Sheril and I have now selected the winner of the Crash the Intersection banner art contest. We'll be announcing the name soon and showing you the artwork. And then finally--perhaps as soon as by week's end--we'll actually have the work on display up there.
At which point the Intersection will become a much more aesthetically pleasing place to work and to play.
Our thanks go out to everyone who submitted entries to the contest--as I said, it was a hard choice.
More soon....
cmooney | September 17, 2007
During the doldrums of August, Sheril and I were both around and posting repeatedly every day--which probably had something to do with our traffic record.
Alas, it's fall now, students are back on campuses, and we're on the road again more than ever, which really interrupts posting frequency. We'll be doing our best, but as I hope you'll understand, it will be difficult at times.
In particular, I'm speaking tomorrow in Dallas, and then on Thursday at Cornell. Then the week after that is the big framing smackdown/cataclysm in Minneapolis.
You've heard plenty about the latter already, but here…
cmooney | September 11, 2007I am heading up north a bit today in anticipation of a talk about Storm World tomorrow at the Stevens Institute of Technology's Center for Science Writings. My host is center director John Horgan, the author of The End of Science. Being on the road should cut down my posting frequency a bit, so Sheril will just have to write double.
Er, just kidding...
cmooney | September 11, 2007We have now gotten some good entries, but we still need more to make a completely, er, informed decision...and we're afraid some real Picassos out there are still holding back. So with just days left, Sheril and I want to remind everyone one last time about the The 1st Annual CRASH THE INTERSECTION Contest!
Design an "Intersection" banner and have your art displayed atop our blog for at least one year where the world can be dazzled by your creativity and wit! That's thousands of views a day all credited to you! We like to mix things up so there are no guidelines as long as it's not rated NC…
cmooney | September 4, 2007
We've been talking a lot about hurricane records lately. But that's not the only kind of record germane to this blog at the moment.
As some of you no doubt noticed, things have been up-and-down here at the Intersection over the past year. Particularly when I had a pressing book deadline, posting frequency went way, way down. And so, understandably, did our traffic.
In May, however, I invited Sheril to join the blog, and boy do I not regret it. Since May our traffic here has almost doubled, reaching a peak of nearly 60,000 pageviews in August as judged by Sitemeter. We've never had this much…
sheril | September 1, 2007A few weeks ago, I reported the possible disappearance of the Yangtze River dolphin when Biological Letters published an article suggesting this may be the first human-caused extinction of a cetacean species. And would you know it, according to The New York Times, a baiji dolphin was filmed in the Yangtze River this very week. Good news for marine mammal enthusiasts everywhere. Then again, Bigfoot's sighted quite often too.
cmooney | August 30, 2007
[Matt Nisbet battles PZ Myers (artist's rendition).]
Uh oh. There is some heavy talk coming out of some folks about this Minnesota thing in September.
Greg Laden:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Scoundrels and Aristocrats ...
... In this corner, we have Author and Journalist Chris the Madman Mooney.
... In this corner, we have American University Professor Matthew The Knucklebreaker Nisbet
... and in this corner we have Anthropologist Greg Prettyboy Laden.
And it gets better: Now PZ might be coming:
There is going to be a melee in Minneapolis, a testicle-twister in the Twin Cities,…
cmooney | August 28, 2007
The Mooney-Nisbet show will be going back on the road this fall--our calendar has in fact filled up quite quickly. So we're pleased to announce the following confirmed events this September through November, with as many details as are currently available. Stops include Minneapolis, New York, Washington, D.C., and Seattle; note in particular the second Sept. 28 event where we'll be on a panel with Greg Laden, which we're hoping PZ will also join as this is kinda his stomping grounds:
Friday, September 283:15 pmAnnual Meeting--Association of Reproductive Health ProfessionalsHilton…
cmooney | August 20, 2007 Last week I did an interview with D.J. Grothe of the Point of Inquiry podcast about the new book and other issues. It just went online, and you can listen here.
This is a great podcast that all defenders of science and reason should be subscribing to, so if you don't already, now's your opportunity...
cmooney | August 13, 2007I just heard from a buddy in Iraq that the Yearly Kos science panel aired on C-SPAN on Saturday, but I've only just now been able to track down what appears to be a temporary archive of the video. For those interested in watching great talks by Sean Carroll and Ed Brayton, as well as my own presentation, here's how it works: Click here, and then select "American Perspectives: Campaign 2008, Rep. Rogers (R-WA), Yearly Kos Convention." The science panel footage begins around 1:23:30.
