Perhaps not what you'd think.

This is not about appeasement. It is about not being a racist slob.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

An observation for those reading along with a comment thread that is developing on a prior post. Gummibear asserted:

I also have to add that the quality of the NIH peer review system needs an external audit. Things that are going on there are quite unimaginable in journal peer review.

It emerged that our commenter was ticked about a grant review. Surprise, surprise.

Like regularly writing utter nonsense in summary statements, with complete impunity. An example from my recent experience: a reviewer was unfamiliar with the field and wrote a whole critique full of rubbish. He/she 'luckily' went too far and devoted a paragraph to certain methodology, expressly describing my use of it as 'strange'. It was then easy for me to provide a list of literature references to identical approaches and prove that the 'strangeness' resulted solely from the reviewer's state of mind and education. So I did in an appeal.

There is a little more detail but really it is going to be hard to evaluate the specific claim of mistreatment outside of going through the grant app and critiques ourselves. Nevertheless, I like to look for the general points. I arrive at this:

It is most useful to dissociate your disagreement with an established NIH process from your own particular treatment within the process.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

This article on why an octopus is more awesome than your mom is generally accurate and valid — octopuses probably are more awesome than your mom — but suffers a bit from an incomplete survey of moms. The author has not met the awesome mom of me, nor is he acquainted with the ferocious Trophy Wife™, who also happens to moonlight as the indomitable Trophy Mother™.

Otherwise, though, it is an acceptable overview of octopodal merits.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

I left Morris on the 19th of January, and finally, here it is the 8th of February and I finally made it back. Now leave me alone. I get a moment to rest, don't I? That bottle of Irish whiskey I was given in Galway will help.

OK, moment over. Next up: I get to go the the University of Northern Iowa on Wednesday! Don't say it, I know I'm insane. Anyway, it'll be an evo-devo talk in the Maucker Union, Hemisphere Lounge, at 7pm. There won't be much creationist bashing, but I'll probably spend a few minutes bashing Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini and Mary Midgley, because they're morons who are abusing evo-devo in the name of making misguided criticisms of evolution. Everyone expects me to growl and gnash the fangs a bit about something, and I wouldn't want to disappoint.

Then I get to come home again.

Oh, and one last totally random thing in recollection of my wonderful trip to Ireland. Here's me receiving an award from the University College Dublin Secular Humanist Society…from Captain Jack Sparrow. How awesome is that?

Actually, that's David, but if ever he wants to become a pirate, I'll join his crew.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

About the furthest you can row on the Cam (unless you go over Baits Bite to Bottisham) is Baits Bite lock to Jesus Lock; and that seems to have become our regular monday evening practice. Warmup, spin, down to Jesus Lock, steady state to Baits Bite, then a piece back. It is about 5 km I think; Baits Bite to the Motorway bridge must be ~30 strokes, then it was (tonight, slight following wind, rating 24) 530 strokes to Jesus Lock (and a rapid stop to avoid going under the weir). The rowcoach said ~1:55 split average, maybe a little better. We need to learn to take the rating up; the first half was at ~22 or a fraction under; we ended at 28. This is semi-deliberate to settle us down.

Does that fit? 560/24 ~ 23 1/2 mins. 5km (and against the stream) in 23 mins would be over 2:00, so maybe it is more like 5.5 km. Hmm, and if I put the rate at 25 and say only 20 strokes to the Motorway bridge from the lock? Maybe. Next time we should just time it, that would be easier.

Meanwhile, if you want to see a very rough crew do their first bumps start of the year, try http://www.spannerspotter.com/v/specials/drjpstag/post-drjp-stag-night-5.flv.html. The title is a clue. Note that this was the first time 3 had done a bumps start; in fact it was the first time 3 had rated above 30, let alone 35.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Well, not quite. I got an intriguing abstract in my inbox earlier today, to this new paper from BMC Neuroscience:

Here using a new conditioned suppression paradigm, we investigated whether the ability of a foot-shockpaired conditioned stimulus to suppress chocolate-seeking behavior was antagonized by previous exposure to a chronic stressful experience, thus modeling aberrant chocolate seeking in sated mice. Our findings demonstrate that while Control (non-food deprived) animals showed a profound conditioned suppression of chocolate seeking during presentation of conditioned stimulus, previously food deprived (FD) animals revealed a clear-cut preference for the chamber containing chocolate, thus indicating that previous exposure to a food restriction experience induces food seeking/intake despite its possible harmful consequences, which is an index of compulsive behavior.

Aberrant chocolate seeking? I plead guilty! Wait, this isn't about me. Actually, all the article shows is that when presented with a chamber containing chocolate, mice were dissuaded from entering by an electric shock - unless they had previously been starved. The mice weren't starving at the time of the experiment, mind you; they'd recovered and gained back the weight they'd lost. But the previous experience of starvation overcame their aversion to the shock, and they continued entering the chocolate chamber despite it. ("entering the chocolate chamber" would be a good band name.)

Of course my cynicism reared its ugly head immediately and said "they totally used chocolate just to get A) internet buzz, B) completely misleading mainstream media coverage, and C) invited to be on Oprah." (Consider this post my contribution to A). But the authors plead innocent, saying "milk chocolate was chosen based on previous studies showing its rewarding properties in animals. In addition, chocolate is the most commonly craved food and chocolate craving and addiction have been proposed in humans."

Uh-huh. Whatever you say, dudes. Mmmmm, chocolate mice.

LA Burdick's Chocolate Mice.

Read the whole article here or a press release here, or just wait until tomorrow for the mainstream media to beat the heck out of this one.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

A couple of people have asked me this - I think it came up in Ask Stoat (I haven't forgotten, you know, just busy). Anyway, it seems like a great post - bound to be flamebait and get my comment count soaring!

You won't be too shocked to learn that I think it should be reformed, not dissolved. But how?

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This is a request more related to my teaching, but I thought I'd ask here. I'm trying to find copies of the UNESCO videos "Understanding Volcanic Hazards" and "Reducing Volcanic Risk". They were made by the Kraffts to help educate people on volcanic hazards, especially in developing countries. I've seen them both and they are great for introductory geology classes. However, the one source I knew of - the NW Interpretive Assoc. - doesn't seem to carry them anymore - and even if they did, the only format I know of is VHS, which is getting woefully obsolete.

