Media
pharyngula | January 8, 2011It's Tracey Spicer, a commentator on an Australian radio show. If you do radio or TV, you must listen to her interview with Meryl Dorey, the wicked anti-vaxxer crank. There are no mealy mouthed pleasantries, there is no downplaying of the evil Dorey has promoted, Spicer simply rips into her and points out all the legal and scientific facts against her. Then, at the end, Dorey is asked about the fact that a legal judgment has been made against her requiring that she post a disclaimer on her website, which she has not done, and Dorey begins to give the address of her website instead of…
jtoney | January 6, 2011
Guantanamo Bay
(Image Source: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Darren Hester, rpmaxwell, Will Montague)
This week's issue of Science has an insightful article on a very important topic: US sanctioned torture of enemies, using enhanced interrogation techniques. The article is co-authored by my colleague Dr. Allen Keller, from the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Dr. Keller and I serve on and participate in the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program. I will be attending their meeting next week in Washington, DC and will be reporting on our activities.
According to the…
jtoney | January 4, 2011
Photo source.
I think that's what I'm trying to do," he says. "I think Darwin's life is a great story. So why not tell it as a great story?
NPR Interview with Jay Hosler, Feb. 14, 2005
Amidst the media storms about teaching evolution in the classroom, I wonder whether anyone considered using comics? It is such a simple, elegant idea. Comics can draw students into the subject, using humor and whimsy, in a way that is simply not possible using a textbook. Plus there's nothing like humor to throw water on a fierce debate between a self-righteous religious zealot and a town's school board.…
jtoney | January 3, 2011
Last week, I shared an extraordinary study describing the human brain's "connectome" - our first glimpse into how neural connections are made in our brains. Recently, several studies have appeared attempting to link one's political views with our neuroanatomy - is this coincidence or somehow tied to the impending 2012 election cycle?
The most recent is a British study that purportes a link between political affiliations and the size of our amygdala...{hmmm....curious indeed...}
Fear and conservatism? I think we've all heard that before.
Researchers have found evidence that the brains of…
pharyngula | January 3, 2011If you're disappointed in CNN, you can always turn to MSNBC…ooops, never mind, they're solemnly reporting on the end-of-the-world nonsense from the Harold Camping Cult. They're predicting the Rapture will come on 21 May.
I would like to propose a novel version of Pascal's Wager for the news media. When apocalyptic cults come along and announce disaster and doom, ridicule them. Just rip into them, send your most sarcastic, cynical reporters to cover the story, and just shred all the followers as loons and gullible freaks. There will be two possible outcomes.
One, they're right, and the world…
jtoney | January 2, 2011
A recent article in Science, "Computational Physics in Film" reminded me how far we have advanced in computer simulation - all based upon basic physics of fluid dynamics.
Exoticmatter NAIAD City flood from Igor Zanic on Vimeo.
A spectacular example blending fluid dynamics and art: "Naiad City Flood":
Some of the most spectacular examples of physics in film involve fluids, where non-linearities in the underlying Navier-Stokes equations that describe fluid motion lead to accumulation of remarkable geometric complexity.
Computer-based algorithms for animation offers more than speed,…
jtoney | December 30, 2010
If you'll forgive the whimsy of this posting:
What's your favorite drink for New Year's?
I was intrigued by a series of images posted by The Telegraph of various drinks of choice. The screenshot above is described as:
Cocktails can have fruit and soft drinks in them which contain citric acids and complex sugars which dry out well and look great photographed. The incredible shapes and colours of the boozy artwork are highlighted by shining natural light on top and through the bottom of the slide.
A Pina Colada
And:
"What you can see in the magnified pictures are the crystalised…
jtoney | December 30, 2010
Photo source.
As you prepare for your New Year's celebration, here's something to consider: researchers have found that having more friends may play a role in whether you identify yourself as a liberal or a conservative.
How did they determine this?
The researchers studied a group of about 2,000 adolescents with different variants of the dopamine receptor ("allele 7R"). The dopamine receptors in our brain are associated with pleasure, cognition, memory, learning and fine motor control to name a few key functions, and the "allele 7R" has been linked to "novelty seeking behavior." They…
jtoney | December 29, 2010
Walt Disney Pictures
Did I not say that science can be beautiful?
Consider Disney's latest animated film, "Tangled." How does one simulate human hair, taking into account sheen and reflection of light, not to mention bending? In the earlier days of animation, these drawings were done by hand by masters of the craft. Now, the images can be generated by computer algorithms. The answer is beautiful mathematics, thanks to mathematicians at Columbia University and the Free University of Berlin.
As reported in The New York Times
Beautiful math:
What he and others mean when they refer to work…
jtoney | December 29, 2010I have been exploring our "Brain's Atlas" introduced in my recent post and discovered an extraordinary resource: the Relationship Viewer. A snapshot is shown to the right, appearing as a spiraling multi-colored pin wheel.
