“Talk of the Nation: Science Friday”:http://www.sciencefriday.com is an excellent weekly national radio program that brings experts and callers together to discuss current science issues. This week, Ira Flatow discussed the politicization of science – the perceived increase in policy influencing science, rather than science influencing policy – with guests Chris […]
This weekend has been stressful. The worst part of it is that it was the *least* stressful part of the past week, and the coming weeks are forecast to be quite a bit worse (partly nutty with a chance of insanity). I can summarize why in one word: ICHEP. Well, […]
Late last week, “Ray Davis died at 91 from complications due to Alzheimer’s”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/nyregion/02davis.html?ex=1150171200&en=40a0b519ebe85d99&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERFEATURES. Dr. Davis is legendary in the field of physics for his painstaking devotion to the study of neutrino production in the sun. His work with physicist “John Bahcall”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Bahcall demonstrated that the prediction of neutrino flux from the […]
Tonight on “Tech Nation”:http://www.technation.com, the host (Dr. Moira Gunn) is interviewing the father of askjeeves.com (now ask.com), Apostolos Gerasoulis. I’m a sucker for a new technology, and I’ve been looking for an alternative to Google and Yahoo! ever since I learned of their complicity in search filtering China’s access to […]
Tonight on Studio 360, they presented the next in a series on presenting science. Their piece was about “an exhibition on Darwin”:http://www.studio360.org/stream/ram.py?file=/studio/studio060206g.mp3 and the environment and conditions in which he did his groundbreaking research. This piece really brought the sense of humanity and discovery that is often missing in portrayal […]
The issue of energy, energy dependence, and the economy has been on my mind for some time. As a research scientist interested in the investment by the public in high-risk, high-payoff basic science, the framing of the conversation about energy, its sources and uses, is of great concern. It is […]
The “HEP rumor mill”:http://www.freewebs.com/heprumor/ is just creepy. I feel naughty just looking at it. It’s a site maintained by… well, somebody, I don’t know who… that lists who’s hot and who’s not. OK, I’ll back off from that one. It lists who’s (allegedly) interviewing for what jobs in the high-energy […]
I am a fundamentalist when it comes to open access to scientific information. In graduate school, when I learned that many disciplines give paid access to journals can run thousands of dollars, I nearly fell over. I had grown up in the era of the internet. To boot, I was […]
Memorial Day is treated differently by everybody I know. Some people sleep in (that’s me), some people go to parades or cemetaries, and some people even work. I did a little of all of these today. For me, Memorial Day is quite a private matter. I remember in my youth […]
I realized this past week that I don’t yet have an entry in my “rant” category. Here, dear readers, is my first one. I don’t know when you’ll see this. Why? Because my domain name registrar, “vhosting.com”:http://www.vhosting.com, cashed my check (deducted $15 from my credit card) on May 16th and […]
My favorite Sunday program is a radio show called “On the Media” (“www.onthemedia.org”:http://onthemedia.org/). It’s a week-by-week look at the media and its behavior. “This week’s show takes a look at media and global warming”:http://onthemedia.org/stream/ram.py?file=otm/otm051906d.mp3. My favorite quote from this piece is a look at a media spot put together by […]
This weekend is the opening of the film adaptation of “The Da Vinci Code”, Dan Brown’s best-selling novel. Ron Howard brings it to the screen. The book was fun, and Dan Brown’s most notable skill as a writer became clear right at the very end: every prejudice you take into […]