I don’t have a lot to add to this link, I just wanted to quote Ethan Zuckerman on virtual journalism, from a post about being interviewed for Pitchfork magazine: The most interesting aspect of the discussion to me was the idea that Chris brought to the table – that we might pay more attention to… Continue reading Virtual Journalism
Month: February 2007
Elitism and Blaming the Victim
I’ve long been of the opinion that if sanity is ever restored to the relationship between politics and religion in America, it will owe a lot to people like Fred Clark. He writes passionately and persuasively about the many problems caused by the “Religious Right” from a Christian perspective, in religious language. His Left Behind… Continue reading Elitism and Blaming the Victim
Basic Concepts: Fast Break
The term “fast break” refers to those situations in the game of basketball in which the offense is attempting to push the ball up the court and score quickly, rather than running a play from their normal offensive set. This usually involves a temporary numerical advantage for the offensive team, as the defenders hurry to… Continue reading Basic Concepts: Fast Break
Beware the Professor’s Negation Field
Piled Higher and Deepr nails it this week: A Pofessor’s Negation Field is the unexplained phenomenon whereby mere spatial proximity to an experimental set-up causes all working demonstrations to fail, despite the apparent laws of Physics or how many times it worked right before he/she walked in the room. I haven’t been on the faculty… Continue reading Beware the Professor’s Negation Field
Moving Light
A marginally less cranky physics post than the previous: the big story in my area of physics this week is probably the Harvard experiment involving the storage and transport of light pulses. Like the ILC announcement, this has been written up in the Times, and you can also read the Harvard press release or the… Continue reading Moving Light
International Hypothetical Collider
The big story in high-energy physics this week is the release of a report on the projected cost of the International (very nearly) Linear Collider (ILC), which comes out to $6.7 billion-with-a-b (not including labor). There’s a story in the Times this morning, and an expert view on Cosmic Variance, and… well, if you read… Continue reading International Hypothetical Collider
Throw a Monkey a Bone
Or, um, a banana. Or something… The Evil Monkey at Neurotopia is soliciting donations to support an essay contest to be run by the Alliance for Science. The idea is to offer prizes for students to write essays about evolution, to encourage students to learn more about the foundations of biology. They’re a registered charity… Continue reading Throw a Monkey a Bone
Archeological Biomechanics
Union is opening a new Center for Bioengineering and Computational Biology this week, and the keynote speech was given last night by Steven Vogel of Duke, on “Power from the People: Life When Muscle Was Our Main Motor.” Basically, this was an hour-long survey of some speculative ideas on what biomechanics can tell us about… Continue reading Archeological Biomechanics
Dorky Poll: Worst Job in Science
Another Thursday, another early lab section. Which means it’s time for another audience participation entry… I think something like this went around ScienceBlogs once before, but if so, it was a while ago, and it’s a fun question: What’s the worst job in science? What’s the nastiest, most unpleasant task facing anyone in science? Cleaning… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Worst Job in Science
Eliminating Majors
Inside Higher Ed reports that Indiana State is eliminating physics and philosophy, among other majors, in a move to streamline their programs. These programs have very few majors relative to the number of faculty (physics has five faculty and nine majors, philosophy four faculty and 19 majors), so they’re on the block due to an… Continue reading Eliminating Majors