November 15, 2007
Environment plays key role in children's readiness for school
"Genetic factors played a significant role in the children's core abilities underlying the four components of school readiness, but the environment shared by twins of the same family remained the most important factor overall."
(tags:…
November 15, 2007
Via email, a plug for the newish site 60 Second Science, which is a project from Scientific American built around a podcast featuring one-minute explanations of, well, science.
The email was specifically highlighting their new project, a set of video podcasts going by the name of Instant Egghead.…
November 15, 2007
Over at Good Math, Bad Math, Mark explains "Proof by Contradiction," a common mathematical technique that doesn't translate all that well to politics. Whenever proof techniques come up, I always think about one of the very few things I remember from my graduate class on Math Methods.
We were…
November 15, 2007
It's been a while since I did one of these, so here's your book progress update for the last couple of weeks, with the obligatory dog picture. This is probably the halfway point for the first draft, more or less.
Introduction
Current Revision: 1
Total Words: 430 (dialogue only)
Chapter 1: Particle-…
November 14, 2007
Freshman's 3-Pointer Helps Lift Syracuse - New York Times
A typical beginning of the season
(tags: basketball)
Relativity passes new test of time - physicsworld.com
Precision spectroscopy of lithium ions in a storage ring confirm time dilation. That's a relief.
(tags: physics science experiment…
November 14, 2007
Over at the World's Fair, Dave is asking people for their scientific eponyms, that is, the formula they would like to have named after themselves. These are, of course, entirely made up.
Here's my contribution, from the scientific study of pick-up basketball: the Orzel Teammate Desirability Factor…
November 14, 2007
I'm currently getting trounced in Scrabble on Facebook, though I'm playing the game under protest: How can they possibly say that "ZA," "KA," and "AE" are English words, but "KABOOM" is not? The stupid thing is rigged.
Anyway, I've been playing around with this social network business for a little…
November 14, 2007
What's a mid-size breed of dog with a reputation for laziness? I need a slow-moving dog to contrast with a hyperactive husky, and I already used "basset hound" in a different context. Ideally, it should have about the same mass as a husky.
November 14, 2007
Dave Bacon watched "Judgement Day" last night, and has a question:
It's not like, you know, there aren't people who think quantum theory is wrong or that quantum theory is somehow related to the Vedic teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So why is it that quantum theory (which after all is "just a…
November 14, 2007
So, in case you missed the splashy banner ads that have been running here for the last week, NOVA ran a show about the Dover, PA "Intelligent Design" trial last night. You can find all manner of commentary on ScienceBlogs, for example here, here, and here.
I'm not as, shall we say, personally…
November 13, 2007
Children's early academic and attention skills best predict later school success
"Behavior problems, lack of social skills not linked with later achievement." This is described as "surprising," and I can't for the life of me see why.
(tags: academia education news)
Cocktail Party Physics: the…
November 13, 2007
Jennifer Ouellette meantions it as the jumping-off point for her particle-wave duality post, but I want to spend a little time talking about this paper on single-electron interference (Science 318, 949 (2007)), because it's a very nice piece of work. There's also a Physics World news article about…
November 13, 2007
The indefatigable Bora Zivkovic is soliciting contributions for the science blogging anthology The Open Laboratory. He's titled the post "Last Call for Submissions," but the actual deadline is December 20th. On or about December 19th, I expect a post title along the lines of "Wolf! Wooooolllllfffff…
November 13, 2007
ScienceBlogs is now available in a German version.If you sprechen the Deutsch, update your blogroll accordingly.
Me, I don't get more than the occasional word. I am, however, amused to see that the pull-quote on the front page is in English, and from one of my posts...
November 12, 2007
Matthew Yglesias (November 11, 2007) - Journalism as Sadism (Media)
Why "Meet the Press" is well-nigh unwatchable.
(tags: news politics journalism television US blogs)
The Daily Politics
John Sweeney continues to show the fine grasp of political calculation that led him to be photographed at a…
November 12, 2007
John Scalzi visits the Creation Museum.
