Media
jtoney | March 23, 2011Consider the realm of influence of Twitter itself, as a Twitterer - if there is such a term.
Twitter just celebrated its "5th birthday." Who is the CMO?
In just over five years, @Twitter has sent 1,056 Tweets, has 4,675,494 followers, and follows 436 (if you measure "Klout," that's a lot of Klout.)
This evening's Tweet was all about Lady Gaga:
This is no coincidence. Google, that other multi-billion dollar media giant, happened to air an exclusive interview yesterday with this diva of Pop {"Musicians@Google Presents: Google Goes Gaga"}:
Such an intersection of popular culture, online…
jtoney | March 23, 2011
This article was co-authored with Dr. Rama Hoetzlein, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture and Media Technology at the Aalborg University at Copenhagen. Dr. Hoetzlein prepared the graphic.
With increasing concern about radiation exposure in Japan and beyond, you might wonder: How much radiation am I getting? It depends...
Note that Dr. Hoetzlein and I are not experts in nuclear engineering; this graphic has been prepared using authoritative source material and is intended as a general guide.
This visualization shows a map of low level ionizing radiation levels received from…
hrynyshyn | March 22, 2011James Delingpole's relationship with what is commonly understood by the term "journalism" is not readily apparent.
1. PLOS One publishes a peer-reviewed paper by some of the world's leading marine biologists with an interest in the effects of underwater noise pollution. The paper tests the idea that naval sonar could have an impact on whale behavior. It makes no mention of wind farms.
2. The Telegraph publishes a story, "Wind farms blamed for stranding of whales" citing the paper, which has the conveniently precise title of "Beaked Whales Respond to Simulated and Actual Navy Sonar."
4.…
jtoney | March 21, 2011In honor of Twitter's 5th birthday today!
Sentence Lengths of British Public Speakers
1598-1940
Notice a trend here? It appears that the "sound bite" was emerging more than 70 years ago.
Since the average word has about 5 characters, Francis Bacon's sentence length needed at least 360 characters - too long for a Tweet. In contrast, Winston Churchill's average sentence can fit at about 120 characters - room to spare for Twitter's limit of 140.
Adapted from R. J. Hoyle's article "Decline of Language As a Medium of Communication," The Journal of Irreproducible Results, pp. 134-135 (1983).…
pharyngula | March 19, 2011I have to call your attention to this article, Stalking the Fourth Domain in Metagenomic Data: Searching for, Discovering, and Interpreting Novel, Deep Branches in Marker Gene Phylogenetic Trees, just published in PLoS One. It's cool in itself; it's about the analysis of metagenomic data, which may have exposed a fourth major branch in the tree of life, beyond the bacteria, eukaryotes, and archaea…or it may have just exposed some very weird, highly derived viruses. This is work spawned from Craig Venter's wonderfully fascinating work of just doing shotgun sequencing of sea water, processing…
jtoney | March 18, 2011Source.
Engaged in the tragedy in Japan unfolding since March 11, getting reliable, consistent information can seem to be an impossible task. Do you ever feel like this hapless character trying to absorb information coming in so fast and furious, it's like trying to drink from a fire hose?
Getting accurate, current information about the disaster in Japan is much easier now, with the introduction of a special "wiki" maintained by the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners. Thanks to my colleague Dr. Sheryl Beach , Associate Professor of Geography and Earth Science at George Mason…
jtoney | March 17, 2011Source.
The days of "free clicks" to access news media articles could be ending soon. But don't worry. Newspapers need to reinvent themselves for the new media and The New York Times will be launching a "newsonomics" model that makes sense - at least to a news junky like me.
The Neiman Journalism Lab at Harvard University posted an intelligent analysis of how it will likely work, and could save newspapers adapted to a new age. Come to think of it, the term "newspapers" is likely to become an anachronism. Will this become a new model for the industry?
How much are you willing to pay?
{…
jtoney | March 15, 2011A breakthrough infant formula for babies 0 to 12 months * The first infant formula with BIFIDUS Bâ¢--beneficial cultures like those found in breastmilk to help support Baby's healthy immune system1 * Gentle 100% whey COMFORT PROTEINS® designed to be easy to digest * Complete nutrition in a milk-based formula * DHA & ARA for Babys brain and eye development
There's a classic saying in the advertising industry: "Sell the sizzle, not the steak."
Gerber's "Good Start Protect Plus" baby formula commercial, shown in the video above, is an example. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the…
pharyngula | March 15, 2011Science journalists, you really piss me off…at least some of you. Here are a couple of headlines about that recent paper I summarized that make me want to slap someone.
"Eye evolution questioned." No, it's not. That's just trying to stir up a non-existent controversy. The eye evolved. This was a paper exploring the details of how specific photoreceptor types with the eye evolved. (I should mention that the summary is OK, but the headline was stupid. Maybe I ought to slap the editor.)
"Ancient Origins of the Human Eye Discovered." Aaargh, it's a paper about brachiopods, not humans, and it's…
jtoney | March 14, 2011I've been thinking a lot about how to support victims and their families in Japan since the earthquake and tsunami struck last Friday.
Ben Parr at Mashable gives us some simple, concrete ways we can help in his article, "Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: 7 Simple Ways to Help." Please do what you can.
1. Text to Donate
The American Red Cross has once again launched a texting campaign to raise money for relief efforts in the Pacific region. Last year, the Red Cross was able to raise over $20 million for Haiti relief through simple text donations.
