Via Kevin Drum, a story about who’s on the no-fly list: Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names. Kroft talked to 12 people with the name Robert Johnson, all of whom are detained almost every time they fly. The detentions can include strip searches and long delays in their travels.… Continue reading Al Qaeda Has All the Best Bluesmen
Physics World on the LHC
So, there’s a new issue of Physics World magazine out, with a bunch of feature stories on the Large Hadron Collider. Three of these are available free online: Life at the high-energy frontier, a sort of overview of the accelerator and the people involved. Expedition to inner space, a discussion of what they hope to… Continue reading Physics World on the LHC
Wrong Answers are Infinite in Number
Last week, Mike Dunford was struggling with some teaching issues, relating to what level of effort he should expect from his students. His original decision drew some harsh criticism, both in his comments and from Sandra Porter, leading Mike to reconsider matters. I meant to comment at the time, but I gave an exam last… Continue reading Wrong Answers are Infinite in Number
Baghdad Update: Media Culpa
For those who are new to the blog (which is a lot of people…), a good friend of mine (best man at my wedding) is a journalist based in Cairo, who does regular shifts as a wire service stringer in Baghdad. He sends occasional email updates about what’s going on over there, and I repost… Continue reading Baghdad Update: Media Culpa
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
Taxes, Death, and Trouble With Physics
The discussion of Lee Smolin’s book just keeps on rolling. One of these days, I’ll actually finish it, and make my own informed comments. (It’s been a busy couple of weeks hereabouts.) For the moment, I’ll have to settle for pointing you to two new reviews. One is by Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance, who… Continue reading Taxes, Death, and Trouble With Physics
No Love for Observers?
Another weird Nobel note: When we were talking about this yesterday at work, a colleague noted that this is one of several prizes awarded for observations based on radio astronomy (Penzias and Wilson, and a couple of things to do with pulsars), but we couldn’t think of any given for optical astronomy. There’s even the… Continue reading No Love for Observers?
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
Sing, Sing a Song
Over at his AOL gig, John Scalzi points to a list purporting to be the Top Ten All Time Pop Singalong Songs. Here’s the list: 1) Baha Men – Who Let the Dogs Out 2) Beatles – Hey Jude 3) Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive 4) Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You 5)… Continue reading Sing, Sing a Song