The Corporate Masters are holding a workspace photo contest: Now hard at work on the next issue, Seed editors want to see the typical or not-so-typical places where you do science. For the chance to get your scientific work space featured in Seed, please send a photo of it to art@seedmediagroup.com by Tuesday, May 13th… Continue reading Science Habitat Photo Contest
Author: Chad Orzel
Why Capital Punishment Is a Bad Idea
Charles Kuffner reports on an “Innocence Summit” in Texas last week, and points to two more reports from Grits for Breakfast that provide more colorful detail. The news story already says most of what needs saying, though: AUSTIN — Nine wrongfully convicted men who spent a collective 148 years in Texas prisons met with a… Continue reading Why Capital Punishment Is a Bad Idea
College: Poisoning Young Minds Since Forever
Matt Nisbet points to a new Pew Survey about global warming showing very little change in public opinion on the subject in recent years. It seems that An Inconvenient Truth didn’t really cause a radical change in public opinion, after all. (Of course, it does appear to have brought climate change to the attention of… Continue reading College: Poisoning Young Minds Since Forever
Cyclone Relief
There’s been a lot said and written about Cyclone Nargis recently, and reading the coverage by Chris Mooney and others makes me feel a little like a Bad Person for not saying anything myself. But, really, what is there to say? It’s a gigantic disaster, and the deplorable political situation in that part of the… Continue reading Cyclone Relief
links for 2008-05-12
The Neon Season: Theatre Tag Hilarious tales of disasters on stage. (tags: theater silly society culture) Making Light: A new holiday, rarely celebrated “Happy Voice of Command Day, in honor of all of those people in our lives who were irrefutably right.” (tags: culture society religion silly) Crooked Timber » » Economic fundamentalism and the… Continue reading links for 2008-05-12
Physics for Babies
Kate and I made a run to Babies “R” Us today, and looked at a bunch more baby stuff. We got a little punchy after a while, so it was perhaps not surprising that I was tremendously amused by the idea of Penguin Bowling. On further reflection, though, it’s really only natural. After all, the… Continue reading Physics for Babies
Weirdness Facilitation
Jacques Distler asks the question that every blog-reader has asked at some point: Did all of this exist before the Web? Or have people just gotten a whole lot weirder in the past 15 years? (I’m not even going to attempt to describe what triggered the question…) I tend to think that the weirdness was… Continue reading Weirdness Facilitation
links for 2008-05-11
Solve Puzzles for Science | Fold It! Protein Folding: The Game! It has to be better than listening to seminar talks about it… (tags: chemistry games science computing internet news)
Here’s An Experiment For You…
Via Swans On Tea, I see that Comedy Central has put up the video of George Johnson’s appearance on the Colbert Report. Or, I should say, they claim to have put it up– their video player didn’t work worth a damn on my computer. I saw this on the day-late rerun, and it was hilarious.… Continue reading Here’s An Experiment For You…
Accelerate and Switch
There’s been a lot of talk about REM’s decision to finally sound like a rock band again for their new album, Accelerate. I rather like the first single, “Supernatural Superserious,” which sounds like the REM I remember, rather than some bloodless adult contemporary act. So I bought the album, and it’s been of shuffle play… Continue reading Accelerate and Switch