What we're talking about 
Sunday, January 6, 2013
No Mistaking Astronomical Objects
“I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.” -Milton Berle Welcome to Messier Monday, where we pick…
Messier Monday: A Great Galactic Controversy, M102
Starts With A Bang December 18, 2012
“Men… have had the vanity to pretend that the world creation was made for them, whilst in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence.” -Camille Flammarion Welcome to the latest — and most controversial – Messier Monday, where each week, I’ll take a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up…
Messier Monday: The Crab Nebula, M1
Starts With A Bang October 23, 2012
“This nebula had such a resemblance to a comet in its form and brightness that I endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine.” -Charles Messier Let’s take a journey back in time to when our known Universe was a lot smaller. The only…
Channel Surfing
Life Science
Last spring, the All England Squid Fishing Championships took place, in which hundreds of fishermen strove to catch the largest squid. Unfortunately, the weather was not conducive to good fishing, and they caught nothing. Well, except for one person who discovered this cute little guy cling to his jig. The winner! This gives me hope.…
If you havent heard, Richard Dawkins is cruising around Antarctica right now– Theyve upgraded internet abilities since I went, so he has been able to upload some Tweets and some photographs to flicker: I want to go back so goddamn badly, seeing these pics makes me sad. Its like seeing an ex youre still in…
Check out this “sculpure” of a spider discovered by Biologist Phil Torres, created by what may be a new species of Cyclosa found in the Peruvian Amazon. This is not just a pattern weaved by the spider into the web, but instead it is created from debris in the forest (dead insects, leaves, etc.). It…
Physical Science
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” -Ray Bradbury It wasn’t all that long ago — back when I was a boy — that the only planets we knew of were the ones in…
The wonderful Curiosity rover on Mars has been much in the news lately, but let’s not forget about the previous rover generation! Opportunity landed on Mars nine Earth calendar years ago today on 25 January, and it still works fine. Its mate Spirit was mobile on the Red Planet for over five years and then…
Why calories can be complicated.
Environment
P points me at “Wikipedia knowledge: air-forger Connolley: The man who rewrote our worldview” and so on [cite. Not even original there; earlier at here]. I’m reading it via google translate, of course. Its mostly a re-hash of the Solomon nonsense which I discussed in A child’s garden of wikipedia, part I. Obviously, the bit…
Permaculture books telling you how to grow things abound. They are many, varied and wonderful. For some reason, however, permaculture books telling you how to EAT what you grow in interesting, creative and delicious ways are not, in fact, very abundant. This is a pretty serious gap, given that in many cases, it…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 20 Table of Contents Chapter 22 Chapter 21 At a sidewalk cafe, November 19, 2055 In North America, privacy is a thing of the past. How often we hear that! Wherever you go, newseyes operated by various government agencies or private corporations flit about recording every sight and…
Humanities
Following on discussion arising from this post, here is a revised discussion of throwing in human evolution. The question of diversity in science, and more specifically, success for women, is often discussed in relation to bench or lab oriented fields. If you read the blogs that cover this sort of topic, they are very often…
The evidence from palaeoanthropology suggests that in the past humans were about the stature they are now, with more sexual dimporphism than now, with similar or larger brains than they have now, and used technology at the same level of sophistication as many later humans. Scientists argue over the degree to which modern day language…
I saw something odd in Marrakech recently. Along the main avenues there was a considerable amount of construction going on. But also properties right next door that had clearly been vacated years ago without receiving new buildings. And newish buildings and shop space that were boarded up. Freshly painted fronts of closed restaurants that looked…
Education
Check out this “sculpure” of a spider discovered by Biologist Phil Torres, created by what may be a new species of Cyclosa found in the Peruvian Amazon. This is not just a pattern weaved by the spider into the web, but instead it is created from debris in the forest (dead insects, leaves, etc.). It…
Scientist Steven Wiederman from the University of Aukland (shown in image below) has recently published his work suggesting that dragonflies have the ability to focus on a target while blocking out other useless visual information. This is known as selective attention and his work is the first to demonstrate this ability in neurons from an…
USA Science and Engineering Festival: The Blog
Role Models in Science & Engineering Achievement: William A. Hinton – Physician and Bacteriologist
–Known for developing the first highly accurate standardized test for the sexually transmitted infection, syphilis –First black professor appointed at Harvard Medical School Academically talented, William Hinton from the start wanted to be recognized for his achievements instead of his race. As a high school senior in 1909, he was offered a scholarship reserved for…
