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Basically, Sir Ken Robinson whinges about the educational system without presenting even one creative, usable solution to the problems that he reports -- problems that every one of us is acutely aware of. Anyone can criticise the system but few can (or will, apparently) fix it.I wish Robinson had not only diagnosed the disease, but also told us how to cure it.
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I got my iPad in early October. Even though I don't use a Mac, I love it- not just as the "new techy trendy toy" (which I fully acknowledge it is that too!) but as a functional part of my work and play. Let me say upfront- I don't think iPads are for everyone. It's neither a laptop replacement nor a smartphone replacement, and yes, no one "needs" to have one- we all got by last year without them. But here's how I use mine and why I like it, primarily in the context of my job.Bingo! No one needs it, and you shouldn't get one if you're looking for a laptop replacement. But if you're looking for an easy way to take documents to meetings, take notes, read books (I love Kindle reader),2 sketch ideas, send short e-mails, and surf the web conveniently (no Adobe Flash), it's very handy. I wouldn't call it "magical" the way Steve Jobs did, but I use mine all the time. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Economist all look great on the iPad, and the NPR and PBS apps are pretty nice too.
I just ran across a very useful resource over at Skeptical Science. It's a series of one-line responses to over 100 arguments climate change contrarians often use. The current top 5 are displayed above. You can also click on any of the one-liners to get more detailed information (basic, intermediate or advanced). 
I visted Beijing for a few days last August, and I finally got around to posting a few photos from the trip to Flickr. I'm afraid the photos of the Forbidden City aren't very good. It was raining hard that day, and there's only so much you can do with Photoshop. The photos of the Badaling section of the Great Wall and of the Olympic Park are better. The photo above is a Chinese "Keep off the grass" sign on the Olympic Park grounds. Click on the image to see a larger version.
Ezra Klein pointed out that Senate.gov provides a lot of historical data on the composition of the Senate and its procedures. One of the pieces of data it provides is the number of cloture motions filed in every congress since the 66th (1919-1920). I've plotted the data (in black dots) in the graph to the left. The red dots show the fit of a statistical model to the data in which the number of cloture motions is elated to the session in which they were filed, the proportion of Democrats in the Senate, and an indicator of whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican. As you can see, the model fits the data pretty well. (See the next page if you're interested in more details.)
Les training IPANE volunteers (from the IPANE website)
The new body will bridge the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge on the accelerating declines and degradation of the natural world, with knowledge on effective solutions and decisive government action required to reverse these damaging trends.No countries met the 2010 target for stemming biodiversity loss. Let's hope that IPBES is more effective.
Its various roles will include carrying out high-quality peer reviews of the wealth of science on biodiversity and ecosystem services emerging from research institutes across the globe in order to provide gold standard reports to governments.
By holding a press conference to announce a new finding, scientists invite a broader audience to hear what they have to say. They also invite a broader audience to hear what their critics have to say.I'm not conceited enough to think that Wolfe-Simon even read that post, but I was pleased to learn Monday evening that she did accept an interview request from Elizabeth Pennisi at Science. As I read the interview, Wolfe-Simon is blaming NASA for hyping the results. She also describes the press conference as a "complicated sort of situation where we didn't have enough time...it was really about representing this is what we found, this is the observations we made, in a way that a community could understand." She didn't see it as a scientific paper and wasn't prepared to answer questions about the data at the news conference. As for not responding to critics,
[W]e didn't want to answer it in a way, or respond to it in a way, that we thought would not give us the opportunity to think as deeply as we might need to. I was under a lot of pressure, and I'll be honest, I was exhausted. I really wanted to get back home and back into the lab.Wolfe-Simon goes on to answer a variety of questions about tests that could have been done and about making samples available to other scientists. Head over to the Science web site and read the whole interview if you want to know more about that. Read on if you're interested in what I have to say about "science by press conference".
This is really just about the facts of this economic moment that we live in. the 200,000-year period in which men have been top dog is truly coming to an end, believe it or not, and that's why I talk about the end of men.
From the article in the Courant:NEW YORK -- Tiffany Hayes scored 26 points and Maya Moore had 22 as the No. 1 UConn women beat No. 11 Ohio State 80-50 at the Maggie Dixon Classic on Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. The Huskies' 88th consecutive victory tied the UCLA men's NCAA Division I basketball record set in 1971-74.What can I say but "Go Huskies!"
[T]he fact that the charges are (apparently) politically motivated is indeed a reason to regard them skeptically, and they make it less likely -- perhaps much less likely -- that Mr. Assange is guilty of them. (Although he may be guilty of being a creep even if he is not guilty of a crime.)Go read the whole column to understand why.
