Inside Higher Ed‘s regular “Quick Takes” feature is chock full of weirdness today. From the “I Thought Mormons Were Nice” file: The Utah Legislature has passed legislation allowing students at public colleges and universities to request that they share rooms only with students who don’t carry concealed weapons, The Salt Lake Tribune. But lawmakers rejected… Continue reading Only in Academia
Not That Rural
As I’ve noted many times, I grew up out in the sticks, in a small town which nonetheless has a Wikipedia page. I should note, though, that I am not hick enough to have been the ScienceBlogger to discover this article about cutting-edge physics research: Margo Lillie, a doctor of zoology at the University of… Continue reading Not That Rural
Trust Me On This
Philosophia Naturalis #7 is all about the tabloid physics.
Max, You Know Nothing About Quantum Physics
Over at metadatta, Sujit has video of Jim Carrey and Conan O’Brien talking about experimental physics. (There are a bunch of more serious things that I really ought to be posting– I owe Dave an answer to his questions about X-Ray lasers, for example– but there’s an ice storm, I have a class to teach… Continue reading Max, You Know Nothing About Quantum Physics
Abrupt Climate Change, Past, Present, and Future
Dr. Lonnie Thompson of THE Ohio State University spoke at Union Wednesday night as part of the Environmental Studies Seminar Series on Abrupt Climate Change. Dr Thompson is an eminent climate scientist, and has spent thirty-ish years doing research on glaciers around the world, and what I learned from his talk is that I’ll never… Continue reading Abrupt Climate Change, Past, Present, and Future
Desert Island Research Groups
This is probably too arcane to be an official Dorky Poll, but I thought of it yesterday, and sort of like the idea. In pop-culture circles, it’s very common to find people making list of “Desert Island Books” or CD’s or DVD’s, or whatever. The idea being to list those pop culture items that are… Continue reading Desert Island Research Groups
Automotive Question
You can’t buy a car these days without a rear window defroster– the little built-in electric heaters that melt ice and frost off the rear window. You push a button on the dashboard, and the ice just melts away, no scraping required. Why is it, then, that to clear the windshield, you have to rely… Continue reading Automotive Question
Maryland vs. Duke
One-sentence review of this game: I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many two-foot shots missed in a Division I game. Maryland played Duke last night in the overhyped confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and for the way Dick Vitale talked about it, you would’ve thought that they were playing for first place in the… Continue reading Maryland vs. Duke
RateMyPreprints.com
Back when I first mentioned the idea, people were kind of down on the idea of SciRate.com, Dave Bacon’s project to make a collaborative filter for the arxiv.org prerprint server. Not one to be easily discouraged, Dave has continued to work on it, and it now features papers from all the different arxiv categories, instead… Continue reading RateMyPreprints.com
The Problem of Praise
The Cosmic Variance post that led to the Cult of Theory post earlier this week was really about a New York magazine article about the negative effects of praising kids for intelligence. It mostly concerns a study done by Carol Dweck, in which fifth-graders who were praised for being smart after an easy test were… Continue reading The Problem of Praise