Category Archives: Basic News

Google, Google everywhere | The Economist

At Google they call it the toothbrush test. Shortly after returning to being the firm’s chief executive in 2011, Larry Page said he wanted it to develop more services that everyone would use at least twice a day, like a … Continue reading

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Micro-turbines could revolutionize small-scale energy production

A chief complaint about wind energy is that nobody wants to look at the turbines. A lab out of University of Texas – Arlington is revolutionizing the concept by creating windmills so tiny, ten can fit on a single grain … Continue reading

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Tiny technology creates a buzz | News @ CSIRO

What if I told you that insects in the environment may be able to tell us about the world they live in? Imagine it; they could reveal changes in climate, the presence of dangerous gases or even the arrival of … Continue reading

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Archaeologists unearth oldest musical instruments ever found – The Boston Globe

We all knew that Stone Age humans were hunters and gatherers. But sculptors and flutists? Archeologists announced today that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found — flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and … Continue reading

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What Happened On Easter Island — A New (Even Scarier) Scenario : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

What we have here are two scenarios ostensibly about Easter Island’s past, but really about what might be our planet’s future. The first scenario — an ecological collapse — nobody wants that. But let’s think about this new alternative — … Continue reading

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Budget deal expected to alleviate automatic cuts to scientific research | Inside Higher Ed

The federal budget deal announced by Congressional negotiators Tuesday evening would largely alleviate cuts to research funding and campus-based student aid programs… The proposal does not lay out specific amounts of money for federal agencies but it would increase, from … Continue reading

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Mystery humans spiced up ancients’ sex lives : Nature News & Comment

Updated genome sequences from two extinct relatives of modern humans suggest that these ‘archaic’ groups bred with humans and with each other more extensively than was previously known. The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a member … Continue reading

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Brain Drain / Brain Gain

In a new book, “Paying the Professoriate,” to be published this month, Mr. Altbach and his co-editors examine academic salaries, contracts and benefits in publicly funded universities in 28 countries. They depict a world increasingly divided “into two categories — … Continue reading

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The American Nations Today

The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps—including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in … Continue reading

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Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

In December 2012, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco. This year’s conference … Continue reading

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Western Black Rhino Declared Extinct | TIME.com

The Western black rhinoceros has officially been declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest conservation network. via Western Black Rhino Declared Extinct | TIME.com.

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Modern Eco-Friendly Homes Set Amongst the Trees – My Modern Metropolis

Primeval Symbiosis (Single Pole House) is an architectural design project by architecture student and interior designer Konrad Wójcik that seeks to organically install living spaces in forests without disrupting the innate beauty of nature. Wójcik\’s detailed presentation lays out the … Continue reading

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ScienceShot: Lucy’s Svelte Look | Science/AAAS | News

New makeover for our most ancient known ancestor. ScienceShot: Lucy’s Svelte Look | Science/AAAS | News.

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A hell of an engineer

I give my first (brief) impressions of teaching at Georgia Tech here. You must at least go watch the video. I promise it’s worth less than 2 minutes of your time.

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Hirschman on creativity

Nice Albert O. Hirschman quote brought to us by Malcolm Gladwell at the New Yorker: …The only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it … Continue reading

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Book Review: The Great University Gamble: Money, Markets and the Future of Higher Education | Impact of Social Sciences

McGettigan’s new book is specifically about the situation in the United Kingdom, but I think it offers critiques that would elucidate aspects of the American system as well. McGettigan’s argument is that this market talk drives a wider discourse of … Continue reading

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Alternative alternative metric

Maybe more ways our 56 Indicators can be used to assist in a different approach to success: not only in Academia but the general day to day of living a measured life and working in a measurable way. Finding new … Continue reading

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Book Review: Peer Review, Research Integrity, and the Governance of Science: Practice, Theory, and Current Discussions | LSE Review of Books

The fact that this scholarly book about fairness and integrity in research is edited by (mostly) U.S. scholars but published by a Chinese press should not mislead readers into believing that this is a boastful text seeking to bestow upon … Continue reading

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The University Is in Real Trouble, Folks

This is news to no one who’s been paying attention, of course. But this morning I read two articles that highlight some of the difficulties universities are facing today. The first was from Al Jazeera, which seems to be on … Continue reading

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Nature Special on The future of publishing: “A new page”.

Nature Special on The future of publishing: “A new page”..

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Re-engineering Ethics, Kelli Barr and Wenlong Lu « Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective

CSID fellows Kelli Barr and Wenlong Lu just published a thoughtful piece at the Social Epistemology Review & Reply Collective. They consider a recent professional meeting that they attended and the implications of having a diverse crowd of trained experts … Continue reading

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Computer Scientists Measure the Speed of Censorship On China’s Twitter | MIT Technology Review

Computer Scientists Measure the Speed of Censorship On China’s Twitter | MIT Technology Review.

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SRA International :: Sequestration Resource

SRA International :: About SRA International.

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Open Access Creative Commons licences for Cambridge Journals « CJO « Cambridge Journals Blog

Cambridge University Press has announced today that articles in its Open Access journals can be published with a Creative Commons Attribution licence (‘CC-BY‘). This licence allows users and readers to download, read, re-use and re-distribute freely, as long as they … Continue reading

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The Mind of the Innovator: Radio Specials | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

NSF’s public radio doc “Mind of the Innovator” airs on KQED in San Francisco… Innovators begin with real-world problems and find solutions through technology, imagination, hard work and a drive to make our lives better. This special program from Richard … Continue reading

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