June 2008

Ice Stories

June 5, 2008

One thing I love about the Exploratorium is that the folks there always like to have fun. That means they want to do all sorts of cool stuff themselves, not just talk about it. So, they get to travel to China for the eclipse, or the Arctic to see research in action. Their latest project [...]

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Regulating nanotechnology

June 4, 2008

Matthew Nisbett’s blog, Framing Science, just posted a note about a potential ban on nanotechnology in consumer products due to health concerns. He quotes a NY Times article in which nanotech is called the asbestos of tomorrow. He writes: The asbestos comparison immediately places nanotechnology in the mental box of uncertainty and risky health impacts. [...]

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Going to the Dogs

June 4, 2008

I just posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast – Episode 38: Going to the Dogs This one features my old boss, Paul Doherty, talking about how polarization was invented, and what it has to do with dog urine. Paul’s a great storyteller, and I love this story — give it a [...]

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E = MC^shared

June 3, 2008

This just in… some physicists tried to negotiate a Wiki-friendly rights agreement with a big physics journal (Physical Review Letters). It seems that posting ones’ work on Wikipedia violates copyright agreements as currently written, because that counts as a “derivative work”. The journal decided not to publish the paper, but the physicists have gotten the [...]

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Wrong on so many levels…

June 3, 2008

A professor just relayed a conversation he overheard, while walking behind two college girls. Note, there are 17 professors named “Green” (name changed to protect the guilty) at this institution: Girl 1: So, did you sleep with Professor Green? Girl 2: Yes Girl 1: So, did he give you an A? Girl 2: NO….! <insert [...]

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Framing Science – for you politicoes out there

June 3, 2008

I’ve been reading the Framing Science blog a little bit lately, and for those of you who are gobbling up political opinion nowadays (and you know who you are) you can find a little bit more of it on Framing Science, from a scientific bent. He’s got a fair amount on climate change (such as [...]

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Comments lost to the ether…

June 3, 2008

I’ve unfortunately just found out that our old friend Akismet has been filtering out real honest-to-goodness non-spam comments.  I hadn’t been checking the spam queue (which has filtered out over 600 comments) — now that I check, I find several nice comments there.  Previous ones have since been, sadly, lost to the ether.  So, if [...]

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The "umami" taste

June 2, 2008

I was just listening to one of Robert Krulwich’s many delightful podcasts on science (Krulwich on Science — if you haven’t listened to it you must) and he was explaining how the “umami” taste was discovered. It turns out that for years and years scientists accepted the mantra that there are four basic tastes — [...]

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Revamping this blog!

June 2, 2008

I am hereby revamping this blog!  This will now serve as a repository of more chatty, more frequent posts about all things science and science communication.  If you’re a lurker, help keep me motivated by posting a comment now and again, so I know someone’s reading.  Being the attention-vamp that I am, knowing that I’m [...]

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