If you would like to donate to the American Red…
pharyngula | March 14, 2011Before you say it, I know I'm giving him attention, too. Cardinal George Pell, the old fool, got lots of press for being a climate denialist, again. After a talk, he denounced the climate scientists for not being scientific, while he, the guy who believes angels and saints and great magic boojums in the sky, knew better because "'I spend a lot of time studying this stuff."
I suspect he's another graduate of Google University.
But Pell is irrelevant. The real question is, why do the newspapers cover his pronouncements in any serious way? The man is comic relief, nothing more.
jtoney | March 12, 2011
Lady Gaga just announced to her close to 9 million Twitter followers that she has designed a "Prayer bracelet" to raise funds for Japan.
What a brilliant way for a celebrity to raise funds for an important humanitarian project. Go "little monsters"!
You can order one, or more, here.
Why the connection to Japan?
UPDATE MAR. 17:
>$250,000 raised from Lady Gaga's bracelets!
@ladygaga Lady Gaga
Monsters: in just 48 hrs you've raised a quarter of a million dollars for Japan Relief. RT: http://bit.ly/f0aYwZ. It's important we help. X
On Friday, along with a purchase link and photo of the…
pharyngula | March 9, 2011This is unbelievable. James O'Keefe, he of the Acorn fraud, of the aborted seduction, the unimaginative weasel whose sole game is staging bogus scenarios with his ideological opponents and trying to catch them saying embarrassing things, has done it again, teasing an NPR executive into saying disparaging things about the Tea Party lunatics. I saw the recording; it was tame, I'd say stuff a thousand times more disparaging about those racist morons while knowingly on the air.
But it worked. NPR caved in, suspended the administrator, and now another one has resigned. Why? I don't know. Because…
jtoney | March 8, 2011I don't know about you, but I am ready for this...
From Mashable: the Sheen "eraser"....
From Brenna Ehrlic:
Ah, how fickle fame can be when you're rendered an Internet meme that draws its strength from insanity. Yup, the web is starting to grow weary of Mr. Charlie Sheen's antics, as evidenced by Tinted Sheen, the Charlie Sheen Browser Blocker.
Yep, this browser extension for Chrome and Firefox blacks out all mentions of Sheen and his antics (i.e., words like #winning) from your Internets. Download it today, unless you're one of the legions of folks planning to apply for his ad-sponsored…
jtoney | March 6, 2011
Yesterday, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson posted a comment in response to my article, "Charlie Sheen "More Scientifically Literate Than Most"?
Based upon Dr. Tyson's firsthand account of his discussion with Charlie Sheen about the cosmos, I would like to extend an apology regarding my statement,
I'm not sure which to question first - the judgment of Neil DeGrasse Tyson or the "scientific literacy"
I did not intend disrepect, only to express my dismay after reading his Tweet characterizing Mr. Sheen's level of scientific literacy. Indeed, his comment made me wonder about the level…
jtoney | March 5, 2011
Today/NBC Source. Charlie Sheen with his live-in girlfriends Rachel Oberlin, center, and model Natalie Kenly, left.
The Charlie Sheen media storm this week has invoked a wide range of responses, from the inane to the profane to the profound. One commentator referred to this coverage as a reality TV "Rorschach test" {those ink blots that reveal psychological insights, some believe.) Frankly, I did not pay attention beyond the ambient noise produced by my TV set while getting ready for a new day, until I came across an Op-Ed in The New York Times by Anna Holmes, "The Disposable Woman."…
jtoney | March 4, 2011
Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson has made quite an extraordinary observation about the controversial actor Charlie Sheen - did you know that Mr. Sheen is "is scientifically more literate than most"?
Given that one of my primary goals is to enhance public literacy about science and technology, such a statement - well, bothers me. I'm not sure which to question first - the judgment of Neil DeGrasse Tyson or the "scientific literacy" of a troubled albeit talented comedian/actor. Where does one even begin?
From my colleague Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of "The Science of Kissing":
A Drug…
jtoney | March 3, 2011
Lady Gaga's new perfume - could it be an intersection of art, fashion, marketing, desire, pheromones, molecular biology? Perhaps.
From The New York Times interview posted today, "Lady Gaga at Paris Fashion Week":
Lady Gaga:
It's a smell of many different things, I don't want to give too much away. But I do want to say that I took a sample of my own blood and extracted the molecular structure and the scent of that, and injected it into the perfume so it would smell like and feel like me.
Fascinating - how does one "extract molecular structure" of blood and "inject" into the perfume? I am…
jtoney | March 1, 2011Teaser for "Black Beach" from Fourth World Media, LLC on Vimeo.
Video.
I recently wrote about "oil-eating microbes" and the lack of evidence that they will offer a solution to cleaning up the environmental nightmare that began last April after the BP oil spill.
What will BP's "black beach" burden become?
I believe that new technologies will guide us towards a solution and hope that it will provide enduring lessons that will prevent such an environmental disaster from ever happening again. As is now commonplace in regions in crisis, online social networking can serve as a powerful tool in…
jtoney | February 28, 2011
Source: Flickr user ppjumpping
I've been a fan of Natalie Portman since she was 12 years old, performing in an extraordinary, compelling film, "The Professional (1994)." In addition to being an Academy Award winning best actress, she's also a co-author on a Journal of Chemical Education article. Yes, even chemists can take on Hollywood.
When Natalie Portman was a High School student at Syosset High School in Long Island, then Natalie Hershlag, she co-authored this paper in The Journal of Chemical Education:
"A Simple Method To Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar"…