Ask a ScienceBlogger
jstemwedel | August 7, 2006Sometimes it's OK to hang back on the "Ask a ScienceBlogger" questions to let others snap up the obvious answers. (Yeah, I meant to do that!) I love Real Genius and Buckeroo Banzai as much as the next geek, but there oare other films out there worth your time.
The question is:
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally.
Because I'm showing up near the end of the party, I'll give you three:
Microcosmos. A documentary (with not too much narration) looking at…
evolgen | August 4, 2006I'm going to agree with Tara, Evil Monkey, Steinn v2.0, and Chad on this week's Ask a Science Blogger:
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally.
The answer: Real Genius, starring a young Val Kilmer (pre Top Gun) as the hotshot undergrad (Chris Knight) and the annoying EPA agent from Ghostbusters as his slimy advisor. Plus, it's got Uncle Rico as the guy that lives in Knight's closet and Stacey Peralta as, well, I'm not quite sure, but he's listed on the first…
evolgen | July 31, 2006This week's Ask A Science Blogger deals with global warming and wine production:
I heard that within 15 years, global warming will have made Napa County too hot to grow good wine grapes. Is that true? What other changes are we going to see during our lifetimes because of global warming?...
I am not a climate scientist, and I don't know enough about viticulture to offer an informed response regarding the effects of temperature changes on grape production. I do know, however, that Napa Valley wines tend to be very generic stereotypes of the European varieties they're imitating. This wouldn't…
terrasig | July 26, 2006This week's 'Ask A ScienceBlogger' focuses on reports such as those in National Geographic and DailyKos that global warming is having, and will progressively have great influence, on wine grape-growing. The idea is that grapes grown for premium wine production are much more sensitive to climate than table grapes or many other agricultural products, making them an excellent living laboratory 'canary in a coalmine." A very appropriate question this week as we launched our feature, The Friday Fermentable, last week.
This issue has been bandied the wine industry over the last several years but…
evolgen | July 20, 2006If you could have practiced science in any time and any place throughout history, which would it be, and why?
That's what they are asking us this week. And, once again, I'm going to skirt the question. You see, it depends on whether the future counts as a "place throughout history." Currently, the future is not history, but it will be history once the future becomes the past. You'll probably need a few minutes to digest that, as I must have just blown your mind. Or not.
My chosen place in time (yeah, I abandoned the whole history thing): the day of the $1000 genome. This is the population…
jlynch | July 19, 2006I'm actually finding it remarkably easy to answer this question.
I'd have to go for the period after 1660, in London, and thus during the time of the Scientific Revolution. Sure, you had to be a gentleman of privilege, but the Royal Society of London had begun to consolidate informal attitudes that had developed in Gresham College. Inquiry was everywhere. Experiments - often gruesome and on the experimenter - were run. (This gruesomeness - particularly in basic medical research - would continue well into the Georgian period - witness the life of the father of modern surgery, John Hunter).…
evolgen | July 13, 2006At one point in my life, I wanted to study conservation genetics. Now, I just make fun of molecular ecologists and their flawed data. The most recent installment of Ask A ScienceBlogger takes me back to the days before I discovered the wonders of genomics:
Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection?
Before I answer the question (or avoid answering the question) allow me to say a couple of things. First of all, this question would be much easier if it were rephrased, "Should we target any particular species for extinction?" If that were the question, my…
jstemwedel | July 10, 2006The Ask a ScienceBlogger question of the week is:
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
On the technical end of things, I suppose I'm a bit surprised at how challenging it has been to clone certain mammals successfully, but getting things to work in the lab is almost always harder than figuring out whether they're possible in theory. I expected, of course, that some would want to try cloning humans and that others would declare that cloning of humans should be completely off limits.
But as…
evolgen | July 10, 2006I've missed the last two Ask A ScienceBlogger questions. My lack of answers were due to a combination of being busy and apathy toward the questions -- more busy with the science education question and apathy for the science policy question. But this week's question is on cloning, so I kind of feel obligate to post a response (being a genetics blog and all) despite not really being interested in the topic. So, they're asking us:
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
Ten years ago, I was in…
scientificactivist | July 10, 2006This week's Ask a ScienceBlogger question is:
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
In short, my answer is yes. Although the number of species of mammals cloned has increased, slowly but surely, nobody is cloning their dead relatives yet. No surprise there. In 2006, though, cloning for cloning's sake isn't where it's at. Instead, the future of cloning lies in its applications to biomedical research. Today, that means, among other things, the prospect of using cloning to generate…
scientificactivist | July 4, 2006This week's Ask a ScienceBlogger question is "What are some unsung successes that have occurred as a result of using science to guide policy?" I think there are several good answers to this question, including several successes in basic science (the NIH, basic science funding), health (vaccination, AIDS relief), space (NASA, the Hubble Telescope), and environmental (the formation of the EPA, the Kyoto Treaty) policy. One success that might not be so obvious, though, was the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT).