Nevertheless, I have come across a number of analyses that try to evaluate the merits of the charges without regard to this political context, or which otherwise seem caught up in debating their salacious details. That is likely a mistake: in a world of limited information, the political motivation behind the charges might be the most important clue we have in evaluating their merit. (emphasis added)
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As you know if you've seen my previous posts on arsenic-based life, that claim has been met with a lot of skepticism. The skeptics have posted detailed critiques on blogs in addition to submitting letters to Science questioning the results.Formal peer review does give criticized authors time to think critically and carefully, and it is a good way to filter out rubbish. But in this case, much of the criticism was already coming from the researchers' peers. And it should be remembered that peer review as conducted by journals is itself full of differing opinions, and is not the only way to crystallize truth from such disputes. In this instance, a prompt and explicitly provisional response from the authors would have been a better approach, particularly given the way they encouraged the original attention.Blogging is no substitute for peer review. But peer review doesn't stop when a paper is published. If they're any good, papers are argued about in graduate seminars, in hallways, and at conferences. None of those discussions are peer reviewed, though they may lead to experiments or observations that are peer reviewed. By holding a press conference to announce a new finding, scientists invite a broader audience to hear what they have to say. They also invite a broader audience to hear what their critics have to say.
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In the end, the scientific truth will prevail, as it usually does. In the meantime, researchers must accept some harsh truths about the speed and spread of digital criticism.
NeuWrite is a collaborative working group for scientists, writers, and those in between: graduate, post-doctoral and faculty researchers, fiction and non-fiction writers, as well Journalism and MFA students at Columbia. The group serves as a writing and science resource for members pursuing their own projects, and as a forum for collaborative work. (source)In particular, one of the projects linked to from neuwrite is the NeuroJournalism Mill, a "site dedicated to sifting the wheat from the chaff of popular media reporting on news about the brain". It looks like a very worthwhile project. If there are readers of this blog interested in trying something similar on environmental reporting, drop me a line. I'd like to "talk" with you about whether an EnviroJournalism Mill would also be worthwhile.
While Behe's study is useful in summarizing how adaptive evolution has operated over the short term in bacteria and viruses in the lab, it's far less useful in summarizing how evolution has happened over the longer term in bacteria or viruses in nature--or in eukaryotes in nature. In this sense it says nothing about whether new genes and gene functions have been important in the evolution of life.If you want a more complete analysis, head over to Jerry's site and read the whole review.
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If you read this blog, you probably read about the report in Science describing a claim that scientists had isolated a bacterium from Mono Lake in California that substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to sustain its growth. Our data show evidence for arsenate in macromolecules that normally contain phosphate, most notably nucleic acids and proteins. (from Wolfe-Simon et al.; reference below; click through at the bottom)
"This is a very impressive and exciting discovery," says Barry Rosen, a biochemist at Florida International University in Miami. "The implication of this work is that life can be quite different from what we know," agrees [Clara] Chan, [a geomicrobiologist at the University of Delaware.To understand which the discovery would be so impressive, if it turns out to be right, just remember that the backbone of DNA is composed of bonds between phosphorous atoms. The claim that Wolfe-Simon and her collaborators make is that phosphorous can be replaced with arsenic in DNA. In fact, if that claim turns out to be right, it won't be merely "impressive" or "exciting". It will be truly astounding.
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As possibly two of the last true naturalists, Carl Rettenmeyer and his wife Marian dedicated their lives to the study of army ants and their associates. Over the course of 55 years, the Rettenmeyers went on numerous field trips mainly to the Central American tropics and analyzed hundreds of self-collected samples and those sent by a multitude of other scientists, who were inspired by Carl's enthusiasm. It comes as no surprise that Carl Rettenmeyer became the world's leading expert on army ant associates. This paper, which the Rettenmeyers nearly completed before Carl's death in 2009, gives the first comprehensive list of animals known to be found in the company of a single army ant species: Eciton burchellii. The 557 recorded associates range from birds to insects and mites and comprise the largest described animal association centering around one particular species. Although some of these associates may be opportunistic encounters, we are confident that approximately 300 of the recorded species depend on the ants, at least in part, for their existence. The extinction of E. burchellii from any habitat over its vast area of distribution is likely to cause the extinction of numerous associated animals at that site. This overview will hopefully inspire researchers throughout the world to follow in the Rettenmeyers' footsteps and continue the investigation of army ants and their associates.
There are currently no technological quick fixes for global warming. Our only hope is to change our behavior in ways that significantly slow the rate of global warming, thereby giving the engineers time to devise, develop, and deploy technological solutions where possible. Unless large numbers of people take appropriate steps, including supporting governmental regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our only options will be adaptation and suffering. And the longer we delay, the more unpleasant the adaptations and the greater the suffering will be.The Behavior Analyst is is the official publication of the Association for Behavior Analysis International. Lonnie Thompson is Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences and a Research Scientist in the Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University. His article appears in a special issue of The Behavior Analyst devoted to climate change.1
Sooner or later, we will all deal with global warming. The only question is how much we will mitigate, adapt, and suffer. (Thompson, L. G. 2010. Climate change: the evidence and our options. The Behavior Analyst 33:153-170.)
Projected federal revenues and expenses as a fraction of gross
domestic product (from the Congressional Budget Office).