So, do any of you know where I might be able to get a copy of either/both of these films, either on VHS, DVD or otherwise? Leave a comment here or send me an email at Thanks for any help!

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Who dat dem gonna beat the Saints? Oops, wrong marketing strategy. Geaux Saints! Links for you. Science:

Postdoctoral researchers at UMass unionize
First Federal Court Hearing on Whether Human Genes Should Be Patented
"Could You Patent the Sun?"*
Global Ocean Protection Measures Have Failed
Digital doomsday: the end of knowledge

Other:

How a poll is conducted
The Monster's Sweet Perfume
The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy
Government driver hits pedestrian, MPD gives victim a ticket
Something that really bugs me about the recent Star Trek movie
Defending Sarah Palin's hand
Why a flat tax is a bad idea
Tea Partiers Panic, Informed Tea Produced by 'Fereigners'

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Lately I've been listening to Canadian 90s/00s orchestral popsters the Heavy Blinkers. Here's a fine song off of their '02 album Better Weather, "I Used to Be a Design". I actually prefer this live version since its production is scaled down and Ruth Minnikin's vocals are heavily processed on the album version. The band performing here has since disintegrated, with the female lead singer going on to head Ruth Minnikin and Her Bandwagon, a folky outfit that will have a new album out any day now.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Here are some of the thoughts and questions that stayed with me from this session. (Here are my tweets from the session and the session's wiki page.)

This was sort of an odd session for me -- not so much because of the topics taken up by session leaders Tamara Krinsky and Jennifer Ouellette, but because of my own sense of ambivalence about a lot of "entertainment" these days.

The session itself had lots of interesting glimpses of the work scientists are doing to help support filmmakers (and television producers, and game designers, and producers of other kinds of entertainment) who want to get the science right in the stories they're trying to tell. We heard about the efforts of the Science & Entertainment Exchange to connect makers of entertainment with scientists and engineers "to help bring the reality of cutting-edge science to creative and engaging storylines". We saw the Routes website, produced in association with the Wellcome Trust, which included "a set of minigames, a documentary and a murder mystery which explore the fascinating world of genetics." (In one of those minigames, you get to be the virus and move to the next level by infecting the target proportion of potential carriers -- but you get just one sneeze per level to make that happen!) We learned that the drive to add "extras" when movies are released on DVD is creating something like a demand for real science content to complement science fiction.

In other words, it sounded like producers of entertainment were aware that a science-y angle can hold appeal for the audiences they are trying to reach, and were generally enthusiastic about (or at least open to) the idea of drawing on the expertise of actual scientists.

Of course, there were caveats.

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tags: evolutionary biology, molecular biology, Thoroughbred race horses, horses, aerobic capacity, muscle development, myostatin, MSTN, myostatin-suppressing C variant, myostatin-suppressing T variant, Horse Genome Project, Equinome, bpr3.org/?p=52,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper

If you've worked at or been around a racetrack very much, as I have, you'll quickly realize that everyone there has their own pet idea for picking winners. Horse breeders have always relied on pedigree analysis and studying the horse's conformation to predict whether a particular racehorse is better suited for running short or longer distances. But this is an inexact science that can waste valuable time, money and sometimes, horses. Which makes one wonder whether modern molecular biology can be applied to the challenge of identifying specific genes that make a particular horse better suited to running sprints or distances?

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Almost two decades ago vertebrate paleontologist Bruce MacFadden published his monograph Fossil Horses, an instant classic that was as much about new approaches in paleontology as the equids considered in the book. For over a century the family history of horses had been depicted as some of the best, most-accessible evidence for evolution the fossil record had to offer, and MacFadden's book provided an excellent synthesis of what had been discovered. Since the publication of Fossil Horses, however, no other books have appeared to follow-up on what MacFadden presented. Brief nods and short summaries have appeared here and there, but it seemed that MacFadden's book had the last word on horse evolution.

That is why I was excited when I found out that Johns Hopkins University Press would be publishing a translation of Jens Franzen's The Rise of Horses (previously published as Die Urpferde der Morgenröte: Ursprung und Evolution der Pferde). It was intended for a popular audience rather than an academic one, but I still was looking forward to seeing how Franzen summarized what we now know about horse evolution. As soon as the book arrived I dropped everything else and opened to the first glossy page.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

The 86th Four Stone Hearth blog carnival will run at the Testimony of the Spade on Wednesday. Submit great recent stuff to Magnus, your own or somebody else's. Anything anthro or archaeo goes!

The next open hosting slot is on 10 March. If you're a blogger with an interest in the anthro/archaeo field, drop me a line! No need to be a pro.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

There's a prosecution going on in Texas that sounds so corrupt, and could have such a chilling influence on the pursuit of quackery nationwide, that it cannot be ignored. I urge you to read the story in the Times, but here's a brief recap.

In Kermit, a small Texas town, two nurses at local hospital became concerned about the practices of one of the physicians, Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles, Jr. Among the alleged practices were the improper peddling of herbal medicines to hospital patients, and the performance of (sometimes unorthodox) surgical procedures without the appropriate privileges to do so. Anne Mitchell, RN, the nurse against whom charges are still filed, went to the hospital with her concerns and was fired, an act for which state reprimanded the hospital. Given the lack of response from the hospital, she went to the state medical board. When Dr. Arafiles found out that there was a complaint against him, he went to a local sheriff buddy of his, who tracked down the confidential report to the state medical board, and used the information in it to deduce the identity of the filers.

And then he charged them with a crime.

The alleged crime was a trumped up bullshit charge for misuse of state data---which is impossible, since the nurse used the hospital data to refer cases to the state medical board. I'm not a lawyer, but it's hard to see what could possibly be wrong with what Mitchell did.

In fact, the nursing code of ethics specifically requires nurses to advocate for patients, including going to higher authorities when necessary.

There is no "rule" that a code of ethics must square with all laws. In this case the ethical code probably does agree with the law, at least the spirit, and probably the letter.

Reading about the actions of these local officials is like watching Blazing Saddles---it's a small town, with a few people in control of everything, and willing to contort the meaning of the law into any shape they wish. If it weren't for the real people involved, it would almost be funny.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Here's a thoughtful video about one person's deconversion process: the interesting thing about it is that he was a believer who reasoned himself out of religion.

