blogosphere
bioephemera | May 27, 2010Edge.org has invited comments on Craig Venter's synthetic bacterium from thinkers like Freeman Dyson, George Dyson, and our very own PZ Myers. Nassim Taleb is particularly pessimistic:
If I understand this well, to the creationists, this should be an insult to God; but, further, to the evolutionist, this is certainly an insult to evolution. And to the risk manager/probabilist, like myself & my peers, this is an insult to human Prudence, the beginning of the mother-of-all exposure to Black Swans. Let me explain.
Evolution (in complex systems) proceeds by undirected, convex bricolage or…
bioephemera | May 26, 2010Apparently the Republicans learned nothing from Change.gov and the White House's problematic experiments with crowdsourcing, because they've now invited web-based public input to shape their 2010 party platform. According to Dana Milbank, so far, the suggestions include such gems as "A 'teacher' told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story." Mmmmkay.
Unless the commenter uses a giveaway pseudonym, it's tough to tell if such…
bioephemera | May 22, 2010
From a post by Erin Fitzgerald, a DoD Science Policy Fellow who consulted on the design of Mattel's new "Computer Engineer Barbie:"
It might seem silly to get excited about a new Barbie doll. But, to me, she will help reinforce in math-loving little girls that they, like Barbie, can grow up to be computer engineers. It has been well documented that in recent years far fewer women are pursuing computer science degrees, so such role models are very important. What Computer Engineer Barbie will do, I think, is broaden the realm of not only what is possible, but what feels accessible--being…
bioephemera | May 18, 2010
Somebody in charge of pulling flickr illustrations for Wired's website has a good eye - they used this photo by Stephen Hampshire. A quick visit to flickr, and it turns out the photo is of Hampshire's homemade version of a DIY project originally described by Neil Fraser: a wooden cube brain map/puzzle. Fraser summarized his creation thus:
Last month I took a left-right MRI scan, reconstructed it, and rerendered top-bottom and front-back scans. It was interesting to manipulate the data and extract information which while previously present, was not previously visible. Another method to…
hrynyshyn | May 14, 2010The good news is one of the best video sources of dispassionate, accurate, science-based information about climate change, Climate Denial Crock of the Week, is in the running for a $5,000 grant, over at Brighter Planet. The bad news is, it's an Internet poll that determines who gets the cash, so being worthy isn't enough. You can help put CCoTW over the top (it's currently in second place), but signing up and voting. You even get three votes! So, for once, I can say: "Vote early, vote often," and mean it.
[UPDATE: We did it.]
bioephemera | May 14, 2010Want to see how Facebook's deafult settings have crept over time from mainly private to overwhelmingly public? Matt McKeon's got you covered with a very nice year-by-year data visualization. By 2010, the only things that aren't public are birthday and contract information. Was this what Zuckerberg had in mind years ago, when he said users were dumb ******s for sharing so much personal data with him? Hmmmm. . .
*yes, it's a pun. I do indeed sink so low, occasionally.
bioephemera | May 13, 2010I spent some time today chatting with Sam Bayard of the Citizen Media Law Project. It occurred to me that some of you who are newer to blogging might not know they have an invaluable database of articles on legal issues related to online publishing - a good resource to bookmark! (See, for example, "legal protections for anonymous speech".)
bioephemera | May 6, 2010Civility: wow, everybody's concerned about it now! Here's our president a couple of days ago:
The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning -- since, after all, why should we listen to a "fascist," or a "socialist," or a "right-wing nut," or a left-wing nut"? It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate, the one we need…
bioephemera | May 1, 2010
As I mentioned last week, I spent yesterday on a panel/in a workshop at Harvard's Kennedy School, "Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere." It was an excellent day - I met many interesting people and had some great conversations. Plus, I got to meet Dr. Isis in the flesh! Woohoo! Thanks to the Intersection's Chris Mooney and everyone at the Kennedy School's Science and Technology Studies program for putting on such a great event.
