jlynch
Posts by this author
August 31, 2007
Many readers will no doubt know the 2004 paper in Science by historian of science Naomi Oreskes, a paper which discussed the consensus position regarding anthropogenic climate change. Predictably, the paper received much vitriol from the climate contrarians and denialists. Now, a medical research…
August 31, 2007
Births
1663 - Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker
1821 - Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician
1913 - Bernard Lovell, British radio astronomer
1949 - H. David Politzer, American physicist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1654 - Ole Worm, Danish physician
1772 - William Borlase,…
August 29, 2007
Events
1909 - Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.
Births
1852 - Jacobus Henricus van ’t Hoff, Nobel laureate
1871 - Ernest Rutherford, Nobel laureate
1884 - Theodor Svedberg, Nobel laureate
1912 - Edward Mills Purcell, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1751 - Christopher Polhem,…
August 29, 2007
Events
1831 - Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
1982 - The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung.
Births
1809 - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician
1904 - Werner Forssmann, Nobel laureate
Deaths…
August 27, 2007
Events
1845 - Scientific American magazine publishes its first issue.
1981 - The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of Pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma in gay men.
Births
1749 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and scientist
1878 - George Whipple, American…
August 26, 2007
Events
1962 - Mariner 2 launched to Venus.
2003 - Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing approximately 34,646,416 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) from Earth.
Births
1874 - Carl Bosch, Nobel Prize laureate
1915 - Norman F. Ramsey, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1909 -…
August 26, 2007
The winged statue of victory [Nike] stands in front of smoke from fires in the village of ancient Olympia near the birthplace of the Olympic Games, in southwestern Greece.
Source: Petros Giannakouris/Associated Press
August 25, 2007
Births
1728 - Johann Heinrich Lambert, German scientist
1736 - Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l’Isle, French chemist
1740 - Joseph Montgolfier, French inventor
1850 - Charles Robert Richet, French physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
1882 - James Franck, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate
1906 -…
August 25, 2007
This made my head hurt. The following question was asked of Miss Teen South Carolina at the recent Miss Teen USA pageant. The answer (below the fold) is mind-blowingly incomprehensible and serves as a testament either to the problems with our public education system or the vapidity of pageant…
August 25, 2007
Events
1609 - Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
1894 - Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet.
1981 - Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn
1989 - Voyager 2…
August 24, 2007
Many readers will by now have encountered the (frankly) frivolous law suit filed - for $15 million for Jeez sake- by Stuart Pivar against PZ Myers for negatively reviewing Pivar’s book Lifecode. Peter Irons - retired law professor at UCSD - has shared the following letter he has sent to Pivar:
Dear…
August 24, 2007
Events
1831 - Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle.
2006 - The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is no longer considered a planet.
Births
1899 - Albert Claude, Belgian biologist, Nobel laureate
1923 - Arthur Jensen, American hereditarian…
August 23, 2007
First we were "slime-snake-monkey-people". Now we’re "mutant randomites," and Johnson accuses us of name-calling! Mr Mote, meet Mr Eye.
This just keeps getting better and better.
August 22, 2007
Events
1889 - First wireless message from a ship to the shore received.
1962 - First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite.
1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
1973 - The Intelsat communication…
August 21, 2007
Events
1989 - The first ring of Neptune is discovered.
Births
1647 - Denis Papin, French physicist and inventor
1834 - Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer
1913 - Bruno Pontecorvo, Italian physicist
Deaths
1828 - Franz Joseph Gall, Austrian neuroscientist
1918 - Korbinian Brodmann, German…
August 21, 2007
... you are doing better that 25% of the American public.
One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released today.
The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey [who read any book], more than all other categories…
August 21, 2007
So let me see if I’ve got this straight ...
There are a bunch of people that think that typing ".com" instead of ".k12.az.us" is a potential error that students looking for their school district on their home computer could make, and as such, the owner of the .com site should shutdown.
Let’s…
August 21, 2007
Creationist Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. has just published a book detailing Noah's role in Greek art as a known historical figure. Yeah, *that* Noah. Johnson says:
"In Greek art, we find detailed, consistent portrayals of the early Genesis themes including: the ancient garden, the serpent-entwined…
August 20, 2007
Births
1660 - Hubert Gautier, French scientist and civil engineer
1665 - Giacomo F. Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer
1816 - Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, French chemist
1826 - Karl Gegenbaur, German anatomist
Deaths
1814 - Benjamin Thompson, American physicist
1836 - Claude-Louis Navier, French…
August 20, 2007
Average number of 110+ degree days at Phoenix Sky Harbor per year by decade:
1950s: 6.7
1960s: 10.3
1970s: 17.0
1980s: 19.0
1990s: 13.6
2000s: 21.6
Notice a trend? No comment necessary. The record for the number of days in a year to reach at least 110 degrees is 28. Today was number 26 for this…
August 19, 2007
Events
1975 - Viking 1 planetary probe launched toward Mars.
1977 - Voyager 2 probe launched.
Births
1719 - Christian Mayer, Czech astronomer
1779 - Jöns Jakob Berzelius, Swedish chemist
1913 - Roger Wolcott Sperry, American neurobiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine…
August 19, 2007
Tomorrow is the first day of classes here at ASU and promises to begin a rather hectic week as everything slowly comes together. I’m down to teach two courses - one section of my Darwinian Revolution course (100 student lecture course), and two of the Human Event (Science Focus), a Socratic seminar…
August 18, 2007
Events
1839 - Presentation of Jacque Daguerre’s new photographic process to the French Academy of Sciences.
1960 - Sputnik 5 launches with a cargo of the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants.
Births
1646 - John Flamsteed, English astronomer
1871 - Orville Wright,…
August 18, 2007
Can any one out there identify this little guy for me? Spotted this afternoon fluttering around my yard (suburban Phoenix, AZ) in some distress. If it helps, the grey stripe is approximately a half an inch wide.
Update: Looks like it is a White-lined sphinx (Hyles lineata Fabricius, 1775). More…
August 18, 2007
Events
1868 - Pierre Jules César Janssen discovers helium.
1877 - Asaph Hall discovers Phobos.
Deaths
2001 - David Peakall, British toxicologist.
August 17, 2007
Jerry Bergman is well know to those of us who follow creationism - in the past he has blamed Darwin(ism) for practically every ill that afflicts the modern world and regularly publishes "historical" work in the journals of the Answers in Genesis and teh Creation Research Society. Bergman's history…
August 17, 2007
Events
1970 - Venera 7 launched towards Venus. It became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet.
Births
1828 - Jules Bernard Luys, French neurologist
1873 - John A. Sampson, American gynecologist
Deaths
1673 - Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and…
August 16, 2007
Last time I took the Political Compass I scored Economic Left/Right: -9.5 / Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.31. That puts me fairly clearly in the far Progressive Left. The above thus is interesting: putative scores for the Presidential candidates - clearly there isn’t a candidate like me out…
August 16, 2007
Readers of other Scienceblogs will have noticed that many of my sciblings are heading off to New York for a grand meetup. Unfortunately, due to our semester starting on Monday (and thus a start-of-semester event on Saturday that will literally involve approximately 5 seconds of my time - walk on…