Although I was brought up in a religion, I've discovered that there is a large difference between those who were seriously immersed in a faith, like this fellow, and people who just got a fairly brief and not very deep exposure, like myself. I was rather easily disabused of religion — when I first was taught the tenets of the faith, my reaction was more like, "You believe what? And you expect me to believe it too? That's batty!" I didn't need the careful dissection of belief, because what jumped out to me was the raging absurdity of original sin, virgin births, gods manifesting as men, etc., etc., etc.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Sam Anderson, in New York Magazine, takes on ChatRoulette, that strange new site that connects you, via webcam, with a stream of strangers:

The site was only a few months old, but its population was beginning to explode in a way that suggested serious viral potential: 300 users in December had grown to 10,000 by the beginning of February. Although big media outlets had yet to cover it, smallish blogs were full of huzzahs. The blog Asylum called ChatRoulette its favorite site since YouTube; another, The Frisky, called it "the Holy Grail of all Internet fun." Everyone seemed to agree that it was intensely addictive--one of those gloriously simple ideas that manages to harness the crazy power of the Internet in a potentially revolutionary way.

The site activates your webcam automatically; when you click "start" you're suddenly staring at another human on your screen and they're staring back at you, at which point you can either choose to chat (via text or voice) or just click "next," instantly calling up someone else. The result is surreal on many levels. Early ChatRoulette users traded anecdotes on comment boards with the eerie intensity of shipwreck survivors, both excited and freaked out by what they'd seen. There was a man who wore a deer head and opened every conversation with "What up DOE!?" A guy from Sweden was reportedly speed-drawing strangers' portraits. Someone with a guitar was improvising songs for anyone who'd give him a topic. One man popped up on people's screens in the act of fornicating with a head of lettuce. Others dressed like ninjas, tried to persuade women to expose themselves, and played spontaneous transcontinental games of Connect Four. Occasionally, people even made nonvirtual connections: One punk-music blogger met a group of people from Michigan who ended up driving eleven hours to crash at his house for a concert in New York. And then, of course, fairly often, there was this kind of thing: "I saw some hot chicks then all of a sudden there was a man with a glass in his butthole." I sing the body electronic.

You can probably tell where this story is headed: ChatRoulette, of course, proves to be a profound disappointment. Anderson doesn't meet the Whitmanesque masses, but is instead rejected by a slew of surly teenagers and online weirdos:

I entered the fray on a bright Wednesday afternoon, with an open mind and an eager soul, ready to sound my barbaric yawp through the webcams of the world. I left absolutely crushed. It turns out that ChatRoulette, in practice, is brutal. The first eighteen people who saw me disconnected immediately. They appeared, one by one, in a box at the top of my screen--a young Asian man, a high-school-age girl, a guy lying on his side in bed--and, every time, I'd feel a little flare of excitement. Every time, they'd leave without saying a word. Sometimes I could even watch them reach down, in horrifying real-time, and click "next." It was devastating. My first even semi-successful interaction was with a guy with a blanket draped over his lap who asked if I wanted to "jack of" with him. I declined; he disconnected.

There are two things to say about ChatRoulette. The first is that it exploits a pretty fundamental reward mechanism in the brain, which we've known about since Pavlov: the power of random reinforcement. It turns out that predictable rewards get boring rather quickly, as the brain adapts to new stimuli. (Are you still excited about your Christmas presents? Exactly. You've been designed to be ungrateful.)

Human interaction, of course, is pretty damn predictable. We've got elaborate rituals for dealing with strangers, thus minimizing the chance of a surprising interaction. ("How are you?" "Good, thanks. How are you?" "Great. Thanks for asking. Have a nice day.") And then there's the fact that the vast majority of our interactions are with people we already know, whether it's family, friends or co-workers. So they probably won't surprise us, either. The end result is that our social exchanges become tedious and rote. They might be rewarding, but they're rarely exciting.

And this is where ChatRoulette comes in. I've only played around on the site for a few minutes, but it seems to me that its allure is inseparable from its unpredictability. Will this new person be a masturbator or a friendly stranger? Will we be rejected or will we do the rejecting? It all reminds me of Vegas, where people are willing to endure big losses for the occasional thrill of a surprising gain. (According to the data of Wolfram Schultz, an unexpected reward generates a much larger dopaminergic signal in the brain.) Of course, those gamblers know they're wasting time and money, but the possibility of an unexpected reward is simply too tantalizing. ChatRoulette takes this same logic to the social realm: at its core, it's a slot machine made of other people.

The other thing to say about ChatRoulette is that it reminded me of an urban subway. Like a dense city, the website mixes together strangers, forcing them to stare at each other for a few fleeting seconds. This momentary mixing, while often unpleasant and awkward, turns out to be a crucial function of cities. Jane Jacobs, in her seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities, argued that every healthy city was defined by its ability to facilitate social interaction. She saw the busy sidewalk as an improvisational "ballet," in which information freely flowed between city dwellers. Her book identified the specific urban ingredients⎯from short city blocks to mixed-use neighborhoods⎯that encouraged "the intricate mingling of diversity."

Of course, most Americans don't live in neighborhoods that Jacobs would endorse. We like our privacy and suburbs, which means that our cities look more like Phoenix than Manhattan. While this makes us more comfortable - I like my air-conditioned car as much as the next person - there's some suggestive evidence that it also makes cities less innovative. A few years ago, I wrote about this PNAS paper, which analyzes vast amounts of data to figure out why some cities are so much more innovative than others:

While certain institutions can encourage innovation, the scientists are quick to point out that the innovative abilities of cities are ultimately rooted in the one thing that every city has in common: lots of human interaction. "Cities concentrate our social interactions," Bettencourt says, "and that's what leads to this explosion in knowledge creation and innovation." Think of people as particles and the urban space as a container: as more and more particles enter the container (the population of the city is increasing), each particle increases its speed. The end result is that the particles are constantly colliding. According to the scientists, these random urban collisions are the source of innovation. Creativity spontaneously emerges from human friction.

ChatRoulette is an online version of the friction that cities produce for free. It's like a subway ride on your computer, a chance to bump into strangers on the "street" without leaving your desk. Sure, there are lots of weirdos out there, and plenty of those strangers won't stare back. But every once in a while, a meaningful interaction might occur, as the social slot machine dispenses a few quarters. I'd like to think that if Walt Whitman were around - and boy do I wish he were - he'd write a poem about ChatRoulette.

