culture of science
ddobbs | February 11, 2009
Just lost my physical science book... How is that possible? It's so BIG.
People do not believe in science.
masturbation IS a science
why did i decide to get involved with this computer science networking stuff? i am an arts person! what was i thinking? lol
sitting here doing science homework , o fun.
painting my nails... but should probably do my science homework?
Science nerd Alert:I just spent an hour learning about the evolution of early tetrapods. Evolution is so damn cool
its 7 pm i have 3 hours to get all caught up on my science paper design a wine poster and type of my life plan for…
ddobbs | February 7, 2009The Questionable Authority (apt name for this one!) ponders a disturbing report from the Times of London.
ddobbs | February 7, 2009My Darwin talk at Dartmouth on Thursday went well, and while there I had the privilege of meeting with editors of the Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, or DUJS -- which is, at 11 years, the oldest extant undergrad journal in the U.S., as far as its editors can tell.
I knew from writing about scientific research that more universities are (wisely) involving undergraduates in serious research. But I hadn't known of any serious undergrad science journals publishing and commenting on research until the DUJS staff invited me over to Dartmouth to talk about Darwin and coral reefs. The…
ddobbs | February 7, 2009"Science found wanting in nation's crime labs," says the headline at the NY Times, which ran one of many stories on the upcoming National Academy of Sciences report on forensic science. This kind of front-page attention is long overdue, as shabby science that claims to be infallible has jailed many an innocent (and probably freed a few guilty). As the Knight Science Journalism Tracker notes,
The main surprise, upon reflection, ... is that this news was not dug up and given heavy attention by media already, starting years ago.
Well, it was dug up, and it did get some press attention -- though…
ddobbs | February 5, 2009
A coral atoll, from Darwin's The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, 1842.
For those teeming millions near Hanover, N.H., here's notice that I'll be giving a talk at Dartmouth at 4pm today -- Thu, Feb 5 -- about Darwin's first, favorite, and (to me) most interesting theory, which was his theory about how coral reefs formed.
This is the subject of my book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, and I'll be posting more about it next week, during the Blog for Darwin festival. But the short version -- and the topic of my talk -- is this:
Darwin's coral…
ddobbs | January 28, 2009I'll let the Boston Herald News tell the tale:
A celebrity from the moment he bounded off an American Airlines [AMR] flight Monday night at Miami International Airport, Lancy redux "very quickly integrated into the menagerie and held his own," said Lou Hawthorne, CEO of BioArts, the firm that auctioned off five dog-cloning procedures last July.
The Ottos spent $155,000 to win the second-round auction.
ddobbs | January 22, 2009"If I have to be male, I was hoping for a younger, more fit body, and a better head of hair. It does however fulfill one of my greatest fantasies, which is that I have long had subpoena envy."
New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, author of "The Dark Side," who has done much to expose the Bush Administration's torture policies, on being transformed on "24" into a pesky anti-torture Senator.
via Jeffrey Goldbergl; hat tip to Mike the Mad Biologist.
Is that a web at work, or what?
ddobbs | January 21, 2009
An impressive list of (mostly overlooked) readings about Obama, from Neuroanthropology.
I kept wondering yesterday why, along with being deeply moved while watching the ceremonies, I a deep sense of dread and foreboding. Narrowed it to three things:
- a sadness my mother (who died soon after 9/11) wasn't around to see this, as she would have been immensely moved
and more important:
- Obama looked so utterly alone and somber as he came up the hall and then waited in his chair. He so clearly recognizes the magnitude of the burden he takes on -- a burden heavier because he has defined the task…
ddobbs | January 13, 2009Rolling deadlines have kept me from the blogging desk, but I can occupy it long enough now to call out a few items that either haven't received as much coverage as they might have -- or that have gotten several interesting hits.
⢠At Huffpost, Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee offer the FDA a three-step program:
Step One: Admit that you are currently powerless over the industry you are supposed to be regulating. You have let Big Pharma take over your life. You have become dependent on drug company money that comes from the Prescription Drug Fee User Act (PDUFA) of 1992, and over the…
ddobbs | January 5, 2009
With this post, and with pleasure, I bring the blog formerly known as Smooth Pebbles -- now Neuron Culture (mark your RSS readers!) -- back to Scienceblogs.
