Science Blogs

The Scientists and Engineers for America seem to think so.

Most of my posts here concern science or politics, so I was going to call the site "The Art of the Soluble" after Peter Medawar's remark that "If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs." Unfortunately, Sir Peter used that title for a famous essay, so I consider it taken. (Comparisons are invidious, particularly when I suffer by them.) Thus thwarted, I settled on another horrible pun (an open reading frame is, basically, a stretch of nucleic acid that can be translated into protein), and unless someone is already using it here I will stay.

A blog about bugs. The bugs are trying to tell us something!

Academic research at the highest levels is as much a game of popularity as it is one of academic excellence. Everyone is smart. Everyone is accomplished. Finally, what separates one researcher from another is how he or she plays the game: how much grant money they raise, how many students and postdocs they employ, how many other scientists benefit from sharing grant money or authorship on publications. Eric Poehlman (pictured at right) knew how to play the game, even when that meant conducting scientific fraud in the process. In an article appropriately titled "An Unwelcome Discovery," this week's New York Times Magazine presents the story behind the criminal conviction of the former tenured faculty member at the University of Vermont. Poehlman was convicted to a year and a day of prison and two years of probation for using fraudulent data to obtain millions of dollars in federal grant money from the National Institutes of Health. What's particularly interesting about the Poehlman article is what it reveals about the inner workings of academic research and how the system permits such fraud to be committed over years or even decades. The article paints a picture of Poehlman as one who is an expert at telling people what they want to hear - even going so far as to falsify data to fit the hypothesis. Though ironically, it's when data doesn't fit the hypothesis that new scientific discoveries are made.

We really hate to dis a sister science blog site, but it would seem that science blogging has totally gone to the dogs at ScienceBlogs. Wordburst (above) lists the five words "appearing with unusual frequency" on the Seed ScienceBlogs site as of Saturday beginning with "stupider." Be our cat's paw. Write a science joke or even a sentence using these five words and receive a free Element List mug! If the winner is a Seed blogger, we'll even throw in an Element List T-shirt!! Post your joke in the comments or email it to info@elementlist.com.

All manner of human creativity on display. By David Ng and Benjamin Cohen.

Media to help you help others "get" science. Hosted by Science Creative Quarterly.

What's wrong with this headline from NOAA? Could it be that the Bush Administration science spin doctors are at it again? The official headline for the summer temperature round-up report pictured above emphasizes that September was cooler than usual, while the color-coded map below clearly shows that temperatures ranged from above normal to record warmest in every mainland state in the nation. As the news release reveals in the less important second and third paragraphs, the summer overall was the second warmest on record and the "January-September 2006 combined temperature is the warmest on record." The previous January-September combined temperature record was set in 2000. The red and orange in the map above should be enough to dispel any notions that it's getting any cooler in the U.S., but someone apparently thinks September is more important, perhaps because it's just weeks before the elections and all.

The official blog for the Scientists and Engineers for America.

After we polled a few geology bloggers, Chris at Highly Allocthonous bravely took on the challenge of proposing a possible tectonic explanation for Sunday's large earthquake in Hawaii. Chris noted (a) that the epicenter was northwest of the current volcanic source point that lies on the southeastern side of the Big Island, where most events associate with volcanism have been occurring on a regular (daily) basis; and (b) that the Molokai Fracture Zone (labeled OFZ in a slightly modified version of Chris' excellent map at right), happens to pass in the regional vicinity of the epicenter. Chris also pointed out that the newly revised depth for the earthquake by the USGS is 28 km, not 38.9 km as reported earlier. Twenty-eight kilometers is still deep considering that most oceanic crustal earthquakes are less then 10 km deep.

The USGS website has a good explanation of earthquake focal mechanisms represented by the red and white beachball. While OFZ in particular lies a bit northwest of the epicenter and trends west-southwest, the fracture zones do in fact roughly parallel the east-west trending nodel plane of the earthquake focal mechanism calculated by the USGS. Further, if you look closely, there is a more east-west trending fracture zone just south of OFZ that more closely parallels the east-west nodal plane. If the earthquake occurred on one of the fracture zones, it would've been a left-lateral strike-slip event. However, as most tectonics students learn, fracture zones aren't typically active away from the spreading center in a strike-slip sense. It could be that thermal weakening of the crust and mantle near the hotspot have permitted preexisting fracture zones to slip in response to intraplate stresses. (Thanks, Chris!)

Rainy days don't have to be a drag any more with the Pileus Umbrella and WebService system. With the Pileus System, you can take a picture with a camera mounted on top of the umbrella, which is then uploaded to Flickr or YouTube through the Pileus WebService with an image tag defined by your screen ID. Then, when you twist a grip on the umbrella, it will search for your images according to your screen ID and display the contents with a projector aimed at the underside of the umbrella. The system was presented at the Eighth International Conference on Ubiqitous Computing this year in Orange County, California by students from Keio University in Japan. (via We Make Money Not Art)

Life from a science fiction point of view.

My life in science, technology, and society. NOW WITH PICTURES!

Short for "GeologicalScienceBlog", subjects will include Geology, Climatology, Environmental Science, NASCAR, Beer, Property Rights, Politics from a Christian Conservative/Libertarian viewpoint, and random thoughts. My background is two degrees in Geology (BS, MS), 8 years of geology/environmental employment and 5 years of teaching Geology and Environmental Science on a Junior College level.

I am 31, Texas Gulf Coast, INFP, Aquarius, Geologist, Mystic, Yoga Devotee, Belly Dancer, Belly Laugher, La Loba, Home Owner, Pseudo-Hermit, Choctaw Indian, Eccentric, Avid reader, Tobacco slave, Woman who lives at the edge of the World.

I'm a technician. I maintain and operate laboratory equipment used in the scientific analysis of crystalline materials. Mostly these materials are rocks, but our lab has analyzed everything from dead people to bits of the Moon.

Wired magazine blog on biotech and related weirdness.

A magnitude 6.6 strike-slip earthquake hit about 15 km (10 miles) north-northwest of the Big Island of Hawaii at 7:07 AM local time. The estimated hypocentral depth of the quake is 38.9 km (24.2 miles). That's VERY deep considering that the thickness of the oceanic crust is not more than 10 km, though it's thicker near the islands. The picture at right by konaboy shows the dust cloud that followed a large rockfall at Kealakekua Bay a few minutes after the quake. The fact that the fault motion was strike-slip explains why there wasn't a tsunami despite the large magnitude of the mainshock. But a strike-slip focal mechanism doesn't seem to make sense for this area since there aren't any obvious lateral faults - unless old transform faults count. Anyone have an idea about what caused the quake?

Flickr Photos of the Hawaii Earthquake

US Geological Survey Earthquake Information on the Hawaii Earthquake

USGS Earthquake map for Hawaii

Strike-Slip NEIC Moment Tensor Solution for the Hawaii Earthquake

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Information Statement