science
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Science Continues to be Unsettled
Local geology doesn’t yield such a sight, so Frank went back a few weeks later and crawled inside. It was a single shaft, about 15 feet long; at its end, while on his back, he found what looked like claw marks all over the ceiling. Unable to identify any natural geological explanation for the cave’s… Read more
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Name your poison, pardner
So I was glancing at the American Council on Science and Health article The Environmental Defense Fund’s Silly Food Chemical Claim, and came across an unfamiliar term, the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC). A bit of link-chasing landed me in the midst of a delightfully geeky set of toxicology tutorials at the ChemSafetyPro website. Probably… Read more
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Some Wu Flu Hacks
We’re all getting into social distancing big time, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. And everyone knows about wash-your-hands-don’t-touch-your-face-sneeze-into-a-tissue precautions. But here are four more behavior changes to help avoid infection: avoid those hot-air hand dryers in public restrooms, they’re germ blasters use disposables instead of reusable shopping bags, they’re mobile petri dishes clean your… Read more
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News Flash! Men and Women are Different…
..despite the fact that some folks wish is wasn’t so Neurosexism: the myth that men and women have different brains https://t.co/OOtJaICQ0t — Gina Rippon (@ginarippon1) February 27, 2019 In fact, the National Institute of Health requires that sex be included as a variable in all studies: Sex can influence health & disease in many ways,… Read more
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Hunting the Wild Placebo
The New York Times’ Gary Greenberg asks “What if the Placebo Effect Isn’t a Trick?” and gets some interesting answers. Along the way, he tells the interesting history of the placebo and how it has become a standard in FDA=approved clinical trials. My only question for the FDA is this: if someone were to attempt… Read more
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The Fourier Transform, explained beautifully
At the Better Explained blog, Kalid Azad hits another home run with An Interactive Guide to the Fourier Transform. Here’s a plain-English metaphor: What does the Fourier Transform do? Given a smoothie, it finds the recipe. How? Run the smoothie through filters to extract each ingredient. Why? Recipes are easier to analyze, compare, and modify… Read more
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Our National Blind Spot
Want to save the planet? How about starting by saving the birds. Here’s a Pareto graph that gives a strong hint of where to start: That’s right, get the cat population under control. Eradicate feral cat colonies, and euthanize cat collections (oh, and institutionalize obsessive cat ladies). The whole country needs to grow up and… Read more
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Science is getting exciting!
Five very interesting articles recently popped up on the web, suggesting that current science is much more interesting than the average Joe might think: At FiveThirtyEight*, Christie Aschwanden’s Science Isn’t Broken gives a great exposition on scientific fraud, p-hacking, and why science is much more difficult than most folks realize. Robert Matthews, writing in UAE’s… Read more
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Deus ex Machina, on steroids
…is the tagline I’d use to describe Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds’ The Medusa Chronicles, the startling sequel to Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “A Meeting with Medusa.” Baxter and Reynolds are up to their usual tricks of piling wonder atop wonder in their usual over-the-top scenarios, while cleverly maintaining Clarke’s style and tone, AND… Read more
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Art Meets Science
On a day that I’m overbooked, running around campus doing minor, but essential chores, and feeling a bit grumpy about the whole academic enterprise, I stumble upon a jewel like this: Not in a gallery or the administration building, but in a hallway between classrooms. Where thousands of students, and the odd faculty member, can… Read more
The Random Texan 