PS. I forgot to describe my own experience on ChatRoulette. I spent the first 20 minutes getting rejected, propositioned and yelled at. It was gross, crushing and so entertaining. Then I found a nice twentysomething male in Oslo who worked as a computer programmer. We talked for 5 minutes about the weather. It was a perfectly banal conversation, but in all my years riding the subway in NYC I can only remember a handful of spontaneous chats with my fellow riders. Of course, those same riders also didn't ask me to take off my clothes. (As usual, the internet is just like real life, only more so.)

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

What's the application? The use of lasers to provide an entertaining light show for humans, dogs, or cats.

What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How will I entertain my dog or cat?"

2) "How can we distract people from the fact that Roger Daltrey has no voice left?"

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.

Today, I asked Ken Liu from Scivee.tv to answer a few questions.

Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific) background?

KL: I am a serial entrepreneur who's been doing technology startups for the past 20 years in a variety of technologies, products and business models. My career has spanned the history of software, from shrink wrap software sold in retail stores (Computerland, remember them?) to open-source SaaS today. My business philosophy is akin to Darwinism--Innovate or Die, and quickly. Dreamt about becoming an astronomer or doctor as a teen, but ended up getting degrees in economics and international relations instead, But my love for science has remained to this day.

Tell us a little more about your career trajectory so far: interesting projects past and present?

KL: I was involved in a company during the dot com era in which the company was acquired in 3 years since it's founding, and practically all the other major players in the market were also acquired by much bigger companies (Cisco, Nortel etc.) within the next year. So an entire industry came and went within 4 years. I am now spearheading business development at Scivee.tv, which aims to become the video platform for publishers, societies, universities and other institutions in the STM market. Every media segment--even newspapers--has adopted video and other rich media aggressively except STM, which by and large is still a text world. I have to conclude that the STM market is the most reactionary in adopting new technology in the age of Web 2.0+. In journals, for example, you can argue that the text format hasn't changed since the days of Issac Newton, who would recognize an article of 2010 vintage published by the Royal Society. I find it baffling that science is all about making new discoveries, pushing ideas forward and expanding knowledge, at a breathtaking pace that occurs daily, yet the primary way to communicate those important findings and what scientists do is stuck in the 17th century. I am obviously exaggerating to make a point, but it's not far from the essential truth.

What is taking up the most of your time and passion these days? What are your goals?

KL: My mission and passion is to encourage adoption of video among the STM institutions. Currently, many say "oh, we put our videos on YouTube", and that's that. What SciVee is evangelising is it's got to be more than that. Video and other rich media must be a more integral component to the mission of the institution, and its communications strategy, to serve its various stakeholders--members, authors, funders, government agencies, readers, and ultimately, themselves. Throwing videos to the great YouTube etherworld is an unconnected and unimaginative act. The vision is that within 5 years (should have been by now, as in every other media market), video is an integral component of any journal or scientific institution's communication arsenal. Just look at any good content site, say the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, and that's what I mean. We at Scivee are not reinventing anything new; we are just applying known Internet and video techniques to the text-centric STM world. I have no doubt that our vision will be fulfilled, it's just a matter of time.

What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?

KL: Obviously it's now video. At SciVee, we have a unique product called SciveeCast. SciveeCast is a synchronized video abstract that enables a viewer to see the presenter discuss highlighted sections of a journal article, poster, coursework, slides in a full multimedia presentation.

PubCasts enliven and enhance science communications and promote discovery. It's also a more efficient way to absorb new research, especially in visual topics. A picture is worth a thousand words; a video is worth a thousand pictures. Finally, a new generation of scientists and readers expect and demand an interactive rich-media experience online. See sample: Bacterial Inclusion Bodies Contain Amyloid-Like Structure.

How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook? Do you find all this online activity to be a net positive (or even a necessity) in what you do?

KL: Both a necessity and net positive, to the point of being overwhelming. There is no way anyone can absorb all of it.

When and how did you first discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any cool science blogs by the participants at the Conference?

KL: I have been reading blogs of various major publications such as Nature, Science, NY Times for several years.

What was the best aspect of ScienceOnline2010 for you? Any suggestions for next year? Is there anything that happened at this Conference - a session, something someone said or did or wrote - that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?

KL: From my perspective, I thought it needed focusing and go deeper into certain topics to gain coherence and substance. The audience accordingly is also quite eclectic, from students to scientists to a few vendors like me, although the core seems to be bloggers, free Internet, open access advocates. I also thought the focus on Twitter as the cool thing to do is misplaced; I felt it tried to separate the cool "with-it" guys from the rest. I am a curmudgeon who still clings to the old fashioned idea that usefulness is more important than the fact that something can be done for its sake.

It was so nice to meet you and thank you for the interview. I hope to see you again next January.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

A couple of weeks ago, I announced a contest to determine the Most Amazing Laser Application. After a follow-up post listing the likely candidates, we have a final list of candidate applications, an even dozen of them (after consolidating some related topics):

• Cat toy/ dog toy/ laser light show
• Laser cooling/ BEC
• Laser ranging/position measurement
• Optical tweezers
• Optical storage media (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray)
• LIGO
• Telecommunications
• Holography
• Laser ignited fusion
• Laser eye surgery
• Laser frequency comb/ spectroscopy
• Laser guide stars/ adaptive optics

Here's how this will work: over the next week or so, I will write up a series of blog posts explaining these applications, and the pros and cons of each. At the end of that time, I'll put up a poll, and we'll decide the winner based on that most scientific of methods: random people on the Internet clicking radio buttons.

Watch this space-- the first application post will appear this afternoon.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Dr. Steven Koonin of the DOE recently spoke about the future of energy and its implications for the goals of the New York State University system. Given that my husband is employed by said system, and in fact teaches Environmental Physics (aka "Here's how to do the math to prove we're doomed ;-)"), this was interesting to me. Neither of us was present for this event, but a friend who was reported that Koonin stated in the presentation, as a representative of the DOE that it unrealistic to expect the US to hold carbon emissions below 450ppm and that 550ppm was the best that could reasonably be hoped for. I'm attempting now to query and find out if this represents DOE opinion, or US administration opinion.

