As noted at Making Light, the recent disasters in Iowa have depleted the American Red Cross’s disaster relief fund, and they’re borrowing money in order to keep running: “The disaster relief fund today is completely depleted. The balance is zero,” Jeffrey Towers, chief development officer, said in a conference call with reporters. Towers added that […]
Month: June 2008
links for 2008-06-17
Disorder puts the brakes on matter waves – physicsworld.com Using cold atoms in optical lattices to simulate “Anderson localization.” (tags: physics atoms optics low-temperature experiment materials news science)
Ask a ScienceBlogger: Why Do Academics Blog?
The Corporate Masters have posted a new Ask a ScienceBlogger question: The question (submitted by a reader) is this: There are many, many academic bloggers out there feverishly blogging about their areas of interest. Still, there are many, many more academics who don’t. So, why do you blog and how does blogging help with your […]
Graduation Day
Another year in academia, another graduation ceremony. It poured for a lot of the day yesterday, so everybody was a little nervous coming in, but the weather turned out to be good– clear blue skies, a few puffy white clouds, and temperatures that were a little warm for sitting outside in long black robes, but […]
links for 2008-06-15
Acephalous: “Sleep is for the weak.” The weak and fuzzy, that is… (tags: animals pictures silly)
links for 2008-06-14
Optics basics: Polarization « Skulls in the Stars What you need to know about light polarization. (tags: physics optics blogs science education) “Plutoids”: the new name for Pluto-like dwarf planets – physicsworld.com When, oh, when will the IAU stop jerking Pluto around? (tags: astronomy planets science news) PhotoshopDisasters: Washington Post: Unlikely From the MC Escher […]
links for 2008-06-12
xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe They forgot the philosophers, or maybe ran out of room in the right margin… (tags: biology chemistry physics psychology science math comics)
links for 2008-06-11
Do We Really Need a Few Billion Locavores? – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog “To eat locally grown food or, even better, food that you’ve grown yourself, seems as if it should be 1) more delicious; 2) more nutritious; 3) cheaper; and 4) better for the environment. But is it?” (tags: blogs […]
Sanity Break
I’m giving the final exam in my E&M class tonight (from 5-7 pm, thank you oh-so-much, Central Scheduling), which you might think would bode well for blogging in the future. However, I also have two summer students starting on Monday, a baby on the way, and major book revisions to do that need to get […]
Technothrillers vs. Science Fiction
Reading Final Theory last night reminded me of something Patrick Nielsen Hayden said on a con panel once. The question was raised of why thriller-ish science fiction books don’t do as well as thrillers with a thin SF gloss– basically, “Why doesn’t Greg Bear sell as many books as Michael Crichton?” Patrick noted that there’s […]