Also, if anyone know how to save this video and perhaps archive on YouTube or elsewhere that would be great.…
cmooney | August 7, 2007So: I just went on the show This Week on Science--otherwise known as "TWIS," otherwise known as "The Kickass Science Podcast"--to talk about Storm World. And just as we strove to keep the science fun (& funny) at Yearly Kos, so hosts Kirsten and Justin of TWIS regularly do the same...and they're pretty darn good at it.
Let's just say I didn't know the discussion would turn to how we could reframe "global warming" as "climatea," a venereal disease the planet has caught.
To figure out how that happened, guess you'll just have to listen to the Podcast. My segment starts just before minute…
cmooney | August 7, 2007Just a coupla updates: I'll be speaking about Storm World at a Cafe Scientifique in Arlington, Virginia, tonight. This Cafe is put on by the National Science Foundation, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Meanwhile, I'll also be appearing today on a great radio show--This Week in Science. I'll be on at around 12 ET. Check out the website for audio; there's also a podcast.
After this I'll be doing plenty more radio interviews, but I'll be giving the speaking a rest for about a month. The book tour was quite grueling, largely because the airlines have (in my view) grown so undependable that…
cmooney | August 6, 2007I have lotsa blog posts today. Only, they're not on this site.
First, I wrote a long essay at Huffington Post about the Yearly Kos science panel, which I thought was just extraordinary. It was definitely worth dropping a dime to travel to Chicago for. Click here to read my take. And here's a great picture of the panel itself from Lindsay Beyerstein:
Meanwhile, the website The Daily Green has asked me to blog regularly about hurricanes--in other words, to track the weather, which has become a great hobby of mine. My first post over there, entitled "2007 Hurricane Season: Don't Get Too…
cmooney | August 6, 2007 There are a lot of big articles you (and I) should be reading this week.
The latest Time puts the continuing failure to protect New Orleans on the cover: "The Threatening Storm: How years of misguided policies and bureaucratic bungling left New Orleans defenseless against Katrina--and why it may happen again," by Michael Grunwald. Read it here.
The latest Newsweek goes with the story of industry funding and global warming denial (a story that many of us have been telling for years): "The Truth About Denial," by Sharon Begley. Read it here.
Finally, USA Today's great science writer Dan…
cmooney | August 2, 2007My latest Seed column, entitled "Extremophile Journalism," is now online. It's based on my experience at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne, Australia last April, where I learned much about the plight of science reporters in developing countries and emerging economies. Here's an excerpt:
...in many cases science journalists from the developing world face a series of hurdles that I, comfortably ensconced in Washington, D.C., simply never encounter. For some of these writers, basic research resources like cheap and reliable telephone service, libraries, and even…
cmooney | August 1, 2007
Tomorrow I fly to Chicago, where I'll be speaking--for the second year in a row--on the Yearly Kos science panel. This time, my fellow speakers will be ScienceBlogs' Ed Brayton and Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance. Scienceblogs' own Tara Smith will be chairing the panel.
Tara is also heading up the Science Bloggers Caucus the previous day, which unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to attend due to travel conflicts ;At the YKos panel I will be talking about how, as the author of The Republican War on Science, I decided to write next about the murky hurricane-global warming battle--and…
sheril | July 23, 2007As Chris predicted, ScienceBlogs up and interviewed me. And no laughing Mr. Mooney, because you were also featured very recently on Page 3.14.
cmooney | July 23, 2007The first leg of the Storm World tour ended Saturday, with my best attended event yet--close to 100 people at Politics and Prose. Looks like Harry Potter and I have different audiences after all.
Now, for the second leg, I begin to whip out the PowerPoint presentation (once, at least). I'm off to Colorado today, for talks at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and then a great bookstore in Denver, the Tattered Cover. The airlines have been a total pain lately, which is really making my standard flight-a-day-speech-a-day routine a lot less fun. So wish me luck on that…
cmooney | July 5, 2007So: Scienceblogs interviewed me. How cool is that?
I say stuff like this:
What's your greatest habitual annoyance?The slow middle elevator in my building.
What's your most marked characteristic?
I'm a recovering workaholic.
What's your fatal flaw?
Aging.
What would you like to be?
A professional soccer player and then a professional musician--five years of each. And then go back to being a writer.
You have all just peered deep, deep into my soul.
And stop laughing, Sheril, you'll be doing one of these Q & As soon enough....
MEANWHILE: Timed in anticipation of the Live Earth concert…