Note, what's interesting to me about this isn't that I don't agree - I think the chances of the US achiveing constraints that put us at 450ppm is extremely unlikely indeed - and 450 almost certainly wouldn't be adequate to constrain climate change. But I was under the impression that stated Obama administration policy was that we were still shooting to achieve 450ppm, so this may represent part of a gradual process of accustoming us to the realities.

I wanted to confirm this, by watching the video of the presentation, but it won't play for me. I'm not sure if it is my crappy internet or video - anyone with time on their hands and faster internet want to find out for me? His presentation begins at 34 minutes in, and there's a slide with 450 on it that should be useful to indicate where he talks about this.

http://suny.mediasite.com/suny/Viewer/Viewers/ViewerVideoOnly.aspx?mode=Default&peid=21af250c-3999-4767-8cab-de9007a30e60&playerType=WM7#

You can also view the powerpoint linked from here: http://www.suny.edu/strategicplan/presentationsPublications.cfm

Overall, it seems like the basic "we can do it" presentation with little discussion of the actual implications. Again, what's interesting is whether the administration, or just some people in it are trying to get the US ready to join China in its expressed sense that 450 ain't gonna happen.

This is easier, I gather, if one doesn't include any discussion of the consequences of 550ppm - as I'm told is the case in this presentation.

Sharon

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

Focus on the Patriarchy has always favored punishing children to teach them right from wrong, so I can't imagine them being too upset at this news: a fellow's 4-year-old daughter was having trouble memorizing her ABC's, suggesting that she needed some extra incentives to excel. So Dad waterboarded her. How sweet that Daddy cared so much about the importance of her education.

I'm going back to teaching in the fall. Will this be considered a reasonable educational technique? I'm thinking of putting a rack in the lecture hall and carrying around some thumbscrews just to help my students learn better.

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

The question is: how does a bird "know" when to stop laying? When is enough enough? When is the clutch (all of the eggs laid in one breeding attempt) complete? Most of ecological literature is focused on energetics: are birds getting hungry, have they depleted some important source of energy, etc.

But the circadian field looks for internal mechanisms.

This paper is by Bora! (and co-authors)
Check it out!

Also check out the featured ScienceBlog of the week: Laelaps

From Nature's news section, Philip Ball reports on research showing Dog bites man Morals don't come from God:

[In] a new paper by psychologists Ilkka Pyysiäinen of the University of Helsinki and Marc Hauser of Harvard University … individuals presented with unfamiliar moral dilemmas show no difference in their responses if they have a religious background or not.

The study draws on tests of moral judgements using versions of the web-based Moral Sense Test … These tests present dilemmas ranging from how to handle freeloaders at 'bring a dish' dinner parties to the justification of killing someone to save others. Few, if any, of the answers can be looked up in holy books.

Thousands of people — varying widely in social background, age, education, religious affiliation and ethnicity — have taken the tests. Pyysiäinen and Hauser say the results (mainly still in the publication pipeline) indicate that "moral intuitions operate independently of religious background", although religion may influence responses in a few highly specific cases.

Theists can take comfort in that notion, secure in the thought that their god(s) shaped the world so that everyone was led to moral behavior. Atheists can take this finding as further proof against the refrain of certain religious people that erosion of religious faith will result in erosion of morality. And the rest of us can take comfort in the notion that we're behaving well, and the reasons why we behave well aren't that important.

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Some guy named Gerard Alexander has an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled "Why are liberals so condescending?" I will say one thing in its favor: it gets to its point quickly and clearly in the first few sentences.

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration.

Unfortunately, it's downhill from there. He does demonstrate nicely that many liberals do categorize many conservatives as idiots, but he doesn't seem capable of addressing the question of why they think that. It's mostly a lot of waa-waa about the tone and how this attitude is an obstacle to politics.

He doesn't consider the obvious explanation that many conservatives are amazing idiots pursuing idiotic policies.

Seriously. Sarah Palin. Conservatives defending Palin's stupidities. Republican candidates for the presidency who are certain that the earth is only 6000 years old. A Republican party dominated by the religious right.

Years ago, I would have considered Alexander to have a good point: that on some policies, such as economics, conservatives had something to contribute. But then they elected Reagan and Bush and the crowd of clowns in congress, and any claim to being a serious political party went out the window. They are the silly party now, and where they do the most damage is when pompous wankers demand that we treat them seriously simply because they are the conservative party we've got. No, we shouldn't: we should laugh them out of office until they come up with candidates who aren't stupid shills.

So I'm divided on the poll accompanying the article.

Who is more condescending?

They're both impossible 12%
Conservatives 22%
Liberals 66%

It's really just an attempt to tar liberals with another insult — ironic for an article that is so condescendingly disparaging liberal tone — but it's also true. We are more condescending. Because most conservatives are so deserving of condescension.

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(from here)

By way of Maryn McKenna, we find that the Obama Administration has decided to massively cut the funding for the CDC's antimicrobial resistance and vaccination efforts. I thought this was the kind of anti-science bullshit that the Bush Administration did. From the IDSA (pdf):

Under CDC's proposed budget, the agency's already severely strapped Antimicrobial Resistance budget would be cut dramatically by $8.6 million--roughly 50 percent. This vital program is necessary to help combat the rising crisis of drug resistance, a critical medical problem that the agency deems "one of the world's most pressing public health problems." Yet the President's FY 2011 budget would allow CDC to target only 20 state/local health departments and health care systems to be funded for surveillance, prevention, and control of antimicrobial resistance, down from 48 this past year. It would also eliminate all grants to states for the successful Get Smart in the Community program to combat improper uses of antibiotics.

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Tuesday night at 7pm, American University's School of Communication will be hosting a panel discussion focused on "The Climate Change Generation: Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World." [Follow the link for location on campus and directions.]

Joining me on the panel will be the Washington Post's national environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin and Mother Jones energy and environmental reporter Kate Shepard. The panel will be moderated by AU journalism professor Jane Hall.

The event will be broadcast live on WAMU, the capitol region's NPR news station. A downloadable MP3 of the broadcast will also be available through WAMU. Live and archived video of the event will be streamed by the American Observer, a project of the graduate program in journalism at AU. Check out the preview page that Observer staff have put together.

Also released on Tuesday evening will be a survey analysis and report authored by AU professor Lauren Feldman in collaboration with myself and colleagues Anthony Leiserowitz (Yale University) and Edward Maibach (George Mason University.)

