For those interested in astronomy, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity occurs in one week: Venus will be making a transit across the sun for the second and last time this century on the evening of June 5, 2012. I think everyone should have a certain sense of awe at the Cosmos, in order to have a proper appreciation for our place in it.
Science Query for the Presidential Candidates
I wonder when will the public start demanding scientific literacy among their governing officials, including presidential candidates. We were not a country founded on religious beliefs yet it floods our country’s interest for some odd reason. Would it be too much to ask these people have at least a basic, well-rounded sense of the scientific method, much like we require the same level of expertise from our doctors, scientists, teachers, etc.?.
Here’s a nice article via SciAm that reiterates a similar concern:
3 Science Questions to Ask U.S. Presidential Candidates
“As you may already be aware from my previous posts, The Guardian U.S. and NYU’s Studio 20 journalism lab have teamed up to push a project called The Citizens’ Agenda into the media discourse surrounding the U.S. presidential 2012 election. The idea: find out what you–the citizens–want the candidates to be discussing over the next four months – usually meaning questions of substance about policy rather than horserace and gotcha questions so pervasive in mainstream media.”
A candidate who supports making college education affordable and accessible to all, and at least gives lip service to addressing climate change, versus a candidate who, despite whatever (no doubt internally conflicting) beliefs he holds, must pander to an anti-intellectual, conspiracy-minded, creationist, superstitious base. Why is a science quiz even necessary? I certainly don’t consider Obama to necessarily have a perfect science policy, but given the choices available I think the superior candidate is quite obvious.
“Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It’s more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements.”
This looks very reminiscent of the Jarvis computer from the Iron Man movies (minus the voice recognition and speech synthesis), and seems to be the next logical progression of multi-touch input technology. I have to wonder how well this works in practice though: i.e., do you have to stay more or less fixed to one spot, or can you move around a bit and still have the device accurately determine the part of the screen you are pointing at? It will be interesting to see where this goes.
A poet once said, “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe’s age, and the evolution of stars. What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!
– Richard Feynman (via crookedindifference)Feynman, showing once more that scientists were once capable of producing beautiful prose.
(Source: en.wikiquote.org)
Via mumble mumble
Handy Guide to Reading Science News!
Someone very smart once said (paraphrasing here): “Your head should be open to new ideas, but not so open that your brains fall out.”
Keep these tips in mind when you read science news, and beware alarmism. You don’t have to stop feeling amazed and awed to be a little cautious and skeptical. I’ll be posting more tips like this in the future.
(via Double X Science)
argumentative-atheist submitted:
I have no idea if this is possible but I suspect that its fake
I’m stumped. Anyone have any insight?
-Allyson
The pic is completely legit. The trick is to arrange the objects so that the center of mass is directly under the pivot point where the ruler and table meet, and to make sure that the rubber bands have enough leverage/grip to hold the hammer up:
Since the head of the hammer is more massive than the rest of the apparatus combined, the center of mass for the whole system is actually below the edge of the table. This means that the system is in stable equilibrium, since any movement away from that equilibrium will result in a restoring force that will bring the system back toward equilibrium.
To see why this is, consider a simple pendulum:
The equilibrium position for this pendulum is the vertical position. When it is moved from that position, say to the right, gravity creates a torque (meaning a force that tends to cause rotation) which tends to rotate the pendulum back toward equilibrium. A force that tends to force movement back toward equilibrium is called a restoring force.
This seems intuitive for a simple pendulum (defined as a pendulum with all of its mass concentrated in a bob at the end of a massless string), but the situation is analogous in a physical pendulum, such as the hammer-and-ruler setup shown here. In the case of a physical pendulum, gravity effectively acts only at the center of mass of the system, which in equilibrium is directly below the pivot, just as it is for a simple pendulum.
To be happy in old age it is necessary that we accustom ourselves to objects that can accompany the mind all the way through life, and that we take the rest as good in their day. The mere man of pleasure is miserable in old age; and the mere drudge in business is but little better: whereas, natural philosophy, mathematical and mechanical science, are a continual source of tranquil pleasure…
– Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part II, Chapter 1Just in case you missed it…
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was on the Daily Show last night. He strolled onto the set, unleashed a small but concentrated dose of awesomeness, and was gone. His whole bit was probably 30 seconds (it starts at about the 6:30 mark in the linked clip).
Legendary.
See what it’s like to fall into a black hole (credit to Walter Lewin for the link)
From Darwin and Einstein to Hawking and Sagan, here are twenty-five amazing books written by world-famous scientists. These are legendary texts, popular science explainers, personal memoirs, and controversial new theories, and they’re all enduring monuments to the power of science.
I have read 5 of these books so far: #1, 8, 11 (a wonderfully entertaining book), 14 and 16.
The next generation of scientists
Interesting infographic on the gender divide in various scientific disciplines. I was pleasantly surprised that only 3 of the 8 scientific fields represented here have a male-dominated incoming generation (of course, I am getting ready to leave one of those three (engineering) for another (physics)).
How Atheism Murdered Millions
- Joseph Stalin:
- Student:
- Stalin:
- Student:
- Stalin:
- Source:
The Secret of the Ooze: Two Years After the Spill
Al Jazeera has a frightening, damning, and infuriating report on the ongoing damage to the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It’s been nearly two years since the Macondo well was ruptured, spilling almost 5 million barrels of oil and requiring almost 2 million barrels of dispersants to clean it up.
Fishermen are reporting shrimp catches full of eyeless shrimp, as well as fish and shellfish with oozing sores and black gills. The damage doesn’t seem limited to oil, either. Manganese-heavy drilling mud and dispersant lefotvers are showing up at even higher rates than petroleum.
Head over to Al Jazeera to read the full article. The Gulf has not recovered, and it will likely take most of a lifetime to do so. It’s important that scientists continue to get financial support to monitor the area and that the government keep pressure on BP to do their part. Not just this year, but until the mistake is fixed.
This is one of the most diverse and fruitful ecosystems in America, and we must repair it.
Via It's Okay To Be Smart
A good many times I have been presented at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: ‘Have you ever read a work of Shakespeare’s?’
–C.P. Snow’s legendary 1959 lament, cited by mathematician Ian Stewart, who argues that understanding the 17 equations that changed the world is form of basic modern literacy. (via explore-blog)
I am finding myself increasingly supportive of true liberal arts education, and feel that it’s just as important to be familiar with the basics of chemistry and physics as with the works of Dickens or Dumas.
Via It's Okay To Be SmartWeird Winter - Mad March - Part 1 (by greenman3610)
A good recap of the anomalous climate we’ve seen this past winter, with some good interviews. Jeff Masters is a blogger for Weather Underground - here is a good piece he wrote about the multitude of extreme weather events we saw in 2010.
