Derek Lowe has posted an article about X-ray lasers in chemistry, which amused me because of the following bit: Enter the femtosecond X-ray laser. A laser will put out the cleanest X-ray beam that anyone’s ever seen, a completely coherent one at an exact (and short) wavelength which should give wonderful reflection data. This is… Continue reading Bandwidth and Community Expectations
Author: Chad Orzel
Science21 Highlights: Inclusive and Exclusive Definitions
One full day of the Science in the 21st Century meeting wound up being devoted to what might be characterized as defining what we mean by Science. This started off with a talk by Harry Collins (microblogging, video), a sociologist of science who has done a great deal of work on the nature of expertise,… Continue reading Science21 Highlights: Inclusive and Exclusive Definitions
The Blogging Papers
Two new articles appeared yesterday on the topic of science blogging and academic science: GrrlScientist posted the text of an article she wrote titled “Science Blogs Can Advance the Academic Process”. ScienceBloggers Shelley Batts, Nick Anthis, and Tara Smith have a new article in PLoS Biology, titled “Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between… Continue reading The Blogging Papers
links for 2008-09-23
Submission Form "Use this form to nominate a blog post for The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2008. " (tags: science blogs books) BuyMyShitPile.com: Hey Washington, can you buy my bad investments too? "Use the form below to submit bad assets you’d like the government to take off your hands. And remember,… Continue reading links for 2008-09-23
Drop and Give Me Twenty
Baby push-ups! She can’t maintain it for all that long, but SteelyKid can manage to push herself up and take a look around, when placed on her stomach. This is definite progress from a week or so ago.
Science Majors Follow-Up
I meant to follow up on some of the comments to my post calling for more science majors last week, but we had some Issues Thursday night, and I didn’t get to it on Friday. There were a number of people making negative comments about things that weren’t quite what I was saying, though, and… Continue reading Science Majors Follow-Up
How to Get Tenure: Stop Worrying About Tenure
Your must-read academic link of the week is today’s Inside Higher Ed article by Gary Lewandoski, with the provocative title: Stop Trying to Get Tenure and Start Trying to Enjoy Yourself. His thesis is pretty much clear from the title: When I started my own tenure-track position I had the same questions. I perused published… Continue reading How to Get Tenure: Stop Worrying About Tenure
links for 2008-09-22
Making kinematics graphs in Excel | Dot Physics Important tips on making a graph with Excel. (tags: physics education computing blogs science) Robert Hughes on Damien Hirst’s upcoming Sotheby’s auction | Art and design | The Guardian "Where you see Hirsts you will also see Jeff Koons’s balloons, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s stoned scribbles, Richard Prince’s feeble… Continue reading links for 2008-09-22
Cocktail Party Variance
With the LHC starting up last week, this week’s Saturday science video on bloggingheads.tv had a physics theme, with Sean and Jennifer getting together to chat about physics, calculus, and poker. It’s good stuff, and I was surprised to hear my own name appear in the middle of it. Unfortunately, the idea Jennifer cites me… Continue reading Cocktail Party Variance
The Football Factor
Charles Kuffner is the latest to note that people would rather watch football with Obama than McCain. As always, they try to delve into the reasons: “I think he’d be fun to sit back with and hear his experiences, all his stories,” said Kyle Ferguson, 28, a Republican from Santa Rosa, Calif., who picked McCain.… Continue reading The Football Factor