Steinn checks in from his Mediterranean vacation with not one, not two, but three reports from the conference on Extreme Solar Systems, and a hint of maybe more to come. The big news here, as far as I can see, is that they’re starting to find more low mass planets, and more planets with long… Continue reading Good News From Outer Space
Category: Science
Tiny Robot Soccer
Via EurekAlert, next weekend will see a soccer demonstration by nanoscale robots at the RoboCup competition in Atlanta. This is “nano” in the usual sense of “hundreds if not thousands of nanowhatevers,” of course, and they’re not exactly playing soccer: The soccer nanobots (nanoscale robots) operate under an optical microscope, are controlled by remote electronics… Continue reading Tiny Robot Soccer
Education and Media Relations
The great media relations debate is starting to wind down, but there’s still a bit of life in it. In particular, I want to comment on something that Bora said, that was amplified on by Melinda Barton. Here’s Bora’s comment: Everyone is afraid to use the F word, but the underlying tension is, at its… Continue reading Education and Media Relations
Scientists in the Media
Tara’s post about science journalism has sparked a lively discussion, with John Wilkins, Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer joining Jennifer Ouellette in defending science journalists. Interestingly, this all sprang up yesterday, on a day when I wound up appearing on tv.
Frequency Combs and Astrophysics
Clifford Johnson is pointing to a pair of stories about extrasolar planets. One is a news piece about the “flood” of new discoveries, and the other is a Top 10 list from space.com (warning: irritating web design). This provides a good excuse to roll out a blog suggestion from Ron Walsworth, who pointed out a… Continue reading Frequency Combs and Astrophysics
Framing Science in Canada
For the third year running, the after-dinner speaker at DAMOP was a politician– a Canadian one, this time, former MP Preston Manning (who also has his own official web site). I was a little surprised to see him described as a “right-wing populist” because he sounded very reasonable, but on reflection, this is Canada, and… Continue reading Framing Science in Canada
Resistance to Science and Overthinking
Everybody’s abuzz about the article by Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg (the link goes to a reprint at Edge.org; you can find an illicit PDF of the Science article if you poke around a little) about research into why people don’t automatically believe scientific explanations. From the article: The main source of resistance to… Continue reading Resistance to Science and Overthinking
Write Essays, Win Money
Seed is running an essay contest with a $2,500 prize, so if you like science, and think you write well, take a whack at this question: What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century? How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is… Continue reading Write Essays, Win Money
Not Just Outside the Box, but Orthogonal to It
One of the many after-hours events contributing to my exhaustion this week was the annual Sigma Xi award and initiation banquet, at which some fifty students were recognized for their undergraduate research accomplishments. The banquet also featured a very nice presentation on visualizing a four-dimensional cube by Prof. Davide Cervone of the Math department here.… Continue reading Not Just Outside the Box, but Orthogonal to It
Yeah, but What’s the Impact Factor?
Via Steinn, the Smithsonian’s Astronomy Abstract Service has an index entry for some book called De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by some Polish guy. They’ve got a scanned electronic version available for free, but the stupid thing is in Latin, and who speaks that these days? Also, it’s only got two citations, and both of those… Continue reading Yeah, but What’s the Impact Factor?