January 09, 2010
Interesting: "Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), in cooperation with colleagues from Oxford and Bristol Universities, as well as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have for the first time observed a nanoscale symmetry hidden in solid...
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August 23, 2009
So is the take away from this that men are sluttier than women, or that women are more shallow than men? (I don't mean the question to imply there's anything negative about being slutty or shallow)....
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April 13, 2009
Sounds totally cool. What do you think Baltar, maybe expand your politics and film class?...
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March 29, 2009
Women in science. Via....
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March 16, 2009
So I will admit that I was one of the weirdos who read all of A New Kind of Science. Wolfram is still at it, and this time he has created a new kind of computational tool for the internet....
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March 15, 2009
Via a card on PostSecret about getting a PhD, comes this link to The Importance of Stupidity in Science. I think it's not just important in science, but in other creative areas or relationships. If you knew everything, what fun...
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February 21, 2009
Tourism is of course a major part of Louisiana's economy, and New Orleans is, of course, an inviting town that appeals to many. But of late more and more organizations are thinking about taking their members (and their money) elsewhere,...
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December 15, 2008
Via ModFab, the bouncing universe. I don't know that I'm smart enough to get this exactly - but nonetheless, it's neat....
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September 18, 2008
Via Balloon Juice a survey about political beliefs and information....
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March 01, 2008
Via Queerty, a new scientific discovery: Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, says his team has identified a gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the...
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December 04, 2007
There was a story about how US rankings on math and science internationally have dropped yet again. Yeah, Texas, you keep going with that, and drag the rest of us with you....
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November 16, 2007
I think there are probably some missing variables influencing this report, and that we are looking at correlation, not causation: The poll by Harris Interactive, an independent research company, showed that 88 percent of people with a post-graduate education were...
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STFU already: The placenta acts like a parasite to avoid attack by a mother's immune system, researchers have discovered. A University of Reading team found it employs a cloaking device very similar to that used by parasitic worms. HT...
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November 12, 2007
From Slate: A study suggests the earlier you lose your virginity, the less likely you are to become a delinquent. Old finding: Kids who have early sex become delinquents. New findings: 1) When you eliminate genetic differences by comparing twins,...
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October 25, 2007
This probably tells more about me than I should reveal, but when I was a kid, I loved this shit: Yes, even though I think The Rat is evil....
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June 17, 2007
PZ writes about how the "War on Terror" and the "War on Drugs" have combined to be a war against science projects: In the name of child safety, in order to inhibit drug peddlers, because we don't want to make...
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June 10, 2007
Via Pharyngula, we get some initial results of the 2006 General Social Survey (GSS). The GSS is done every few years (two? four? I don't remember), and is an attempt to study the general characteristics of the population of the...
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May 18, 2007
In the last couple of months, I have filled out two online surveys of regular blog readers, both part of dissertation projects by political science graduate students at the same university, and both referred by Bitch, PhD. This is a...
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February 22, 2007
Science, and get recognized for the first time by the Turing award....
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February 19, 2007
Your kids get lead in their lunch....
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February 10, 2007
The Union of Concerned Scientists has made an A to Z Guide of Political Interference in Science. In the form of a Periodic Table, natch. Via....
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January 16, 2007
Budget cuts are gutting our ability to "understand and predict hurricanes": The two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, determined that NASA's earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. It stands to fall further as...
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December 19, 2006
SNAKE!!!...
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December 18, 2006
Geckos can reproduce asexually: The female mourning gecko has found a way to simulate sex and produce eggs, rendering her male counterpart redundant, scientists have found. But the revolution has a downside, with the invading Asian reptiles reproducing at an...
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November 30, 2006
From CNN: An ancient astronomical calculator made at the end of the 2nd century BC was amazingly accurate and more complex than any instrument for the next 1,000 years, scientists said on Wednesday.The Antikythera Mechanism is the earliest known device...
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November 24, 2006
You'd think the Bush administration would respect the EPA more. After all it was started by their model, Nixon: It never got down to actual book-burning, but the Republican choke-hold on government would clearly have taken us there. In August,...
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November 21, 2006
As should be moderately clear from reading this blog, I'm a strong believer in reality, and science (logic and method) as something that points to reality. This isn't to say that there isn't a place for religion and faith, but...
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October 24, 2006
GAO report critical of abstinence only sex education. Some addition tidbits: According to Columbia University researchers, virginity pledge programs increase pledge-takers' risk for STIs and pregnancy. The study concluded that 88 percent of pledge-takers initiated sex prior to marriage even...
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October 21, 2006
Have you been reading Echidne's series on statistics? If you're not stats jocks like us overtrained ICPSR monkeys, and if you've ever wondered what exactly some stat or poll means, you should read her series of posts (links to the...
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September 26, 2006
From Crooks and Liars a link to this: The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. Well kiss my grits! I...
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September 06, 2006
Not the dreaded nerd-off. Think IR geeks can give them a run for their money?...
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August 22, 2006
Alternative title: No Scholarship for You, Godless Liberal! Like a gap in the fossil record, evolutionary biology is missing from a list of majors that the U.S. Department of Education has deemed eligible for a new federal grant program designed...