Obviously, I can't speak for all science bloggers, and I didn't even try. But what I did endeavor to convey in my brief talk was the difficulty of…
bioephemera | April 30, 2010[U]nlike artists or musicians, we do have competitors. Only van Gogh can paint like van Gogh and the uniqueness of Beethoven's music is immediately recognizable. Their contributions are irreplaceable. But individual scientists are not irreplaceable. There are many, many examples of important discoveries being made simultaneously by several individuals or groups working independently. The social scientists have all manner of explanations for this "phenomenon" but the bottom line is this: If I am not the first to discover, almost certainly someone else will be. No wonder we are so desperate to…
bioephemera | April 29, 2010Over at scientificblogging.com, Mark Changizi has a post about "unconstrained scientific craziness":
I criticized avant-garde artists for their craziness, all the while explicitly aiming for craziness as a scientist! In effect, I was teaching my students to be avant-garde scientists, and trying myself to be an avant-garde scientist, yet somehow failing to notice that this outlook had transformative implications for my view of avant-garde art.Just like me, avant-garde artists are trying to be "crazy", hoping to make that next non-incremental advance. There's a method to the madness: the…
bioephemera | April 23, 2010
FYI: I'll be appearing next Friday on a panel as part of the "Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere" workshop sponsored by the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Shorenstein Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT. I'll be appearing with Chris Mooney of the Intersection/Discover on a panel called "Science and the Web."
Now, if you've read the blog for a while, you'll know I'm not a new media cheerleader. I do love new media, but I also have many concerns about its evolving mores. So in…
bioephemera | April 10, 2010
I perversely love attending conferences where traditional journalists complain that bloggers are evil. :) Yesterday I heard that line again (in jest, relax) at a great discussion about changing media practices and the legal implications of various forms of content reuse, sponsored by the Online Media Legal Network. But the focus was a little bit different: are "new media" practices really that new? Historians know that almost two centuries ago, rival newspapers reprinted one another's content freely - often with snarky commentary, and nary a licensing fee or permission. Fact-checking fell by…
bioephemera | April 8, 2010
While I was guest-posting over at Collective Imagination last month, I suggested that while better public access to peer reviewed research articles is a priority for the scientific community, knocking down firewalls may not be sufficient to help many patients, who lack the scientific background to plow through a Nature article. To get there, we may need efforts to provide plain language, accessible, searchable summaries of the research that clearly signpost the articles' relevance to patient needs. In addition to many interesting comments on the post, I got an email from the people behind…
bioephemera | April 7, 2010I blogged about Lisa Black's steampunk heart:
Fixed Heart
offal with mixed metal components
Lisa Black, 2008
I blogged about New Zealand artist Lisa Black before, but I can't get over this great piece of hers. What does it signify? Does it represent the gradual replacement of the natural world around us with technology, to the point where our own bodies become artificial? Is it critiquing the reductionist tendencies of neurobiologists who believe our deepest emotions are complex but purely chemical reactions? Is it a steampunk Valentine? I don't know, and I don't really care - it's just cool…
scientificactivist | April 6, 2010Web traffic to ScienceBlogs.com is up about 50% over last year (and has been growing at that rate since the site's inception in 2006). That's pretty impressive! Check out the stats here: SBRelease20040610.pdf
(Hat tip to DrugMonkey.)
bioephemera | April 5, 2010
The new blog Kingdom of the Blind documents an ongoing collaboration between embroiderer/artist Melody Lord and neuroscientist Adam Hamlin. The title is from Jim Endersby's book A Guinea Pig's History of Biology: "Science is the kingdom of the blind: there are no sighted - or even one-eyed - people, because we have no way of looking directly at reality to assess what it is like."
On the blog, Adam Hamlin occasionally posts about his work with the cholinergic cells impacted by Alzheimer's disease, while Melody shares her inspirations from the lab, and the challenges of finding the right…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2010The 22nd edition of the Carnival of Evolution has been published at Beetles in the Bush, and it includes several pieces that I wrote! So be sure to go there, read, enjoy and -- most important of all -- provide feedback to the blog writers who spend their precious free time reading and writing about cool science so we all can read about it!
bioephemera | April 2, 2010
One of my fave April Fools' spoofs this week: Groupöupon, the high-end version of Groupon for the aesthetically pompous:
Make sure that your arms telegraph style and success with this indulgent line of Premium Sleeves designed by Fourth World, the designer brand renowned for combining the uncanny fashion sense of the first world's most impressive designers with the laser-like focus of third-world craftsmanship. Choose any of the extravagant materials from Fourth World's list, including ostrich neck, baleen, pressed toucan beak, snakeskin (heated), and mane. With each purchase, Fourth World…
bioephemera | April 1, 2010This news item caught my eye this morning at the SEA (Scientists & Engineers for America) website:
Science Party 2012 all the way! And by "Science Party," I mean a festive event with free-flowing liquid nitrogen cocktails.