Seventeen months ago I said farewell to this Scienceblogs home, at least for a time, because I had not found blogging a comfortable fit. Since then, however, as I blogged off in the hinterland, I've come to better see how this slippery but flexible form can hold a valuable place in both my own writing and in the changing world of journalism.
I've been particularly swayed by the work of bloggers innovatively exploiting the immediacy,…
ddobbs | December 19, 2008Micheal Nielsen gets swiftly to a problem many scientists (and not a few writers) have with Gladwell's books -- and highlights their redeeming factors as well:
All three of Malcolm Gladwell's books pose a conundrum for the would-be reviewer. The conundrum is this: while the books have many virtues, none of the books make a watertight argument for their central claims. Many scientists, trained to respect standards of proof above all else, don't like this style. A colleague I greatly respect told me he thought Gladwell's previous book, Blink , was "terrible"; it didn't meet his standards of…
ddobbs | December 18, 2008One more reason to like Will Smith.
Hat tip to kottke, who links to some other amazing Rubikiean feats.
ddobbs | December 17, 2008
Other deadlines bar elaboration, but I wanted to draw attention to some worthwhile reading:
A good Wired Science story explores how "Free Range Research Could Save Chimps, the notion that Oil is Not the Climage Change Culprit -- It's All About Coal, and the Christmas Tree Cluster (of stars).
The Sterile Eye posts a video of a total gastrectomy.
World of Psychology has a particularly good "Mental Health Year in Review" article that reviews research highlights, the flaps over conflicts of interest and disclosure, the controversy over the legitimacy of the pediatric bipolar disorder…
ddobbs | December 15, 2008Carl Zimmer faces the wrath with cheerful good humor.
The source of his troubles:
ddobbs | December 10, 2008
Boing boing spots Virgin Mary in MRI
Bird flu round-up, from Great Beyond touches a few stories reporting some unsettling human deaths from bird flu. I think people are scared to cover bird flu these days: There was so much about it 2-3 years ago, then the epidemic didn't come (we're so impatient!), and now a lot of journalists feel they were out shouting wolf. Maybe wolf is still out there.
Jonah Lehrer on Governor "Show Me the Money" Blagojevich, greed, and a version of the ultimatum game called -- I love this -- the dictator game. "When the dictator cannot see the responder - they are…
ddobbs | December 10, 2008From The Great Beyond
Far East top in science subjects
Researchers in the US have released the latest figures comparing the maths and science abilities of 4th- and 8th-grade students in countries across the globe.
Far Eastern countries dominate the top tens, with Singapore top for science in both 4th and 8th grade. In maths, Hong Kong tops the 4th grade scores, with ‘Chinese Taipei’ leading the 8th. (Image right shows the percentage of fourth-grade students who reached the TIMSS advanced international benchmark in science in the top ten countries. See full graph.)
As the New York Times points…
ddobbs | December 9, 2008Looks like a special effects lab, but it's a bakery that makes bread in the shape (and look) of body parts. Via Biomedicine on Display, where you can find more photos as well as a link to this YouTube video of the baked goods.
My wife is an ace baker as well as a vegetarian. Not sure what she's going to think of this.
ddobbs | December 9, 2008
There's been a lot of buzz on the Net* about the Nature commentary on cognitive enhancement I blogged about yesterday, in which I noted that you need only think about coffee to realize what a slippery slope the cog enhancement issue presents.
If you want to experience first-hand just how slippery, take this survey, which reader Michael Lanthier kindly drew my attention to. It starts with a question about coffee and pulls you inexorably, um, downhill from there.
It's hard to take that survey without concluding the issue of enhancement offers no bright lines. if someone knows of a rigorous…
ddobbs | December 8, 2008This time had to come: A group that includes some serious neuro-heavyweights, such as neuroscientists Michael Gazzaniga and Ronald Kessler and the highly prominent and influential neuroethicists Hank Greely and Martha Farah, has published in Nature an essay "Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy."
In this article, we propose actions that will help society accept the benefits of enhancement, given appropriate research and evolved regulation. Prescription drugs are regulated as such not for their enhancing properties but primarily for considerations of safety and…
ddobbs | December 8, 2008A few that rolled away with the tide ...
PsychCentral not impressed with Outliers
Look Who's in the Operating Room
From the Deutches Museum, tractors as core culture
And from Boing Boing, a Studley tool chest. And I was all excited to get my little canvas toolbag yesterday.
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