Interview with writer Sam Harris on “why
Interview with writer Sam Harris on “why religion must end”. “People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole.”
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kottke.org posts about science
Natural deselection
Tom Coates recently checked out the Royal College of Art Summer Show in London and ran across this project by Tim Simpson:
…three plants compete to reach the light that feeds and nourishes them. The first one to succeed survives. The other two are automatically cut down in their prime.
First plant to grow close to the proximity sensors wins. A simple and elegant idea.
Excellent photos of giant flocks of European
Excellent photos of giant flocks of European starlings, which can comprise more than a million birds. In 1866, a passenger pigeon flock was observed in southern Ontario that was a mile wide, 300 miles long, took 14 hours to pass, and was comprised of some 3.5 billion birds. That would have been a fantastic sight.
Sarah Trigg’s work combines geographic maps with
Sarah Trigg’s work combines geographic maps with biological forms. “The explorer system [in colonial North America] caused the Native American system to change its normal functioning, much like cancer cells do to normal cells.” More here. (via moon river)
“Shy people may be quiet, but there’s
“Shy people may be quiet, but there’s a lot going on in their heads. When they encounter a frightening or unfamiliar situation — meeting someone new, for example — a brain region responsible for negative emotions goes into overdrive.” (via mr)
The hygiene hypothesis of allergies “argues that
The hygiene hypothesis of allergies “argues that exposure to more natural environments such as farms early in life helps train the body to respond appropriately to harmless microbes and pollen”. Could also be called the “let your kids eat dirt hypothesis”. Somewhat related story: my dad had allergies when he was a kid but then got stung by a bunch of bees one day and boom, no more allergies.
Italian scientists have created glass made out
Italian scientists have created glass made out of carbon dioxide. At high pressure, instead of forming a crystal (dry ice), the CO2 forms a clear, hard, vitreous material. More info. (Little known fact: I did research on glass in college, rubidium and cesium borosilicates mostly. Here’s a few citations on Google Scholar.)
I can’t tell if this is a
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not, but someone seems to be quite skeptical about the “theory of gravity” on this Christian Forums site. “are you going to tell me that the gravity of the sun is strong enough to keep PLUTo in orbit but not an airplane or a little bird??????”
Powers of Ten
Some sweet soul has put Powers of Ten online. If you’ve never seen it, I can’t recommend it enough:
Powers of Ten is a short film by Charles and Ray Eames, whose work you may have previously sat in. The film starts on a picnic blanket in Chicago and zooms out 10x every 10 seconds until the entire universe (more or less) is visible. And then they zoom all the way back down into the nucleus of an atom. A timeless classic. (via youngna)
Update: How in the hell did I miss this Powers of Ten Simpsons couch gag? (thx, ray and jeff)
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
I know I’m going to get mail about my five-star rating for this movie, but it cannot be helped. One summer when I was a kid, a friend and I watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure — no joke — every single day for a span of 2 months. I still know every line by heart, the timing, inflection, everything. If there were a Broadway production of this movie, I could slide effortlessly into the role of either Bill S. Preston, Esq. or Ted Theodore Logan, no rehearsal needed.
In my high school physics class my senior year, we had to do a report on something we hadn’t learned about in class — which, I discovered when I got to college, was a lot — and I did mine on time travel. I went to our small school library and read articles in Discover and Scientific American magazines about Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, quantum mechanics, causality, and wormholes. To illustrate the bit about wormholes, I brought in my well-worn VHS tape of Bill and Ted’s (a dub of a long-ago video rental) and showed a short clip of the phone booth travelling through space and time via wormhole. I got a B+ on my presentation. The teacher told me it was excellent but marked me down because it was “over the heads” of everyone in the class…which I thought was completely unfair. How on earth is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure over anyone’s head?
Unsurprisingly, the WSJ doesn’t much care for
Unsurprisingly, the WSJ doesn’t much care for An Inconvenient Truth. Is there any way of uncoupling political alignment and one’s position on this issue?
A quick study shows that stocks of
A quick study shows that stocks of simply named companies do better than those of more complexly named companies. Even companies with pronounceable ticker symbols did better than those with unpronounceable symbols.
Global warming skeptic Gregg Easterbrook finally caves: “
Global warming skeptic Gregg Easterbrook finally caves: “based on the data I’m now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert”. (via scott rosenberg, who says too little, too late, Gregg)
Al Gore, movie star
An Inconvenient Truth, a movie about Al Gore’s global warming crusade, opens today in NYC and LA. John Heilemann has a lengthy piece on Gore for New York magazine, the NY Times has a piece about Gore and the movie, the climate science blog RealClimate has a positive review of the film, and here again is my review. Larry Lessig, who knows a thing or two about bringing tha PowerPoint noize, loves the movie, calling the slideshow “the most extraordinary lecture I have ever seen anyone give about anything”.
An Inconvenient Truth will open in the rest of the US in mid-June; check this theater listing for details. For more news, check out the movie’s blog.
Top science book prize goes to David
Top science book prize goes to David Bodanis’s Electric Universe, a book about electricity. An odd choice…I read the book and it was good but not great.
“If you could cause one invention from
“If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?” Nuclear weapons? Land mines? Internal combustion engine?
How do scientist attribute climate-change data? In
How do scientist attribute climate-change data? In other words, how can they tell from the available data that climate change can be attributed to human causes?
Get yer Richard Feynman on at Google
Get yer Richard Feynman on at Google Video, particularly this 50-minute video of The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. A bit more Feynman at YouTube.
No Proof of Aliens
UK report concludes that there’s no proof of alien life forms. I’m sure this will change when the UNIT files are declassified.
This is the most wonderfully nerdy thing
This is the most wonderfully nerdy thing I’ve ever read about politics and blogging. “So in fact, Reynolds has managed to fit five units of wrongness into only four declarative statements! This is the hackular equivalent of crossing the Chandrasekhar Limit, at which point your blog cannot help but collapse in on itself.” (via cyn-c)
Maybe the universe is a trillion years
Maybe the universe is a trillion years old and has experienced several big bangs and big collapses over the years. “People have inferred that time began then, but there really wasn’t any reason for that inference. What we are proposing is very radical. It’s saying there was time before the big bang.”
Stardust Holiday is a blog written by
Stardust Holiday is a blog written by a woman who’s spending three months in bed as part of a NASA study. (via cyn-c)
Richard Dawkins has a new book coming
Richard Dawkins has a new book coming out in October called The God Delusion. For some reason, I don’t see this being a big seller in the US.
Wired magazine reports on the revolutionary food
Wired magazine reports on the revolutionary food and strange equipment (antigriddle!) used by chef Grant Achatz in the kitchen at Alinea. “The technology allows us to get to the essence of food. It allows you to be more true with flavor, not less true.”
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