Based on a new analysis of nationally representative survey data collected by Leiserowitz and Maibach in January 2010, the report finds that Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are, for the most part, split on the issue of global warming and, on some indicators, relatively disengaged when compared to older generations. The complete report is embargoed until Tuesday night at 7pm. Journalists can contact me at nisbet AT american DOT edu for an advance embargoed copy.

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tags: birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

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The usual "This is the stuff that looks interesting to me" post, based on the preliminary online program. Subject to change if they move things around, or if I discover something I overlooked that sounds more interesting, or if I decide I'm hungry, and opt to blow off panels in favor of food.

This year's program is lighter on panels, but includes both a signing and a reading. Which will be a very different experience than years past...

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Teachers' Domain, a digital media resource for teachers, profiled Karmella Haynes, one of my amazing labmates!

There's a fun video of Karmella talking about her work on synthetic biology devices to track cancer cells and about careers in science streaming on the Teachers' Domain website. You should all check it out, she's an incredible scientist, artist, and teacher--a true inspiration!

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There was some discombobulation yesterday afternoon that kept me from posting these-- I had meant them to be a Super Bowl alternative for the non-football-inclined. They'll work just as well as a Monday brightener, though. So here's a clip of SteelyKid a couple of weeks ago, laughing at the "got your food wrapper" game:

And here's one of her talking on the phone with her grandmother:

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Sarah Palin gave a $100K speech to a convention of teabagging wankers, she faced a few pre-screened, prepared questions, and what did she need? She had to have the answers written on her hand ahead of time!

Here's what gets me the most, though. She didn't have a cheat sheet of wonky little details, stuff that would be hard to keep straight and important to get exactly right. No, she had to write down the three most important goals for a conservative majority. What, she's shaky on that?

Energy
Budget cuts
Tax
Lift Americans
Spirits

Man, next time I go off to give a talk, I'm going to get a sharpie and write "Science. Evolution. Anti-creationism." on my left hand, in case I get asked what I'm going to talk about. 'Cause I might forget, you know.

And then I'm going to ask for a few thousand dollars. And the presidency. All right, I'm not going to be greedy — the vice-presidency will do.

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I don't know if you saw this, but I thought the response to the Tim Tebow ad was the best commercial during the Super Bowl. And it appears to star our friend Pat.

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The Family Research Council has joined Focus on the Family in recently coming out boldly in favor of criminalizing homosexuality, in response to the push to allow gays to openly serve in the military. On Hardball, one of their spokesmen had this exchange:

Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?

Sprigg: Well, I think certainly..

Matthews: I'm just asking, should we outlaw gay behavior?

Sprigg: I think the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place in this country for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.

Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior?

Sprigg: YES!

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The latest religious right freakout seems to be over a pink toy that is apparently going to force little girls to worship Satan and infest them with demons. I mean, it would do those things if Satan and demons actually existed.

A pink version of the popular Ouija board game has some critics seeing red.

The children's sleepover staple -- sold by Hasbro since 1967 -- now comes in hot pink, an edition released two years ago that gets tweens to call on "spirits" to spell out answers to life's pressing questions.

Which makes it the equivalent of a magic 8 ball, for crying out loud. But not to everyone:

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Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama has managed to pull off a rare maneuver even by Washington standards, proving himself to be a hypocrite on two fronts simultaneously. Shelby has placed a "blanket hold" on all Obama nominees - an absolutely appalling practice that simply should not be allowed in the Senate but it is.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

"While holds are frequent," CongressDaily's Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), "Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal."

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Ouch.

Here's the story (which Kaiser forwarded to me). The English medical journal The Lancet (according to its publisher, "the world's leading independent general medical journal") published an article in 1998 in support of the much-derided fringe theory that MMR vaccination causes autism. From the BBC report:

The Lancet said it now accepted claims made by the researchers were "false".

It comes after Dr Andrew Wakefield, the lead researcher in the 1998 paper, was ruled last week to have broken research rules by the General Medical Council. . . . Dr Wakefield was in the pay of solicitors who were acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR. . . .

[The Lancet is now] accepting the research was fundamentally flawed because of a lack of ethical approval and the way the children's illnesses were presented.

The statement added: "We fully retract this paper from the published record." Last week, the GMC ruled that Dr Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for children and acted "dishonestly" while he carried out his research. It will decide later whether to strike him off the medical register.

The regulator only looked at how he acted during the research, not whether the findings were right or wrong - although they have been widely discredited by medical experts across the world in the years since publication.

They also write:

The publication caused vaccination rates to plummet, resulting in a rise in measles.

An interesting question, no? What's the causal effect of a single published article?

P.S. I love it how they refer to the vaccine as a "three-in-one jab." So English! They would never call it a "jab" in America. So much more evocative than "shot," in my opinion.

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Eric Bettinger, Bridget Terry Long, Philip Oreopoulos, and Lisa Sanbonmatsu write:

Growing concerns about low awareness and take-up rates for government support programs like college financial aid have spurred calls to simplify the application process and enhance visibility.

Here's the study:

H&R Block tax professionals helped low- to moderate-income families complete the FAFSA, the federal application for financial aid. Families were then given an estimate of their eligibility for government aid as well as information about local postsecondary options. A second randomly-chosen group of individuals received only personalized aid eligibility information but did not receive help completing the FAFSA.

And the results:

Comparing the outcomes of participants in the treatment groups to a control group . . . individuals who received assistance with the FAFSA and information about aid were substantially more likely to submit the aid application, enroll in college the following fall, and receive more financial aid. . . . However, only providing aid eligibility information without also giving assistance with the form had no significant effect on FAFSA submission rates.

The treatment raised the proportion of applicants in this group who attended college from 27% (or, as they quaintly put it, "26.8%") to 35%. Pretty impressive. Overall, it appears to be a clean study. And they estimate interactions (that is, varying treatment effects), which is always, always, always a good idea.

Here are my recommendations for improving the article (and this, I hope, increasing the influence of this study):

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The English language is full of metaphors linking moral purity to both physical cleanliness and brightness. We speak of "clean consciences", "pure thoughts" and "dirty thieves". We're suspicious of "shady behaviour" and we use light and darkness to symbolise good and evil. But there is more to these metaphors than we might imagine. The mere scent of a clean-smelling room can take people down a virtuous road, compelling them to choose generosity over greed and charity over apathy. Meanwhile, the darkness of a dimmed room or a pair of sunglasses can compel people towards selfishness and cheating.

