Science Blogs
Blogs, magazines, and articles, mostly science and research related.
473 listings
 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs Non-academic thoughts on life, literature, and academics. And yes, this will be on the final exam.
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 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs Chet Raymo's weekly Science Musings appeared in the Boston Globe for twenty years. The column offered informed and provocative meditations on science as a creative human activity and celebrated the grandeur and mystery of the natural world. Now Raymo's essays take to the web at ScienceMusings.com. Chet Raymo is Professor Emeritus at Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts.
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 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs News about research that first makes people LAUGH, and then makes them THINK. This is the official blog of the Ig Nobel Prizes and of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR).
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 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs WARNING! This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. Remember: It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
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 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  According to Jorge Cham, "A recent survey by U.C. Berkeley found that 95% of all graduate students feel overwhelmed, and over 67% have felt seriously depressed at some point in their careers." So if you're feeling overwhelmed, put down your research and take a trip to Jorge's comic strip about graduate school life called "Piled Higher and Deeper " (PHD). You can read the latest comics online, buy books covering the first eight years of the strip, and even purchase PHD t-shirts and various geek gear. Jorge Cham has a PhD in Mechnical Engineering from Stanford University and is currently an "Instructor" at CalTech. When he's not teaching, Jorge has a very busy schedule speaking about his comic strip at universities around the country in which he "recounts his experiences bringing humor into the lives of stressed out academics, examines the source of their anxieties and explores the guilt, the myth, and the power of procrastination." You can see a clip from one of his talks here and even invite him to speak at your campus. |
 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI In a major signal that the United States is losing - indeed, may have already lost - the science race, the NY Times reports today on a Kauffman Foundation report stating "that emerging countries such as China and India will continue to be major beneficiaries of R&D expansion over the next three years as companies seek new market opportunities, access to top scientists and engineers, and collaborative research relationships with leading universities." The Kauffman Foundation website directly contradicts reports by major media organizations such as the NY Times and Wall Street Journal saying, "In neither emerging nor developed countries was cost consideration the most important factor, which runs contrary to what has been reported by the media." Major non-cost factors that are pushing commercial R&D offshore are "legal wrangling over intellectual property rights" with American universities and U.S. immigration restrictions, which are making it difficult for U.S. universities and companies to attract and retain the best and brightest researchers.
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Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI
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 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  This story will not die. The higher ups at NASA are finally responding to the public flogging in the NY Times over the growing number of reports by NASA scientists that they have been told to delay or keep quiet reports about global warming by politically appointed NASA public relations officials. The demands have gone so far as to require scientists to replace all mentions of "global warming" with simply "climate change." James Hansen's courage in coming forward to the NY Times reportedly has emboldened other scientists at NASA labs throughout the country to come forward as well. NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin (pictured) called for "scientific openness" two weeks ago and has demanded a review of NASA communications policies. This might lead some to breathe a sigh of relief, except that rather than emphasizing NASA scientists' credentials to make expert conclusions from scientific data, Griffin appears to be distancing himself when he says, "as long as people speak as private citizens, my attitude is, let me hold your coat for you. You can get into that fray and get beat up. You just can't label it as an agency position." The problem is that NASA scientists are considered to be speaking as "private citizens" only when politically appointed NASA officials don't like what they're saying. |
 Submitted Feb 17, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  Looking for a science job? There are so many job boards out there that finding a job online seems to be getting harder, not easier. Just consider the latest edition of What Color is Your Parachute?, which claims that applying for jobs over the web is the worst way to find a job, but as a research tool the internet is extremely helpful. There is now a new job search engine called Juju that helps job seekers find great opportunities fast by letting them search thousands of employer websites simultaneously. The site regularly lists thousands of science oriented jobs of every description. The Juju homepage is Google-like in its simplicity with an ad-free homepage and an easy-to-use search tool based on keyword and location. |
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 Submitted Feb 14, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  So last week was all about how the White House appointed George Deutsch, a 24 year-old, all-but-diploma Aggie/Bush loyalist/NASA PR flack, to wiretap climate scientists' phone calls from reporters and browbeat NASA scientists in the basement under Tom's Restaurant - or was it Guantanamo, how should we know? - until they cried 'big bang theory.' That is until super-scientist James Hansen (pictured left) used his Chuck Norris karate skills and escaped with help of a certain NY Times science writer and an Aggie-traitor/activist blogger, leaving the poor flack bleeding on the floor, crying for his mommy. Unfazed by it all like a true ninja, James Hansen called Deutsch just a "bit player" in the Bush administration's attempt to cover-up the science on global warming.