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August 12, 2006
...on what score?...
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July 22, 2006
In the Is Sam Brownback an odious liar? thread, the discussion turned to the realities of IVF, and the survival rate of embryos necessary to a successful pregnancy. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan describes why adopting the surplus is a bad idea,...
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July 14, 2006
With the aid of a brain implant a paralyzed man is able to control electronic devices. In a variety of experiments, the first person to receive the implant, Matthew Nagle, moved a cursor, opened e-mail, played a simple video game...
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Although I'm not sure why I titled it that, given that there seems to be a near total lack of nurturing - and something more akin to or even beyond active neglect - operating towards women in the sciences. And...
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June 25, 2006
Aliens! Also via the Goddess....
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May 08, 2006
"Caesar demands a building permit." It may have been built with heavenly intentions, but a judge has ruled that the creationism theme park known as Dinosaur Adventure Land still must obey earthly laws.Escambia County authorities this week locked up a...
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And just as likely to be disregarded as inconvenient: As much as we may like to believe that mother animals are designed to nurture and protect their young, to fight to the death, if need be, to keep their offspring...
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Not that the wingnuts will pay any attention to this: In both cases the findings add weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical basis and is not learned behavior. "It shows sexual orientation may very well have a...
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May 07, 2006
No, I am not "shitting you." "I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the pill," Mohler continued. " So, remember when I was telling you about...
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Republican representative forces scientific panel on the failure of abstinence programs to include pro-abstinence speakers and bumps a panelist who was to present on how abstinence campaigns cause STDs to increase: Researchers organizing a federal panel on sexually transmitted diseases...
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April 20, 2006
Idiots. "Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the F.D.A. making pronouncements that seem to be driven more by ideology than by science," said Dr. Jerry Avorn, a medical professor at Harvard Medical School....
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March 17, 2006
News about the "first trillionth of a second" of the universe: In that trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space through...
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February 10, 2006
I realize Binky has already covered this story, but I did want to point out one additional major-grade idiocy in ex-NASA PR idiot Deutsch's NYTimesstory: In an e-mail message, Mr. Deutsch said that remarks about religious views on the creation...
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February 08, 2006
Remember this story about the NASA scientist being blocked? Looks like the little scamp who restricted his speech is also more than a little liar: George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to...
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February 05, 2006
Liz has a musing on religion, science and trolls. She links to this story about Susan Wood, who quit the FDA in protest over the anti-science shutdown of Plan B. I'm not going to say much, because I know Baltar...
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January 29, 2006
The administration doesn't want to hear about Climate Change, and it doesn't want you to hear about it either. Especially not from scientists. In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request...
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December 20, 2005
From Pharyngula: Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as...
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December 18, 2005
Polar bears drown because of climate change. Via BitchPhD....
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December 16, 2005
...with the mapping of the human genome. Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve...
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November 09, 2005
As Binky notes below, Kansas has, yet again, stepped back into the 13th century. Yay! More good science and tech jobs/money for the rest of us. But the proponents of this religious mantra shouldn't be too excited about their "victory",...
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Because they might have been taught that the mutating cancer cell from your pap smear is God's Intelligent Design. See also PZ Myers....
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November 06, 2005
...and the Christian Right wants to prevent its legalization. It's been covered here and there over the last month or so, but via Pharyngula a link to this thoughtful post by Brent Rasmussen (no relation to yours truly, despite the...
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November 01, 2005
Some fun news from the NYT in the midst of all the judicial doom and gloom. New breakthroughs in string theory...yippee!...
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October 31, 2005
Bush to unveil super-flu plan on Tuesday....
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October 02, 2005
What really pisses me off about this whole creationism versus evolution thing is how this is an assault on evolution, not an assault on religion or beliefs. I mean, no biologist, no "darwinist" (does anyone, anywhere identify as a "darwinist"?),...
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September 09, 2005
It's hard to imagine that's possible - but that's Ronald Bailey's take on Edmund Pellegrino's appointment. Looks like we can look forward to ever increasing obstacles blocking this country from taking advantage of scientific advances and its own resource strengths...
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August 25, 2005
Alex Tabarrok has this post over at Marginal Revolution reviewing The Great Influenza. The great influenza of 1918 probably killed 100 million people, about five percent of the entire world's population. An even higher percentage of young people died and...
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August 17, 2005
And it's not just the liberals talking. Four senators - democrats and republicans - went to Canada's Yukon Territory and northern Alaska. They have a few observations. Fresh from visits to Canada's Yukon Territory and Alaska's northernmost city, four U.S....
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There have been new scientific discoveries about the nature of the Milky Way. It is a barred spiral, and the bar is much longer than it was previously thought to be. Click on this link to learn more details, and...
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July 27, 2005
OK. Thanks for all the pretty pictures, and the Hubble, and the moving (mostly tragic) moments. It's time to hang it up. Finally. Yahoo News Service/Via AP SPACE CENTER, Houston - NASA said Wednesday it is grounding future shuttle flights...
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In graduate school, one of my colleagues insisted that water would be the "new oil" in the future of IR, the scarce resource that causes conflict, negotiation, and global action. Here's a piece that talks about the science of mapping...
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