Ancient brew masters tapped antibiotic secrets ” A chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer. The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly… Continue reading Links for 2010-09-08
Month: September 2010
Language Poll: The Most Threshold
Not prompted by anything specific, but something I’ve occasionally wondered about: what’s the threshold for “most”? Thus, a poll: The minimum percentage of X doing Y that you would need to feel justified saying “Most X do Y” is:survey software I know I tend to use “most” to mean something considerably more than just 51%,… Continue reading Language Poll: The Most Threshold
What Uncertainty Means to Me– And You, and the Universe
In chapter 2 of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, there’s a footnote about the ubiquity of uncertainty principle analogies in the mass media: To give you an idea of the breadth of subjects in which this shows up, in June 2008, Google turned up citations of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in (among others)… Continue reading What Uncertainty Means to Me– And You, and the Universe
Links for 2010-09-07
The Daily What “I love xkcd wedding cakes / boom de yada boom de yada.” (tags: internet pictures xkcd comics food) The physics.org web awards | Latest Features | physics.org “The aim of physics.org has always been to help those interested in physics navigate this sea of information. Over the past few years we’ve gathered… Continue reading Links for 2010-09-07
Cheerful Kiss-Off Songs
The AV Club offers a list of 28 gleeful breakup songs, a category that includes some great tunes. The comments contain some good additional suggestions, and they still missed one of my all-time favorites, “Bye, Bye” by the Subdudes (if that link won’t play, you can get a cell-phone camera live version on YouTube— skip… Continue reading Cheerful Kiss-Off Songs
Academic Poll: Labor Day
Today is Labor Day in the US, which is the traditional end-of-summer holiday. The top link in today’s Links Dump is a survey of the history via Slate, headlined “Why Do We Get Labor Day Off?“ Of course, my reaction to that is “What do you mean, ‘we’?” Today is also the first day of… Continue reading Academic Poll: Labor Day
Links for 2010-09-06
Why do we get Labor Day off? – By Brendan I. Koerner – Slate Magazine “Though President Grover Cleveland declared Labor Day a national holiday in 1894, the occasion was first observed on Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City. A parade was organized by the city’s Central Labor Union, a branch of the Noble… Continue reading Links for 2010-09-06
Hugo Awards 2010
The 2010 Hugo Award Winners were announced on Sunday night. Of course, this being a science fiction award, it’s only appropriate that they be announced from THE FUTURE, so the results were available early this morning, US time. It turns out that I voted for 1.5 of the fiction award winners: China Mieville’s The City… Continue reading Hugo Awards 2010
SteelyKid’s Weekend Excursion
We had a Barfy Toddler Incident yesterday, making a mess of Kate’s spiffy new car seat, but that seems to have been a passing thing, perhaps caused by an excess of cranberry juice while on campus yesterday morning greeting new students. Thus, we went ahead with our plan to take SteelyKid to the zoo today:… Continue reading SteelyKid’s Weekend Excursion
Links for 2010-09-05
The short answer Yglesias’s question is “Yes.” – Acephalous “[A]s it currently stands, the choice is between being a “serious” scholar who engages no one or an “unserious” scholar whose work is read by many but, because of that, counts for nothing. I’m obviously not endorsing this model, nor am I saying it’s the same… Continue reading Links for 2010-09-05