This interactive viewer developed by the research group of Dr. Arthur W. Toga at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI) invites the user to explore:
Relationships in 2D brain, 3D brain and circular lines
As you explore the connections, the color scheme is:
Warmer colors mean stronger connections and cooler colors mean weaker…
jtoney | December 28, 2010There has been a media storm over Sarah Palin's "invention" of the word "refudiate" as an ersatz term for repudiate. In her own words, as reported today in The Huffington Post: {apparently she blamed the "typo" on her Blackberry...not inconceivable.}
"I pressed an F instead of a P and people freaked out," said Sarah, pointing out that her blunder was the second-most-searched word on Google trends. "Make lemonade out of lemons," said Sarah.
For a brief 23 second explanation, including an apparent mocking tone of the English language as a "moving, breathing, evolving art" {I do not believe…
jtoney | December 27, 2010
By inspire*dream*create*, Rachel Souza's Flickr Photostream
I realize that I am a new blogger for this site, and have enjoyed the challenge of sharing some of the latest scientific breakthroughs as they are happening. I have enjoyed reading some of my fellow bloggers, "Sciblings," learning about new discoveries from their perspectives.
I have also noted a lack of civility in some articles on this site. To such bloggers, I would like to respectfully make a call to civility. I have noticed an unfortunate tendency for some of them to use terms such as "dumbass" and "stupid" in articles…
jtoney | December 26, 2010If you are fascinated with word usage, I suggest you try a powerful new tool, Google NGram Viewer. According to the website:
What's all this do?
When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books (e.g., "British English", "English Fiction", "French") over the selected years. Let's look at a sample graph:
You may have noticed the term "schadenfreude" appearing more and more, defined as the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Its usage is, I believe, a telling by product of the explosion of…
jtoney | December 25, 2010
Jennifer Daniel and Sandi Daniel, The New York Times image
THERE you are, peacefully reading an article or watching a video on the Internet. You finish, find it thought-provoking, and scroll down to the comments section to see what other people thought. And there, lurking among dozens of well-intentioned opinions, is a troll.
"Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt", Julie Zhou, product design manager at Facebook, The New York Times Op-Ed.
Many families are awakening today to the joy of sharing gifts for Christmas. A thought occurred to me: I wanted a Trollinator Nanobot for Christmas. But I…
jtoney | December 24, 2010Today's announcement of a giveaway of 2,011 Nike shoes...well well!
Give it a try!
www.sharecare.com/static/nike giveaway
If you are an Oprah fan, you already know that she will be launching a new network on New Year's Day 2011. Oprah has recruited a "dream team" of go-to experts:
Dr. Phil, Suze Orman and Dr. Oz -- will be answering questions about health, wealth and mental well-being as part of the original series, "Ask Oprah's All Stars," premiering Sunday, January 2.
The recently launched webpage HuffPost Health is asking readers to submit questions for possible use on the show's launch…
jtoney | December 24, 2010
The IBM 705 Data Processing System, introduced in 1954.
The 705 would rarely run more than 3 or 4 hours without a major breakdown. It was not unusual to encounter a 705 that was ablaze." This should give all of us pause the next time our PC crashes!
What is your family's history? Have you ever reflected on what their lives was like, when life was seemingly simpler? What if we could take a snapshot of our lives, our families, just one, every ten years? What was your family doing 100 years ago?
Let me share some "snapshots" of our ordinary family {a personal and idiosyncratic point of…
jtoney | December 21, 2010
Jurvetson's Flickr photostream
Do you think that there should be universal access to the internet, regardless of how it is accessed? Should the internet be regulated by the federal government? If so, to what extent? Is "Net Neutrality" possible? For now, "neutrality" when it comes to accessing the internet is an illusion.
These questions, to some degree, have been addressed by the approval of new rules by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today. Below are some key things to consider:
Excerpted from an NPR story today:
A divided FCC has approved new rules meant to prohibit…
jtoney | December 19, 2010
Genesis - h.koppdelaney's Flickr photostream Creative Commons
As reported in today's The New York Times, a case will be reviewed by a federal judge in Kentucky this February to determine whether an academic astronomer was denied a position because of religious faith. According to the report, this case is a "rare example" of such a law suit.
The role of faith in scientific thinking has always been a contentious one. {That may well be a vast understatement.} How does one balance faith vs. reason? Or can a scientist, the rationalist, maintain faith, if not call upon it for inspiration…
jtoney | December 17, 2010
From time to time, my office receives publisher's copies of books, uninvited and not upon my request. Today, a copy of Jay Hosler's "Evolution: The Story of LIfe on Earth" arrived. {The hubris of explaining the "story of life on earth" is unimaginable to me, but that's another story.} This piques my interest; is a careful review warranted, or should it be added to my "to do" list that increases with each semester? I fully recognize that this is a "hot button" issue, and I don't want to enter the debate per se. I am simply a curious scientist.
According to Amazon:
Product Description…
jtoney | December 16, 2010Scientists including the news media in the process of discovery is a volatile affair, as we have all witnessed recently. My fellow bloggers on ScienceBlogs, We Beasties, discussed the role of bloggers and scientists in the process of the NASA scientists announcing their discovery of "arsenic-based life forms".
Generally speaking, as a scientist I have always been bothered by the idea of a press release to announce a scientific discovery before I had an opportunity to carefully review the study myself. Typically, a friend or neighbor would say "Hey, did you hear about the discovery of…