I hear a lot of interesting things when I play the “fly-on-the-wall scientist.” Most statements uttered casually between friends can be tested scientifically; at the very least, research has already been done and one only needs to dig a little to find out whether the statement is true. There are […]
Yearly Archives: 2011
95 posts
“You work on that big collider in Switzerland?” the border control agent asked me. “That’s right,” I replied. “Had some trouble a few year’s back, didn’it?” “Yeah, but we came online last year and we’ve been ramping up since then. In just 5 weeks we’ve taken almost as much data […]
So the story goes, at least as Carl Zimmer recounts it, during a debate between Thomas Huxley (a staunch defender of Charles Darwin’s then new Theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection) and Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce (a staunch opponent of the theory) in the Natural History Museum […]
From a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power [1]: “If my doctor told me I had cancer, I wouldn’t scour the country to find someone to tell me that I don’t need to worry about it. Just because I didn’t feel gravely ill yet, I wouldn’t assume […]
I just saw a story from NPR reporting on a study that finds that mobile phone antennas can increase glucose production in the brain near where the antenna is located [1]. The NPR report of the study suggests that the researchers did control the variables and controlled for bias; they […]
Democracy is not a single, mono-cultural form of governance. When I studied democracies in college, the single most striking thing that I learned is that no two democracies are exactly alike. There is U.S. democracy, French democracy, German democracy, Russian democracy . . . every place where people have asserted […]
“Well,” declared Joe Average Citizen as he stared at his TV and watching anomalously high snowfall rain down on much of the U.S., “I guess global warming is over!” This simple statement, uttered by at least two people within earshot of me in the past two weeks (and likely by […]
This weekend, Jodi and I traveled to Wisconsin to celebrate the 3rd birthday of our twin nephews. Over a delicious bowl of guacamole, I engaged in a conversation with a couple who were friends with my sister-in-law (the mother of the twins). We quickly came to the recent Republican plan […]
Jodi and I keep extensive fuel-related data on our 1998 Honda Civic EX (2-door sedan). We note the mileage, fuel volume, and fuel cost for each time we stop at a gas station. This allows us to compute miles-per-gallon and cost-per-gallon as a function of time. I’ve reported on related […]
Tonight, Jodi and I returned from Connecticut (and the last of our holiday travel). We experienced the most improbable flight ever. we arrived at the airport and had a lovely meal inside security. a promised snow storm didn’t hit until very shortly before our plane left the gate even with […]
In the past, I have posted a “best of 2010 software” or some other retrospective. This time around, let’s look forward and I’ll make some useless predictions about what I think will be a few hot topics in 2011. Consider these things you might not have thought about, but should […]