News of the weird, my friends. Our “politics-and-religion-mixing President has declared, on this the national day of prayer, that the U.S. is a nation of prayer”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060504/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_prayer;_ylt=Auh2YG3m0lrz_xYEcS4QLD6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-. I wonder if, on the national day of reason, he’ll declare the U.S. a nation of reason? Oh, right, we don’t have that national […]
I checked my usual news sources, the Google and Yahoo! news aggregators, after the release of the EPP2010 report. Nothing. I was shocked. Plenty of bad news about this or that, but nothing about a diverse panel of scientists and non-scientists, chaired by an economist, calling on the nation to […]
There’s been a lot of buzz concerning a Spanish version of the U.S. national anthem. Like an electric field, things like this tend to strongly polarize the nation. The media seizes on this kind of thing, throws the switch, and suddenly the nation is feeling one way or the other. […]
For twenty years, the United States has invested less and less in basic research in the physical sciences as a fraction of GDP. The U.S. spends about $8-$8.5 billion per year on basic research in the physical sciences (that represents the combined DOE science, NSF, and NIST budgets). Today, “it […]
Today, the National Academies concluded their decadal study of particle physics – EPP2010 – with the release of the multidisciplinary committee’s report. The EPP2010 report is several things. It is a strong cautionary bullhorn to the United States, telling us that ceding leadership in fundamental particle physics will pose more […]
The EPP2010 is released at 11:30 today. Here are my notes and thoughts. “EPP2010 Homepage”:http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bpa/EPP2010.html *11:30* Prompt beginning. Appearing: Harold Shapiro (chair), Sally Dawson (vice-chair), John Bagger, Takaaki Kajita. *11:31*: Opening remarks by Shapiro. This report lays otu the future of U.S. particle physics. The committee is 1/3 particle physicists, […]
Well, we crossed the 2000 visitor mark a few days ago here at the Adventures of My Pet Hamster. That warrants a few remarks, in honor of the occasion. Who are you people? You need to leave more comments, so I can ignore them. What’s an adventure (of my pet […]
Science is a tough business. Experiments rise and fall based on their scientific merit, judged through a peer review process that is meant to weed the well-planned projects from the rest. Last week, that time-honored system of peer review was apparently thrown to the side of the road as the […]
Science is, like all human endeavors, full of competition. As in all competition, friendly or otherwise, there has to be somebody who gets disappointed. Today, I am pleased to announce that I am a little disappointed. My competitors in the “Belle Collaboration”:http://belle.kek.jp have announced at a major conference they have […]
This week offered America a rare but important lesson in statistics. What worried me was that the venue most people get the information from – the news media – widely seems to flub the lesson. I’d give agencies like NBC and CNN a D- in their ability to report accurately […]
As I mentioned a few hours ago, this week has seen one great result in the understanding of nature using evolution. The Wall Street Journal also reports on a second discovery: the resurrection, by studying dozens of genes from a variety of species, of an ancient hormone receptor that last […]
I Google myself. There… that’s much better. Always better to just admit things and get them over with. OK, with the air clear… I found this interesting little tidbit using Google tonight. Somebody (Aspasia S.) wrote a review of the SLAC public lecture series [YelpFoodForIntellect]. They also happened to have […]