The New York Times today has a story about Web-based classes offering virtual labs, and whether they should count for AP credit: As part of a broader audit of the thousands of high school courses that display its Advanced Placement trademark, the [College Board] has recruited panels of university professors and experts in Internet-based learning… Continue reading Virtual Labs
Category: In the News
Physics of Basketball
Well, at least, the physics of the new NBA basketball, at any rate… For those who haven’t heard the story already, the NBA is changing the style of the basketballs used in its games this season. They’re moving away from the traditional leather basketballs to a new synthetic material, which is supposed to hold up… Continue reading Physics of Basketball
Thoughts on the LHC and ILC
Back in late July, I got email from a writer for Physics World magazine (which is sort of the UK equivalent of Physics Today), asking my opinion on a few questions relating to particle physics funding. The basis for asking me (as opposed to, you know, a particle physicist) was presumably a post from April… Continue reading Thoughts on the LHC and ILC
The Hard Life of Science Journalists
In a weird example of synchronicity, Dr. Free-Ride posted about science journalism yesterday, and Inside Higher Ed offers a viewpoint piece by Michael Bugeja on the same topic this morning. You might almost think it was one of those “meme” things. They both agree that there’s a problem with science reporting, but come at the… Continue reading The Hard Life of Science Journalists
You Should See the Picture
While I’m being cranky about graphics in the mass media, a quick Bronx cheer for the New York Times and their Mars rover story this morning, which opens: NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover spent 22 months trekking almost six miles to a large scientifically promising crater. Like a tourist who asks a passer-by to take a… Continue reading You Should See the Picture
How to Lie With Test Scores
Sean Carroll comments on an item in the Atlantic Monthly on test scores compared across nations. There are two things that really bug me about this item, the most important of which is the deeply dishonest graphic the Atlantic did to illustrate the item. Here’s the honest version of the graph, redone using data from… Continue reading How to Lie With Test Scores
Chemistry: The Overflow Category
The announcement of a distinctly bio-flavored Nobel Prize in Chemistry has a lot of science-blogging folks either gloating (see also here) or bemoaning the use of Chemistry as an overflow category for prizes awarded to work in other disciplines. Of course, it must be noted that this is not a new state of affairs. After… Continue reading Chemistry: The Overflow Category
COBE Nobel Follow-Up
The Paper of Record provides the Story of Record for yesterday’s Nobel Prize in Physics for Mather and Smoot, including recent photographs of both. One of my favorite bits of the 1997 Nobel was seeing the media circus that went on around the Prize– I’ll put some amusing anecdotes into another post. All the usual… Continue reading COBE Nobel Follow-Up
Chemistry Nobel for Eukaryotic Transcription
The Chemistry Nobel Prize was announced this morning, and goes to only one guy (which is somehwat unusual in this age of massively collaborative science): Roger D. Kornberg of Stanford University, “for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription”. I am very much not a chemist, so all I can really do is… Continue reading Chemistry Nobel for Eukaryotic Transcription
Dynamite Money for COBE
Hot off the presses: The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to John C. Mather and George Smoot “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.” This is recent enough that they don’t even have much on the Nobel site, but happily for me, it’s something I know a… Continue reading Dynamite Money for COBE