July 23, 2010
Earlier this week, there was some interesting discussion of science communication in the UK branch of the science blogosphere. I found it via Alun Salt's "Moving beyond the 'One-dinosaur-fits-all' model of science communication" which is too good a phrase not to quote, and he spun off two posts…
July 23, 2010
This week's big story in physics is this Science paper by a group out of Austria Canada (edited to fix my misreading of the author affiliations), on a triple-slit interference effect. This has drawn both the usual news stories and also some complaining about badly-worded news stories. So, what's…
July 23, 2010
The Dean Dad is worried about remedial math:
In a discussion this week with someone who spends most of her time working with students who are struggling mightily in developmental math, I heard an argument I hadn't given much thought previously: students who have passed algebra and even pre-calc in…
July 23, 2010
slacktivist: Credit scoring and unemployment
"Say you're unemployed and you decide to work your tail off to land a new job, so you send out 40 résumés a week. Half of the companies might decide to do a credit-check before getting back to you. This sets off alarm-bells at the credit-rating…
July 22, 2010
After a hard day of toddling, sometimes you just need to kick back on the couch with your sky-bison, and munch on a fruit strip:
You know what I mean?
July 22, 2010
Over at A Most Curious Planet, Alexandra Jellicoe offers a story with the provocative headline Is Science Sexist?, which spins off an anecdote from astronomy:
I was listening to Radio 4 a few months ago and the discussion about gender intelligence lodged in the deeper recesses of my brain unthought…
July 22, 2010
A bit more than a month ago, I got a Sony Reader as a birthday present, upgrading my electronic book-reading platform from an old Palm Pilot. this is, obviously, not as sexy as a Kindle or a Nook, but then again, it doesn't involve me paying fees to use wireless services and further stoke my…
July 22, 2010
Pretty much what the title implies: for a variety of reasons, I find myself in a position where people keep holding or suggesting conference calls as a way of getting the relevant players together on the phone if not in person. I'm not wild about this, but I'm curious what other people think:…
July 22, 2010
Well?
Cake?customer surveys
(Blame EphBlog.)
July 22, 2010
More Online Astronomy Resources for Writers
"A few years ago I compiled a list of online astronomy resources for writers following that year's Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers. Every year there are new links we pass around and discuss, so I wanted to do an addendum, if you will, adding…
July 21, 2010
Here's a picture of the ornamental pond we have in our back yard, showing the fountain that we run to keep the water circulating so it's not just a mosquito ranch:
You can see the brick that we have sitting on top of the pump housing to keep it submerged (it tends to tip over otherwise-- the…
July 21, 2010
If you're in the UK, you may very well be thinking "You know, I love the idea of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, but I find American idiom very intimidating. If only there were an edition just for people like me..."
Well, hypothetical UK person, your prayers have been answered:
This is the cover…
July 21, 2010
Physics Buzz: APS hits ComicCon with the first superhero science comic
"For the rest of this week I'll be blogging from the madness that is sure to be ComicCon 2010. APS will be the first professional society to bring a comic book, so us public outreach folks are excited to be rolling in with 2.5…
July 20, 2010
Yesterday's post about how nobody cares about condensed matter physics produced a surprising number of comments of the form "I was really hoping you would post about topological insulators," which surprised me a bit. Anyway, since people asked for it, I'll give it a shot. The important caveats here…
July 20, 2010
The fallout from the Pepsi incident continues to suck all the oxygen out of science blogging, with the latest news being the departure of Bora Zivkovic. If you don't have time to read his farewell novel, here's the short version: Seed Media Group management are insufficiently attentive to the blogs…
July 20, 2010
NASA Mercury Messenger Finds Surprises - NYTimes.com
"On its third swing past Mercury, NASA's Mercury Messenger spacecraft discovered an unexpectedly young lava plain, rapid rufflings of the planet's weak magnetic field and an unanticipated dance of elements in the thin atmosphere.
"I think the…
July 19, 2010
I had planned to spend some time this weekend trying to make sense of this new result on topological insulators, and maybe even write up the relevant paper for ResearchBlogging. Family life intervened, though, and I didn't have the time. I get enough of it to understand the basics of what's going…
July 19, 2010
Over at Jeff Vandemeer's blog, Rachel Swirsky has a series ofm guest posts (start here if you prefer direct post links) about the recently completed Launch Pad workshop. this is a NASA funded workshop bringing a group of writers together for six days of lectures on modern astronomy from working…
July 19, 2010
Language Log » The "pound sign" mystery
"Yesterday, in discussing Kevin Fowler's song Pound Sign, there was some debate about the origin of the term "pound sign" for the symbol #. I suggested that it all started with the substitution of # for £ on American typewriter keyboards, but others…
July 18, 2010
SteelyKid has clearly inherited her father's fondness for basketball. Unfortunately, she doesn't quite understand how to play, yet. She does know that involves throwing a ball up in the air and jumping, though:
She'll get the rest of it eventually.
July 18, 2010
I bought a bunch of stuff recently, and as is my usual practice, iTunes has been shuffle playing the recent purchases for the last couple of weeks. The albums in question:
Janelle Monae, the Arch-Android. Not usually my sort of thing, but I saw a bunch of absolutely rapturous reviews calling it…
July 18, 2010
Physics Education Research Group (UMD) / Scientific Community Labs
"Scientiifc community labs (SCL) are designed to give students the experience of participating in a model of a realistic scientific community at an early stage in their scientific training. In traditional labs, students often…
July 17, 2010
There are lots of reasons why Josh Rosenau is one of the few writers blogging about science-and-religion issues that I still read. This morning's post on what you ought to do to determine effective approaches is an outstanding example:
Rather than looking at national polls, which are crude…
July 17, 2010
News: Technologically Illiterate Students - Inside Higher Ed
"The assumption that today's student are computer-literate because they are "digital natives" is a pernicious one, Zvacek said. "Our students are task-specific tech savvy: they know how to do many things," she said. "What we need is for…
July 16, 2010
Back in one of the communications skills threads, Karen comments about science and humanities:
It's easy enough for a humanities major to avoid doing much science in school. The converse is not true. It strikes me that for those earlier scientists who attended univeristy, both their early education…
July 16, 2010
I'm kind of curious about how people read the site, in particular the ScienceBlogs front page, so:
I look at the ScienceBlogs front page:customer surveys
As a bonus, if you feel so inclined, take a look at the front page, and leave a comment letting me know what you think. Is there something they…
July 16, 2010
Mightygodking.com » Post Topic » Grading every country's national anthem, part one
"Burundi. Sounds more like a movie soundtrack than a national anthem - a really awesome movie, though, about African cowboys looking out over the savannah as the sun sets over the elephants, and then maybe they…
July 15, 2010
We've been doing weekly Baby Blogging (now Toddler Blogging) for a long time now-- this is week 101-- but it occurs to me that we've been shortchanging someone in all these pictures: Appa. He is, after all, a sky-bison, so it's about time we got a picture of him in flight:
SteelyKid says "I could…
July 15, 2010
In the comments following the silly accelerator poll, onymous wrote:
[T]he point of the LHC isn't to discover the Higgs. No one in their right minds would build a 14 TeV pp collider if their only goal was to discover the Higgs.
While it's true that the ultimate goal of the LHC is to discover more…
July 15, 2010
If you're in Broome County or environs, the biggest political event of the year is today: John Orzel is officially launching his campaign for the New York State Senate. This will apparently involve a number of events around the 52nd state senate district, ending with a rally and cookout in Scenic…