Politics
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 20 Table of Contents Chapter 22 Chapter 21 At a sidewalk cafe, November 19, 2055 In North America, privacy is a thing of the past. How often we hear that! Wherever you go, newseyes operated by various government agencies or private corporations flit about recording every sight and…
As I hinted obliquely a little while back, I don’t have a terribly high opinion of Wall Street or Wall Street traders. Given that, I’m not the most obvious audience for a book titled The Physics of Wall Street, and truth be told, I wouldn’t’ve picked it up on my own. The publisher sent me…
Medicine
It is an indisputable axiom that everything tastes better with bacon. Well, almost everything. As much as I love bacon, whenever I watch one of those cooking competition shows on the Food Network, like Iron Chef America, in which the secret ingredient is bacon, I can’t figure out how putting bacon in ice cream works.…
The Swedish Skeptics have announced their annual awards for 2012. Both the Enlightener award and the Deceiver award are given to the editorial staff of programmes on Swedish national radio. Medierna is a weekly media criticism show. They roast journalists in an excellently skeptical fashion and have during the year touched upon mistreatment of subjects…
If there’s one claim that practitioners of “holistic” medicine frequently make, it’s that “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” or whatever the term du jour for the combining of quackery with science-based medicine is these days is allegedly so much better than “conventional” or “allopathic” medicine (or whatever disparaging term “holistic practitioners” prefer)…
Brain & Behavior
Scientist Steven Wiederman from the University of Aukland (shown in image below) has recently published his work suggesting that dragonflies have the ability to focus on a target while blocking out other useless visual information. This is known as selective attention and his work is the first to demonstrate this ability in neurons from an…
Dr. Alex Taylor from The University of Auckland has demonstrated that New Caledonian crows have the ability to perform causal reasoning, which is the ability to infer that something you cannot see may be the cause of something. According to the article, this is the first study to experimentally demonstrate this ability in a species…
Scientists have discovered just what makes Rudolph’s nose turn red:
Technology
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 20 Table of Contents Chapter 22 Chapter 21 At a sidewalk cafe, November 19, 2055 In North America, privacy is a thing of the past. How often we hear that! Wherever you go, newseyes operated by various government agencies or private corporations flit about recording every sight and…
From What the Plus! Google+ for the Rest of Us:
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 19 Table of Contents Chapter 21 Chapter 20 An Awkward Homecoming, November 17, 2055 Adelle was right. I did have difficulty getting back through Customs. The time stretched on. After five hours, an iris scan and multiple DNA tests, not to mention extensive questioning by airport security, Border…
Information Science
Confessions of a Science Librarian
Best Science Books 2012: The Millions, Chamber Four, The Armchair General, The Book Lady and more
Another list for your reading, gift-giving and collection development pleasure. Every year for the last bunch of years I’ve been linking to and posting about all the “year’s best sciencey books” lists that appear in various media outlets and shining a bit of light on the best of the year. All the previous 2012 lists…
Confessions of a Science Librarian
Friday Fun: A Software Engineer, a Hardware Engineer and a Departmental Manager were on their way to a meeting…
Nothing like a little engineering humour to get the year off to a good start! This is one of my favourite engineer jokes, one that’s been kicking around the web for quite a while. I’m not sure the original source, but this is there I found it for today’s post. If you know the original…
As I hinted obliquely a little while back, I don’t have a terribly high opinion of Wall Street or Wall Street traders. Given that, I’m not the most obvious audience for a book titled The Physics of Wall Street, and truth be told, I wouldn’t’ve picked it up on my own. The publisher sent me…
Jobs
The Pump Handle
Construction workers in central Texas successfully tie living wages to big business tax breaks
Workers in Travis County, Texas, are celebrating what advocates are calling a landmark victory, after local leaders voted to ensure that economic incentive deals benefit both big business and workers.
The Pump Handle
First-of-its-kind survey compiles the experience of domestic workers, highlights the grim nature of an unregulated industry
The collective experience of domestic workers — house cleaners, nannies and caregivers — often remains hidden from view. But a new survey has pulled back the curtain on the conditions and experiences domestic workers face, documenting issues such as wage exploitation, preventable on-the-job injuries and the little — if any — power domestic workers have in improving their work environments.
Exploring reliable links between work and depression, which is a significant health and economic burden for individuals as well as society, is somewhat murky. But a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health used two analytic strategies to address such criticism.
