Announcements
thusspakezuska | October 8, 2007So it seems there's a $10,000 blogging scholarship, and ScienceBlog's own Shelley Batts has made the cut! (Second year in a row!) She's one of 20 finalists and, I believe, the only science blogger among the 20. And she could really use the money. And wouldn't it be way cool to have a woman science blogger win this? So just cruise on over there and vote for Shelley. I want to vote for her a second time but they won't let me. Guess I'll have to go log on to some different computers and vote again...Hey, if you, unlike me, have a job, you could vote at work AND at home!!!! I'll have to…
oracknows | October 5, 2007Don't forget, once again the time is fast approaching. Soon yet another installment of the Skeptics' Circle will be upon us. In fact, it's less than a week away and due to land at Infophilia on Thursday, October 11. So, if you're a blogger and regularly (or even not-so-regularly) like to apply the scientific method, skepticism, and critical thinking to dubious claims, send the Infophile a submission to the carnival! Contact and deadline information is here, and guidelines for submission are here.
Once again, if you're a blogger want to host an edition of the Skeptics' Circle yourself, drop me…
thusspakezuska | October 5, 2007Dr. Free-Ride has provided a nice summary of how the Science Bloggers' Challenge for Donors Choose is going so far. And can you believe those readers over at Mike Dunford's blog? They've already maxed out his challenge!
And you all are no slouches either...look at Dr. Free-Ride's top five lists. You've put Thus Spake Zuska in all of 'em.
I know we can do even better! And besides, don't you all want a magnet? Or chance to win a t-shirt????? Or, at the very least, that happy feeling inside that comes from knowing you did something good to help our teachers and kids?
Remember, if you…
thusspakezuska | October 4, 2007Geez, have I ever had a bad blogging month. I've not blogged much lately. I completely missed contributing to this month's Scientiae (these last two weeks with Mom took up a lot of time...) And then I completely blanked out that it was even time for Scientiae to be up, until I saw Sciencewoman's announcement. But indeed, the new Scientiae is up, at Wayfarer Scientista, and the topic is mentoring.
Skookumchick offers up a devastating dissection of a mentoring workshop she was required to attend, but which offered zero useful information as to how she could actually acquire or improve…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2007Probably you've already noticed that Sciencewoman has joined the gang here at ScienceBlogs! Her first post here was on Sept. 20th, which was while I was off traveling with my mom. Helping my mom navigate through her vacation absorbed nearly all my energy and time; there was not much left for blogging, and so I didn't get to formally welcome Sciencewoman at that time. But I assure you, I was (and am) thrilled to pieces to have her here as one of my newest Sciblings.
I am sure many of you who read here, also read Sciencewoman, and I hope you will continue to enjoy her blog at its new…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2007So, I see that sly Dr. Free-Ride is bribing her readers with promises of poems and original artwork from the sprogs and writing blog entries on the topic of their choice if only they will contribute to Donors Choose. Very clever, very clever indeed. And not to be outdone, Sciencewoman is promising a personalized handprint from Minnow to anyone who donates $25 or more to her challenge.
What to do, what to do? I have not written a poem since my teen years. Though as a 7-yr-old, I did launch the entrepreneurial Poem Manufacturing Company, which promised you a poem on the topic of your…
illconsidered | October 1, 2007It seems that everything is now up and running for A Few Things Ill Considered now. The RSS feed is working and the blog is viewable on the main Science Blogs site. You can subscribe to email notices of new posts here.
Thanks for the technical support from Science Blogs staff and thanks to readers for your patience.
retrospectacle | October 1, 2007This year I'm taking part in the the DonorsChoose fundraiser taking place at ScienceBlogs. DonorsChoose is a website where teachers can ask to have small teaching projects funded, and potential donors can peruse the proposals can fund ones that seemed worthwhile. Many of the teachers who submit proposals to DonorsChoose are in areas of the country with poor educational funding and high poverty rates, and are for basic teaching materials. I'm trying to raise $1000 to fund three projects, described below:
1. I Want To Go To College But How Do I Do That?
This proposal, submitted by a concerned…
oracknows | September 27, 2007Damn that Factitian! Now he's gone too far! In hosting the 70th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, he's revealed some of the deepest darkest secrets of the Skeptical Atheistic Darwinist Scientific Conspiracy to Conquer All (SADSCCA), also known as The Conspiracy Factory in some circles. And you'll never believe who the leader of the conspiracy from whom we all take our marching orders is!
I may have to become more insolent and less respectful. After all, our leader has commanded it:
Yes. Put Orac on it. And someone tell him to stop being so respectful, and more insolent. I prefer the insolence…
illconsidered | September 24, 2007I would like to introduce to Scienceblogs a feature from the old Illconsidered site, the weekly "A week of GW News" posts. These posts are an accumulation of all the important global warming related news, science and blog content posted online in the preceeding week. I will post it at the beginning of each week, hopefully Sunday or Monday.
