Janet Stemwedel is blogging, as is her wont, about questions of ethical behavior in science. She had a post Monday giving advice on how to counter unethical behavior, which all seems pretty good to me. Unfortunately, the people who read and comment on blogs about academic culture tend to start at “corrosively cynical,” and get… Continue reading Questions of Ethics
Author: Chad Orzel
links for 2008-02-21
xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe “What do you want me to do? LEAVE?” (tags: comics internet silly) Researchers create ‘self-healing’ rubber – physicsworld.com “If the material is snapped in half, the two torn pieces can be made to mend themselves simply by bringing the broken surfaces… Continue reading links for 2008-02-21
Why I’ve Been Preoccupied Lately
Dorky Poll: Three Beeeeellion Dollars
Regular commenter Johan Larson writes with a suggested blog topic: The Human Genome Project (yes, you have to pronounce those capitals) cost about $3 billion. If $3 billion were yours to spend on scientific research, how would you spend the money? That’s a great question, and a great topic for a Dorky Poll. I’ll narrow… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Three Beeeeellion Dollars
links for 2008-02-20
Can Scientists Dance? — Bohannon 319 (5865): 905b — Science A contest to see who could do the best interpretive dance based on their Ph.D. thesis. (tags: academia music science video silly) Conservatives Just Aren’t Into Academe, Study Finds – Chronicle.com “Conservative students, however, put more value on personal achievement and orderliness, and on practical… Continue reading links for 2008-02-20
Heating vs. Warming
Another tidbit from Boskone. At the Sunday afternoon panel on global warming, one of the panelists brought up the fact that the Second Law of Thermodynamics ensures that power generating systems always generate a great deal of waste heat. He wondered about how the waste heat released into the environment compares to the effects of… Continue reading Heating vs. Warming
Nobody Expects Bose-Einstein Condensation
An interesting tidbit that occurred to me in thinking about the “unexpected uses of technology” panel (well, along with the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” thing): In a certain sense, my entire professional career is derived from unexpected uses of technology. I’m not talking about the physics-with-the-dog thing, though that’s pretty unexpected, but rather my… Continue reading Nobody Expects Bose-Einstein Condensation
links for 2008-02-19
Cocktail Party Physics: built for speed: part deux Part two of the interview with the author of “The Physics of NASCAR” (tags: physics books sports education science) A Gut Check Moment for SFWA Pass the popcorn… (tags: writing SF stupid publishing books) Mike the Mad Biologist : Bunny Rabbits Kick Ass Don’t let Emmy see… Continue reading links for 2008-02-19
Boskone 45 Wrap-Up
Since basically nobody reads my inside-baseball stuff about SF, I’ll put the details below the fold. Short version: Kate and I went to Boskone this past weekend, and it was good.
Dreaming of Electric Sheep
Via slashdot, I learn that a couple of colleagues of mine have achieved nerd fame with an art project in which a robot acts out dreams. “Is there video?” you ask. Silly reader! Of course there’s video!