Did you know, for example, that Adam is responsible not only for the fall of man, but also for the creation of venom? It didn't exist in the Garden of Eden, because, well. Why would it? Weeds? Adam's fault. Carnivorous animals (and, one assumes, the…
November 11, 2007
ESPN Page 2 - The Sports Guy: Sore winner
Comparing the Pats to the Allied POWs in Victory isn't over-the-top, is it?
(tags: football sports silly movies)
The Associated Press: Donors Bid Millions NOT to Rename School
The proper way to fend off unappealing naming rights problems
(tags: sports…
November 11, 2007
As any NFL fan is aware, the game of the week is my Giants against the hated Dallas Cowboys, who stand for everything that is evil and blighted in the league, no matter what Gregg Easterbrook says about the Patriots. All the talking head shows on ESPN this morning have talked about the game, and…
November 10, 2007
Because I'm a bad person, there follows a list of all the notable people I talked to at the World Fantasy Convention. You can feel free to assume that they all thought that I was brilliant, and offered to co-author important publications with me.
Kate and I had dinner with Sarah Monette Thursday…
November 10, 2007
Matthew Fisher buys a blog topic:
I thought I'd throw in a request for another post on Steven Erikson. Specifically how his Malazan books either conform to, or subvert standard epic fantasy tropes. I've been a fan of his for quite awhile, and I'd like to think his stuff is different from Goodkind…
November 9, 2007
The Associated Press: Judge Rules on What Makes a Poem
"Keenan's 79-page decision included legal and literary history. He offered a brief description of Parker -- "the famous writer who was a member of the Algonquin Round Table" -- and a detailed summary of what constitutes a poem."
(tags:…
November 9, 2007
A question from the Corporate Masters:
Is there a 'typical ScienceBlogs reader'? Who are these people? Why do they read Sb? What do they get out of it?
So, well, who are you people? Other than, you know, physics nerds.
My vague impression, based on what I know of the people who comment regularly,…
November 9, 2007
Having done a giant weighty physics post, I feel like I should post something more frivolous, so here's something about music...
I recently purchased a bunch of stuff from iTunes (yeah, yeah, Amazon has DRM-free MP3's, blah blah, blah. 1) I had a gift card, and 2) I'm not Cory Doctorow), and there…
November 9, 2007
I have a bunch of science news sources in my RSS feeds, and every evening, I scan through the accumulated articles to try to figure out what physics-related stories there are to talk about. Sometimes, it's hard to find anything, but other days, you get stories that lead to four press releases at…
November 8, 2007
Robert Donoghue - Hunting Vegetarians with Ted Nugent
Anthony Bourdain rediscovers Furr's Law
(tags: food blogs computing society silly)
Dynamics of Cats : "Rocketeers" - a Review
This is exactly rocket science
(tags: space books review)
NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | PBS
We'll see if I…
November 8, 2007
There are a lot of high-tech tools that are absolutely essential to the functioning of my lab. The diode lasers I use are a couple hundred bucks each, and only available from a handful of companies. I've got a couple of digital oscilloscopes that are really impressive instruments, packing a huge…
November 8, 2007
There's been a bunch of talk in the blogosphere about the Democrats taking over the Virginia Senate. I've only really glanced at these, because I don't live in Virginia, but I got email today pointing out that I have a personal connection to one of the "Key Races." In District 34, J. C. "Chap"…
November 8, 2007
Ethan Zuckerman (who is on the Wikimedia Advisory Board) has a post discussing Wikipedia's recent fundraising drive, with some comparative numbers:
In the past 17 days, the [Wikimedia] Foundation has raised over $478,000 in online gifts. That's a pretty amazing number, on the one hand, and a…
November 8, 2007
I got a thank-you email yesterday from the head of DonorsChoose, which I will quote here. Because, well, you're the ones who coughed up the cash, not me:
Thanks in great part to the attention you generated, we made Internet history! During the month of October, readers of more than a hundred blogs…
November 7, 2007
ABC News: Police: Students Used Cookies to Torture
"Ill. College Students Accused of Kidnapping, Battery With Freshly Baked Cookies" The world is a strange and disturbing place.
(tags: news stupid drugs)
mmcirvin: A strange map: UFO sightings in the US
Why don't people in the South see UFO's?
(…