These new results are the latest from psychologist Chen-Bo Zhong. Back in 2006, he showed that people who brought back memories of past wrong-doings were more likely to think of words related to cleaning, or to physically crave cleaning products. He called this the "Lady Macbeth effect". Subsequently, another group found that it works the other way too. People judge moral transgressions more leniently if they had previously washed their hands or if they had been primed with words related to cleanliness, like 'pure' or 'immaculate'.

Now, Zhong, together with Katie Liljenquist and Adam Galinsky, have expanded on these studies by showing that clean smells can make people behave more virtuously. They ushered 28 volunteers into a room that was either unscented or that had been lightly sprayed with a citrus air freshener. In either case, they had to play a trust game, where a "sender" has a pot of money and chooses how much they want to invest with a "receiver". The investment is tripled and the receiver decides how much to give back.

The volunteers were all told that they had been randomly chosen as receivers. Their anonymous partner had invested their entire $4 pot with them, which had been tripled to $12. Their job was to decide how much to give back. On average, they returned a measly $2.81in the unscented rooms but a more equitable $5.33 in the scented ones. The single spray of citrus nearly doubled their tendency to reciprocate.

In a second experiment, the trio again ushered 99 students into either a scented or unscented room. They were given a pack of miscellaneous tasks, including a flyer requesting volunteers for a charity called Habitat for Humanity. Those in the citrus-scented rooms were more likely to be interested in volunteering, and almost four times more willing to donate money to the cause.

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My colleague Dave Weigel, who uncharacteristically finds himself as part of a story rather than reporting one, has written a post at the Washington Independent clarifying what he has said and what he remembers about James O'Keefe and his attendance at a debate between white supremacist Jared Taylor and Kevin Martin. That last part is important because Blumenthal's original accusation was that the event was a white nationalist conference. Weigel says:

As Epstein's August 28, 2006 post on the nativist site VDare.com makes clear, it was a two-hour debate, not a conference. I made this clear in my initial post. The only "white nationalist" onstage was Taylor. John Derbyshire has some controversial views on race, but co-panelist Kevin Martin is and was, as Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism delights in pointing out, African-American.

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I have arrived in Minneapolis, with a mere 3 hour drive to get home. However, I have also arrived home to a serious snowstorm, so I've been holed up in a hotel all night and am waiting for the stuff to clear a bit this afternoon. It's aggravating.

And you guys have stuffed another everlasting thread entry with comments! Let's start again.

This is a nice video that just keeps chugging along and also gives a glimpse of what it looks like out here in Minnesota right now. Except that I really, really wish I could get on a wonderfully civilized train and set off for home, instead of the barbarity of driving a car.

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Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything

Saturday, January 16 at 10:15 - 11:20am

E. Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything - Pal MD and Val Jones.

Description: We all know that there are potential pitfalls to having a prominent online presence, but for physicians, the implications affect more than just themselves. How should doctors and similar professionals manage their online life? What are the ethical and legal implications?

Some preliminary reading can be found here.

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There are 16 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

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In my week long visit to Ireland, I only had one encounter that left a bad taste in my mouth. Everyone I talked to was forthright and willing to state their views clearly, even if I thought they were dead wrong and rather stupid (my radio interview with Tom McGurk comes to mind — he was an unpleasant person more interested in barking loudly than having a conversation, but his views were plain), and most of my conversations were fun and interesting. The one exception was with a creationist in Belfast.

After my talk, this one furtive fellow who hadn't had the nerve, apparently, to ask me anything in the public Q&A, came down front to confront me with his, errm, 'irrefutable' argument, which came straight from Answers in Genesis. I later learned that he's one of the leaders of a creationist organization on campus.

He first declared that creationists and evolutionists all use the same evidence, we just differ in our presuppositions. AiG makes this claim all the time, and it's complete nonsense. The creationists deny almost all of the evidence, using their catch-all excuse: if it contradicts the Bible, it is false. It's not just a difference in starting premises, but a willingness on the part of the faith-based crowd to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "LA-LA-LA" at the majority of the reality-based evidence.

The only way to call it merely a difference in presuppositions is if they're willing to admit that their fundamental presupposition is an unthinking obtusity.

That was just his prelude, though. His real goal was to try and trap me. He asked me if I admitted that the scientific position demands that we reject all alternative explanations — whether we can consider supernatural causes. I've thought about this before, and I told him no. I am willing to consider other possibilities, if someone provides a useful, testable, confirmable means for evaluating truth claims.

Then I asked him what alternative method to science he was suggesting.

He didn't give me one — he simply announced with a grin that he was just confirming that I automatically rejected alternative explanations, and as I repeated my simple statement, that no, I did not, but that he was obligated to explain what his alternative might be — after all, I reject tarot cards and entrails-reading as methods for interpreting the world, and it's a bit silly to pretend that I should have blanket acceptance of just any alternative method without telling me what it is — he thanked me for confirming his opinion and the sneaky little git scuttled away.

That's what I detest most. Lying weasels who won't listen honestly, and especially won't even speak honestly.

Anyway, what brought up this recollection was an interesting post on Sandwalk on methodological naturalism. It nicely points out that there is a convention in the scientific community that treats methodological naturalism as a straitjacket that arbitrarily binds us. I don't think that's true at all.

The principle of MN is often conceived of as an intrinsic and self-imposed limitation of science, as something that is part and parcel of the scientific enterprise by definition. According to this view (Intrinsic MN or IMN) - which is defended by people like Eugenie Scott, Michael Ruse and Robert Pennock and has been adopted in the ruling of Judge John E. Jones III in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case - science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue. It is clear that this depiction of science and MN offers some perspectives for reconciling science and religion. Not surprisingly, IMN is often embraced by those sympathetic to religion, or by those who wish to alleviate the sometimes heated opposition between the two.

However, we will argue that this view of MN does not offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural explanations. Alternatively, we will defend MN as a provisory and empirically grounded commitment of scientists to naturalistic causes and explanations, which is in principle revocable by future scientific findings (Qualified MN or QMN). In this view, MN is justified as a methodological guideline by virtue of the dividends of naturalistic explanation and the consistent failure of supernatural explanations in the history of science.