Now the muckrackers are at it again, giving us the lowdown on aspartame, which was approved by the FDA in 1981 for use as an artificial sweetener in products such as NutraSweet and Equal, and is consumed in huge quantities in diet colas. Before you chug another Diet Coke, you should know that aspartame has been linked to cancer in rats and aggravation of depression and bipolar disorder in humans. Hogwash, you say. The FDA wouldn't have let this product be sold to consumers for the last 25 years if it were really bad for you, right? Melanie Warner of the NY Times writes that of 166 aspartame studies published between 1980 and 1985, all 74 studies that were financed by the industry said that aspartame is safe, while 84 out of 92 independently funded studies "identified adverse health effects." Coincidence? Well, what if we told you that from 1977 to 1985, the company that created aspartame, G. D. Searle & Co. (now part of Pfizer), was headed by none other than Donald 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' Rumsfeld? The conspiracy theory is in fact all old news. The new twist is that last July, Italian scientist Dr. Morando Soffritti (pictured right) published the results of an intensive seven-year study on 1900 rats, which found unusually high rates of cancer in rats that consumed the human equivalent of four to five diet colas sweetened with aspartame per day. According to the NY Times article, the FDA intends to thoroughly review the study this year. But given the games that the Bush administration has been playing with scientists and the coincidence that the former CEO of Searle is none other than our own Secretary of Defense, what are the chances that the FDA is going to review these new results with unbiased scientific scrutiny? Who's going to hold their feet to the fire this time, bloggers? |
 Submitted Feb 14, 2006 to Science Blogs Youll find all the most up to date happenings in the Maker and Crafts world here.
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 Submitted Feb 13, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  Charles Darwin was born 197 years ago on February 12, 1809. He died at the age of 73 on April 19, 1882. Now that we are nearing the 200th year since his birth, which will also be the 150th year since the publication of On The Origin of Species, an official Darwin Day Celebration (DDC) is being planned for February 12, 2009. The DDC committee consists of five organizers and has lined up an illustrious cast of scientists on its advisory board, including Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and Steven Pinker of Harvard University, among others. Various Darwin Day events scheduled for February 2006 are listed on the DDC homepage, as are events planned for each year from now until 2009. |
 Submitted Feb 12, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  The best science gossip to come out this week was Deutschgate. The science blogosphere played its own round of Find the Brownie, inspired by former FEMA-head Michael Brown in which the objective is "to find an obscure but important government job held by someone whose only apparent qualifications for that job are political loyalty and personal connections." Now Fafblog has come out with its spin on events and this bit of news, further confirming our worst fears of a total overhaul of NASA by the conservative Christian right: "NASAs Falwell-7 capsule is scheduled to hit the Godian surface in late 2006, greatly advancing our knowledge of theoretical Godstronomy. Theres no telling what age-old scientific riddles we might answer! Is God made outta pure holiness an communion wafers or does he have an iron-nickel core? Does God have water deposits and a breathable atmosphere? Did God condense out of the same nebular gas as our own sun billions a years ago or did he drift into orbit shortly after the formation of the earth? We have so much to learn!" |
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Submitted Feb 12, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  |
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Submitted Feb 10, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  Greenpeace has created a funny spoof just in time for the Winter Olympics with an ad for the Greenhouse Olympics Downhill Skiing competition. Climate may change, but at least we'll still have gravity! (via Inky Circus) |
 Submitted Feb 09, 2006 to Science Blogs » Element FYI  Science, when it comes down to it, is all about making observations of the world around us. We might come up with seemingly abstract equations to describe things, but nothing beats a picture of the object or phenomenon in action. Sometimes writing a paper begins not with the text but with the pictures, which essentially tell the story. Thus scientists are often required to be mini-experts in desktop publishing tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator when it comes to making illustrations for talks or publications. John Nack from Adobe has published a few links (1, 2, 3) on his blog with examples of Photoshop's use in scientific illustration, having been inspired by the recent NY Times article on efforts to verify image authenticity in the wake of the Dr. Hwang Woo Suk scandal. One link to HubbleSource provides information on making breathtaking images from Hubble space telescope data using a special free software plugin called the FITS Liberator. Nack also provides a handy link on the Adobe website for a list of Photoshop features for scientists and healthcare professionals. |
 Submitted Feb 08, 2006 to Science Blogs Digg is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.
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 Submitted Feb 08, 2006 to Science Blogs Your source for news and commentary on science, politics, and the exciting areas where these dynamic fields clash. Recognizing science as a path toward understanding nature, distinct from corporate and other applications, The Scientific Activist opens up a new dialogue on the proper role of science in an ever changing society. The truth isnt always black or white, but an informed public is an empowered one, so lets get the ball rolling.
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