This weekly post is a monumental feat but I wish to strongly emphasize that it is not a feat of mine! I do a very small amount of html massaging to get it into the blogging software but the lion's share of the credit for this service goes to H. E. Taylor…
oracknows | September 21, 2007
Time flies.
Amazingly, another Skeptics' Circle is coming around the pike far faster than I would have expected. This time around, it will be hosted by longtime commenter (and now blogger) Factitian over at Conspiracy Factory and will take its place in the skeptical rogues' gallery of past editions on Thursday, September 27. For your edification, Factitian has posted blog-specific instructions for submitting. Read them, heed them, love them, and submit your best skeptical blogging before the deadline!
As always, if you're interested in hosting a Circle yourself (and if you're a blogger who…
illconsidered | September 20, 2007Ok, so this is not my first blog post ever, but it is my first post as a member of Science Blogs. Unlike Groucho Marx, who did not wish to join any club which would accept him as a member, I am very excited to be here and very flattered by that invitation.
So some breif introductory messages...
To fellow Sciblings, I would like to say hello and I look forward to getting to know you as people and writers. I am already a fan of Tim Lambert at Deltoid, William Connolley at Stoat and Chris Mooney of The Intersection and I have come across many excellent articles from others here, so I am eager…
sb admin | September 20, 2007Ok, so this is not my first blog post ever, but it is my first post as a member of Science Blogs. Unlike Groucho Marx, who did not wish to join any club which would accept him as a member, I am very excited to be here and very flattered by that invitation.
So some breif introductory messages...
To fellow Sciblings, I would like to say hello and I look forward to getting to know you as people and writers. I am already a fan of Tim Lambert at Deltoid, William Connolley at Stoat and Chris Mooney of The Intersection and I have come across many excellent articles from others here, so I am eager…
thusspakezuska | September 19, 2007From the Chronicle News Blog...
...it will be 25 years ago tomorrow that Mr. Fahlman, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, invented the digital smiley face.
After a colleague joked about a contaminated elevator on an electronic bulletin board, Mr. Fahlman had his eureka moment: He recommended that future quipsters mark their jokes with ":-)" to make sure no one misconstrued their comments.
What great blessings the emoticon has brought to our society! Although I do think the Abraham Lincoln emoticon is just a little too much:
-- "==):-)=" --
Happy birthday, little…
oracknows | September 17, 2007While I'm flogging blog carnivals, here's another one that's right up my alley that seemingly came into existence without my having been aware of it: the Cancer Research Blog Carnival.
The first edition of the carnival at Bayblab has a lot of good stuff. The next edition will be at nosugrefneb.com on October 5. I might have to submit a piece.
oracknows | September 16, 2007I've been very remiss about this, but the e-mail notifying me of it happened to arrive a couple of weeks ago, back when I was out of town because of the recent death in the family. While cleaning out my e-mail boxes, I came across the notice again and decided it was time to rectify my oversight, do my surgeonly blogging duty, and plug these carnivals.
It looks as though there's a new blog carnival in town, and it's all about surgery: Surgexperiences. The latest edition is at Other Things Amanzi. Check it out.
The next edition will be at Suture for a Living on September 30.
oracknows | September 14, 2007As some of my commenters may have noticed, the ScienceBlogs server has been acting a bit strangely, often being really slow to post comments and sometimes even producing error messages. This has led to some double and even triple posts of comments, as readers understandably try to repost something after getting an error or when it appears that the server's hung up.
Try to resist the temptation. At the very least, before trying to repost, reload the page with the relevant post and make sure that your comment didn't already show up. That will help cut down on the number of double comments, not…
oracknows | September 13, 2007Howdy, thar, pardners! The Skeptics' Circle Saloon is open for business, and, after bein' away for more than two ears, Brent's done gone and set up a hum-dinger of a meeting:
We rode up to the front of the Skeptic's Circle Saloon and dismounted. Where once there were only two hitching posts, seven stood in their place. "Old Doc Orac must be doing something right," I said with a smile.
I had heard that Doc had taken over running the Saloon from St. Nate a while back. I also heard that he had moved out of his office in town and had put up his surgery right in the Saloon. I adjusted the weight…
oracknows | September 13, 2007Today, on my way into work, I did something momentous, something that marks a turning point in my life. It was a small act, but one that has lifted a huge weight from me.
I put a check in the mail to pay off the last of my student loans. Free at last! And it's only been 19 years since I graduated from medical school, too!
Thinking about it, my overall debt when I finished medical school was relatively small, around $55,000 or so. True, it did balloon up to around $80,000 during the years when I could not afford to make payments due to the low pay of residency and the small stipend when I was…
thusspakezuska | September 12, 2007There's a wonderful three-part interview with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care , over at The World's Fair. The interview is broken up into three parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Here's an excerpt from Part 1 to get your mouth watering:
WF: What's your argument?
SP: I argue that the influence of national context is felt far beyond public policy and political debate to the level of practice, fundamentally influencing human genome science and technology. Through a comparison of how genetic testing…