The new issue of Physics World is out, and features a bunch of Sputnik-anniversary stories. Among them is a long piece on science on the International Space Station: Exponentially over budget, plagued by technical glitches and some seven years behind schedule, critics have always found the International Space Station (ISS) to be an easy target.… Continue reading The ISS: What Are They Doing Up There?
Blog Maintenance Update
You may notice, a couple of posts down, a post with the title “Links for 2007-10-03,” with a bunch of, well, links in it. This was auto-generated by del.icio.us, and is the main reason why I started using that service this week– the idea is to give me a way to collect together the sort… Continue reading Blog Maintenance Update
Open Access Physics
This is more Bora’s thing than mine, but I should note that the new open access journal PMC Physics A has published their first articles as freely available PDF’s. They also have a video interview with the editor up on the site. Of course, with titles like “Dilaton and off-shell (non-critical string) effects in Boltzmann… Continue reading Open Access Physics
links for 2007-10-03
School cheating scandal divides New Hampshire community – International Herald Tribune At some point, wouldn’t it actually be easier to learn stuff, rather than breaking into the school to steal the exams? (tags: stupid education) PhysMath Central takes off with a big bang (tags: physics journals academia open-access) Are women being scared away from math,… Continue reading links for 2007-10-03
Bump Hunting 2: The Big Tease
Speaking of cryptic particle physcis results, noted rumor-monger Tommaso Dorigo has a rather long post about the ongoing Higgs search. It basically boils down to “There are new results due to be released soon, and I’m not going to talk about them,” which wouldn’t seem to require 2000 words, but there you go. Anyway, if… Continue reading Bump Hunting 2: The Big Tease
Increased Particle Masses and Terrible Press Releases
I’ve got a bunch of EurekAlert feeds in my RSS subscriptions, that I use to keep up with recent developments, because I need blog fodder. One of the really striking things about these is how extremely variable the quality of the releases is. Take, for example, the release headlined New particles get a mass boost,… Continue reading Increased Particle Masses and Terrible Press Releases
The Love of a Good Dog
Natalie Angier has a piece in the Times this morning about the loss of a beloved pet cat: Cleo was almost 16 years old, she’d been sick, and her death was no surprise. Still, when I returned to a home without cats, without pets of any sort, I was startled by my grief — not… Continue reading The Love of a Good Dog
Terrible Ideas in Higher Ed: Hizzoner Da Mayor Edition
Via Inside Higher Ed, a brilliant new approach to the problem of high tuition costs, coutesy of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (whose highly impartial Wikipedia entry is a hoot): The runaway cost of a college education has been on the mayor’s radar screen for some time. Last year, Daley suggested a fifth year of high… Continue reading Terrible Ideas in Higher Ed: Hizzoner Da Mayor Edition
Mystery Anime Revisited
A little while back, I asked for help identifying some anime recommended by a Japanese fan. I have subsequently found the business card on which he wrote the titles: The first one looks like it is “Gurren-Lagann, so a shiny gold star for commenter Patrick. the second one is a total mystery to me. I… Continue reading Mystery Anime Revisited
College Sports: Perspective, Please
I missed the New York Times article about Rutgers professor William Dowling, who is campaiging against college sports, and has written a jeremiad on the subject and gotten it published by– slight irony alert– Penn State University Press. There are a lot of things to dislike about big-time college sports, starting with the rank hypocrisy… Continue reading College Sports: Perspective, Please