Science 2.0 And Intel #TailgateTheScienceFair
Last Friday and Saturday, the 2015 Synopsys Sac STEM Fair was held at Folsom High School.I moved here from the football town of Pittsburgh and one thing everyone in football fandom knows about football towns is that for 8 or more days during football season, the parking lots at stadiums are jam-packed with "tailgating" fans, even if they don't have tickets to the actual game. Tailgating is named such because in its earliest form it was just driving a truck up before the game and putting down the tailgate and sitting on it and having a refreshment. Then it became about bringing a grill and cooking some food, then suddenly it became a football event in itself.
Sorry U.K. Celts, You’re Probably Not
Whither The Celts?In the 1980s there was a terrific British documentary called simply "The Celts", made because of ongoing fascination by entitled western elites with indigenous people and perhaps the lingering hope/fear that maybe they were somehow better than the winners.
The Celts were a blanket name for a lot of people who were just The Other to Romans, any number of tribes that the Romans ascribed names to based on region. They were basically a kind of "dark matter" for ancient authors, who didn't know what they were or how to figure them out, but knew they have to have existed because Caesar fought someone in France and Germany and he took really good notes.
EPA Study Finds That Neonics Not Causing Colony Collapse Disorder In Bees
A few years ago, bees suddenly had a sharp decline in numbers. This "Colony Collapse Disorder" as it is called, is a disorder in the sense that it is a recurring phenomenon, detailed for the last 1,000 years even when record-keeping just consisted of sporadic anecdotes. It was noted more frequently as record-keeping became more thorough. so it appeared far more often by the 1800s. By the 1900s, record-keeping had improved enough that there were seven recorded instances of this CCD phenomenon just in the United States.No Money, No Process: Mars One Is Duping Supporters, Says Candidate
Space is exciting so it is easy to get sucked into bold claims.A few years ago one of our writers had the idea to launch Bloggy into space. He was going to do all the work and just needed the money to pay the company, Interorbital, a very reasonable-sounding amount, so it was on.
My only real question was, "The knock on these guys is that they keep cashing checks but they never actually launch anything. What makes you think they will this time?"
Bloggy in spaaaaace.
Anthropocene Epoch: How You Became More Powerful Than Nature
Overpopulation, greenhouse gases, climate disruption - it's a doomsday prophet's Nirvana.You, dear reader, are basically a blight on the pristine goodness of nature, but even being told that you stink has not led most of you to demand policy action. Why not? And will a Nobel laureate telling you to get off your butt help?(1)
Dr. Paul Cruzten, a 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, the fellow who popularized the term "anthropocene epoch", hopes his latest editorial, with Stanislaw Waclawek, on the subject creates a tipping point for change.
Redemption Narrative – A Secular Version Of Catholic Guilt For St. Patrick’s Day
"A personal redemption narrative sustains motivation to engage in prosocial behavior," write psychologists at Northwestern University. Since it is St. Patrick's Day, that is a fancy social science way of saying that is why some people "do good works", while "redemptive stories sustain hope that sacrifices today may produce future dividends" is Catholic guilt for secular middle-aged people who don't like religion but do feel like they perhaps haven't earned what they got.An NIH Director Once Funded A Rocket For A 10 Year Old
We sometimes have to wonder about the decision-making of government agencies. Senator Tom Coburn produced an annual list of waste and duplication that included science and it made sense to address those flaws, unless you actually favor National Science Foundation money being used so someone could play Everquest instead of doing actual science. Likewise, energy researchers were not thrilled that the Department of Energy funded the Human Genome Project.
But sometimes it makes total sense. Case in point: Dr. Ernest M. Allen, Chief, Division of Research Grants at the NIH, who once agreed to fund a rocket. For a 10-year-old.
Is The Drake Equation Useless?
Sometimes popular concepts catch fire with the public for no reason, even when they are shown to be incorrect - virtual water, a gallon of gas to create a pound of beef, you didn't build that - but usually those fade with time.
Not the Drake Equation, which sought to parameterize what other life may be out there.
Vitamin D’s Inverse J-Shaped Curve Of Mortality
In 2015, it doesn't need to be said for anyone over the age of 40, but for young people still newer to Miracle Vegetable and Scare Journalism claims that get pumped out in diet books, mainstream media articles and television medicine on a regular basis, here it goes: don't latch onto supplement fads.
