Category: Links Dump

Gold saved! RSC Italian Job competition is won | RSC Blog After all that waiting, you can finally know what Charlie Croker was thinking in the most famous cliffhanger in film history. (tags: science physics silly movies) Analysis of a head of a beer over time | Dot Physics Making physics relevant to student concerns.… Continue reading links for 2009-01-26

nanoscale views: What is a polaron? "One common example of a quasiparticle is the polaron. When a charge carrier (an electron or hole) is placed into a solid, the surrounding ions can interact with it (e.g., positive ions will be slightly attracted to a negatively charged carrier). The ions can adjust their positions slightly, balancing… Continue reading links for 2009-01-25

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Sestina: How to Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel. " Open a new Excel workbook. In cell B1, write your title. Leave row 2 blank. In cells A3 through A8, place the letters A through F. These letters are the cues for your repeating words (teleutons). Leave row 9 blank to… Continue reading links for 2009-01-24

Steven Chu Addresses the National Labs | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine "The new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, addressed the national labs in an all-hands video transmission today. I was not there, but my colleague and friend Rob Roser at Fermilab was there, and sent me a very nice bulleted summary. " (tags: science… Continue reading links for 2009-01-23

Legoland California’s depiction of Barack Obama’s inauguration | World news | guardian.co.uk (tags: politics news silly pictures toys) Let My Students Drink: College presidents say it’s time to lower the drinking age – Reason Magazine "Q: Why lower the drinking age? A: We’ve had a law on the books for 24 years now. You don’t… Continue reading links for 2009-01-22

Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 5 (2009): Lauren E. Kost, Steven J. Pollock, and Noah D. Finkelstein – Characterizing the gender gap… "Binned by quintiles, we observe that males and females with similar pretest scores do not have significantly different post-test scores (p>0.2) . The post-test data are then modeled using two regression models… Continue reading links for 2009-01-21

A Sample Book Proposal: Newton and the Counterfeiter | ScienceOnline09 "I don’t mean to suggest that this is a generalizable model, just an example of one approach that worked in the marketplace. As noted in the Wiki page for the session — to be moderated by David Munger and myself—besides the fact that this proposal… Continue reading links for 2009-01-20

Information Processing: The Age of Computing "Historians of science have seen fit to ignore the history of the great discoveries in applied physics, engineering and computer science, where real scientific progress is nowadays to be found. Computer science in particular has changed and continues to change the face of the world more thoroughly and more… Continue reading links for 2009-01-19

Emptywheel » This Miracle Brought to You by America’s Unions "They’re calling it a miracle–the successful landing of a US Airways jet in the Hudson and subsequent rescue of all 155 passengers. They’re detailing the heroism of all involved, starting with the pilot and including cabin crew, ferry crews, and first responders. What they’re not… Continue reading links for 2009-01-17

Simple Checklist Makes Surgery Safer – NYTimes.com "The researchers reviewed the outcome of 7,688 patients who were undergoing noncardiac surgery at the hospitals. About half the patients had surgery before the checklists were adopted, and half after. At the end of the study, the average death rate dropped to 0.8 percent from 1.5 percent, and… Continue reading links for 2009-01-16