I think science is primarily a pragmatic approach that takes whatever tools work to build a better (as evaluated by testing against real-world observations) understanding of how the universe works. My major objection to creationism isn't that it violates a set of dogmatic rules established by scientists playing a formal game, but that it provides no working alternative that I can use. The creationists mistake a series of assertions about history for a bank of operational methods for creating and answering new questions about the world.

Exclusion isn't quite the right word for what we're doing. Science's job is to fill up the silos of the world with the grain of useful information, and we've found that applying the principles of the scientific method and operating under the guidelines of methodological naturalism means we're productive: we can keep trundling up with wagonloads of corn and wheat and rice. The creationists are showing up with broken-down, essentially empty carts, containing nothing but chaff, a few dirt clods, and some fragrant manure, and they're being turned away because they have nothing to contribute. You're not being excluded if you have nothing to offer.

I imagine that Belfast creationist went back to his clique of ignorant pissants with a sense of triumph, and proudly announced that I had dogmaticly refused to include his offering of hot air and dust as nutritious and fit for a feast, and therefore was yet another tool of the establishment who unfairly discriminated against their way of knowing. Sorry, guy; a wealth of ignorance is no substitute for even a grain of knowledge.

Oh, cool: somebody standing there actually recorded the conversation in question.

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It looks as though Generation Rescue's bubble-brained spokescelebrities Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have finally found their niche. Can you guess where it is? Come on, take two guesses! That's right. They've made it into NaturalNews.com, crossposted from a post they had their handlers make to Age of Autism, entitled A Statement from Jenny McCarthy & Jim Carrey: Andrew Wakefield, Scientific Censorship, and Fourteen Monkeys. Truly, it is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen on AoA or NaturalNews.com. You'll see why in a moment. Suffice it to say that Jenny and Jim have the most fascinating conspiracy theory, a "real" explanation as to why The Man (a.k.a. big pharma and the CDC) made sure that the British General Medical Council decided to find Andrew Wakefield guilty of numerous charges relating to dishonesty, abuse of public funds, and lack of ethics in research and that the editors of the Lancet decided to retract his incompetent and unethical 1998 study. Well, not really Jenny and Jim. Given their writing and scientific "prowess," it is painfully obvious that neither could compose something anywhere near this coherent, and even then it's not very coherent. One wonders if either Dear Leader J.B. Handley wrote it or perhaps his MBA scientist wannabe Mark Blaxill. Maybe it's very incoherence is why Mike Adams decided their statement was worthy of being featured on NaturalNews.com.

After all, it's the best conspiracy theory ever (or the worst conspiracy theory ever--you be the judge):

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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years

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You can also watch sailfish fishing.

(via National Geographic)

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• More than 300 cases of mumps reported in Monsey, New Square | LoHud.com | The Journal News
  "At least 60 percent of the people in Rockland who have gotten mumps during the current outbreak had not been fully immunized, Facelle said. Mumps were common before the vaccine became available. In 2008, there were only two reported cases in Rockland, according to the Department of Health's year-end communicable disease report."
  (tags: medicine vaccine health-care stupid science news)
• Temple Grandin | Other Shows | TV Club | TV | The A.V. Club
  "Playing Grandin in the HBO biopic Temple Grandin, Claire Danes captures the brilliance of the woman: how she sees things that others don't, and makes connections others can't. Danes gets Grandin's braying monotone, stooped posture and default defensive stance to other people--and more importantly she conveys it all unselfconsciously, as Grandin would, with no awareness of how she must look to others. (That is, until they start laughing or whispering behind her back.) The performance is more than just a collection of skillfully strung together tics. Danes also captures Grandin's sense of humor and her perception of everyday life: how she finds things funny that aren't necessarily jokes, and how unexpected sounds, lights and motion can put her in a mild state of panic."
  (tags: television movies review blogs avclub medicine neuroscience)
• When did the (Scientific) Renaissance take place? « The Renaissance Mathematicus
  "Periodisation in human history is an artifice. We the historians impose periods onto history in order to try to tame it and make it easier to handle and in doing so we run the very real risk of falsifying it. There are no sign posts rammed into the real roadmap of time saying you are now leaving the Early Middle Ages please conduct your self in future in a manner suitable for the High Middle Ages. In fact as the peasant farmer in Middle Europe turned over the page of his calendar from the 25th to the 26th of March in 1199 and thus entered the thirteenth century nothing changed in his life at all. Time is a constantly flowing river and change is incremental and on the ground mostly imperceptible as societies, cultures and ways of live evolve within the general flow. It is only with hindsight and selective interpretation of the facts that we can perceive the major changes that we then use to identify the periods that we stamp out of the riverbed."
  (tags: history science humanities math blogs)
• Arts: Photographer Loves Math, Graphs Her Images | Magazine
  "Most of us can't tell our secant from our cotangent. But the forms are everywhere, and Nikki Graziano wants to help us see them. Graziano, a math and photography student at Rochester Institute of Technology, overlays graphs and their corresponding equations onto her carefully composed photos. "I wanted to create something that could communicate how awesome math is, to everyone," she says. Graziano doesn't go out looking for a specific function but lets one find her instead. Once she's got an image she likes, Graziano whips up the numbers and tweaks the function until the graph it describes aligns perfectly with the photograph."
  (tags: art math science pictures culture)
• Dear Jim: Congratulations! George. on Twitpic
  Star Wars vs. Titanic.
  (tags: pictures silly movies sf culture)
• In Which The Players Are More Interesting Than The Commercials - Home - This Recording
  "As the middle linebacker, [Jonathan] Vilma is the quarterback of the defense. Watch him, and not Peyton Manning, for at least one drive during the Super Bowl and check out what kinds of furiously intense and split-second head games the two men are playing with each other. Maybe it looks uncomplicated, but you'd rather take a staple gun to your chode than replace either of these men for one play. They say there's only 11 minutes of actual "game" during a football game, but they're wrong. This tete-a-tete between quarterback and middle linebacker is the equivalent of watching a player's eyes during a chess match, if the pieces tried to kill each other, and their actions resulted in wanton crying and unnecessary financial ruin for some of the spectators. Enjoy."
  (tags: sports football television culture US)

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