When it was signed and ratified in 1963 by 113 countries, including almost all of the…
scientificactivist | June 28, 2006Before I get started here, I have a quick announcement. Seed is seeking reader-submitted questions to ask its ScienceBloggers, so if you have a burning question (and I know you do), submit it to askablogger@seedmediagroup.com.
This week's (or last week's, rather) Ask a ScienceBlogger question is "What makes a good science teacher?" I probably put this one off for so long because there's so much to cover there. Since nobody wants to read a 5,000 word essay, and since I've pretty much missed the boat on this one anyway, I'll make this one short.
Most of the general qualities that make…
terrasig | June 26, 2006Well, you know my answer when you see that I am more than a week late with this post on the 15 June question.
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Priorities shuffle in relation to time demands, so the last two weeks of grant review have taken priority over substantive blogging, including answering the last two AASB questions.
However, this question really gets to the reason that one blogs, given that there are so many interests competing for the time of all…
retrospectacle | June 24, 2006What makes a good science teacher? Honestly, I have no idea. Teaching is certainly not my cup of tea, and I thank my stars that UM only asked me to teach one semester. I probably know a lot more about what not to do, given the kind of teachers I had.
Myself, I received a horrible science education in middle and high school. In 7th grade, when I first moved to South Carolina, my new science teacher made me rewrite an essay on genetics because I didn't "explore the likelihood that God can change genetics whenever, so the idea of hereditary traits is largely moot." (More under the fold...)
In…
razib | June 23, 2006What makes a good teacher? That's what SEED is asking this week. Here's my top 10....
10) Patience
9) Lack of ego (putting the focus on the student)
8) Enthusiasm
7) Social sensitivity (know the audience you are aiming at, whether it be the children of religious fundamentalists, 8 year olds or over-30 GED candidates)
6) Experience teaching
5) Broadness of personal experience
4) Top notch verbal skills
3) Training in the field which they are teaching (this is a serious issue in many high schools)
2) Creative, flexible lesson plans
...and the number #1 variable in making a "good" teacher
Smart…
jstemwedel | June 22, 2006No sooner do I post an answer for one "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question than another one gets posted. If you thought Summer at ScienceBlogs was going to involve lots of lounging by the pool and drinks with paper umbrellas, that's not how it's shaping up.
The question of the week: What makes a good science teacher?
Others are already weighing in about the things a good science teacher ought to do. I would like to remind current and future science teachers (and those who interact with them) what good science teachers ought not to do.
Full disclosure: This is part of a rant I've ranted before…
dmunger | June 21, 2006Here's this week's Ask a Scienceblogger question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
Funny you asked. It's actually rather a long story. You see, about a year and a half ago, I had this idea to write a book. But, I thought to myself, my problem is that I'm not really an expert in anything. If only I had a real expert who could help me out with, you know, facts and things, I think I could write an excellent book.
After racking my brain trying to figure…
jstemwedel | June 21, 2006How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Hey, that's sweet to assume we fulfill our primary objectives! Not that we don't try, but to paraphrase Grad Student Barbie, "Research is hard!" (For the record, that's what Grad Student G.I. Joe says, too.) Still, unless one wants to be a full-time blogger who is otherwise unemployed (which I do not), there is balancing required. Here are my strategies:
Blogging first thing in the morning or at the end of the day.…
scientificactivist | June 19, 2006This week, Seed asks its ScienceBloggers:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
As you probably know, I find myself in the grad student demographic, and as such I have a very busy but flexible schedule. When I first started blogging in January, I had only recently started by Ph.D. in biochemistry, and it seemed like I was going to have quite a bit of free time on my hands. It was kind of like working a nine-to-five job, but with more flexible hours, and…
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
Caffeine. Lots of coffee. And that isn't sugar I put in it, it's crystal meth.