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It's New Years: No More Lying

It's New Years: No More Lying

Jan 01 2011 | comment(s)

Does it take effort to tell the truth or are you naturally honest? In other words, are you truthful or a liar? A Harvard neuroimaging study showed that you're wired to be one or the other.

The study watched subjects' brains as they were presented with the opportunity to win money through lying. When honest people told the truth, their brains were at peace. When dishonest people lied, the control centers of their brains crackled to overwrite the truth with a lie. And here's the cool part: even when dishonest people happened to tell the truth, researchers watched their brains actively override the temptation to lie.
Cosmic Embryo #1: My Erdös Number Is 2i

Cosmic Embryo #1: My Erdös Number Is 2i

Jan 01 2011 | comment(s)


Icon for Cosmic Embryo: Erupting star V838 Monocerotis 

”On 2010-09-26, at 5:01 AM, Frithjof A.S. Sterrenburg wrote:

Dear Richard!

Sorry to hear you have been in the claws of the barber-surgeons.  Hope everything is well now!… As for your itinerant existence, you begin to resemble the mathematician Erdös! Cheers, boy, get well soon!"
Sportfishing Boats Save Squid From Supertankers

Sportfishing Boats Save Squid From Supertankers

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

Strange but true! Oil supertankers cool themselves by pumping water from the ocean through their overheated innards, but as it turns out, there's more than just water in the ocean.
Market squid have been clogging the saltwater cooling pumps of these mammoth ships, causing overheating and interfering with the transfer of oil from the ships to the shoreline.
So sportfishing boats saved the day by anchored near the supertankers with even brighter lights, attracting the squid away from the pumps into the relative safely of . . . the sportfishing boats. Yup.
Worst Of 2011 (and Science 2.0 Traffic Stats)

Worst Of 2011 (and Science 2.0 Traffic Stats)

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

I am 21% of awesome.  But the rest, well, as with last year, I thought I'd let everyone know what you hated. My two worst columns from last year, the only ones to get under 400 visitors, were:

1) AGU Meetup? (San Fran, Dec 13-17), at 154 visits.
2) Dating Advice or disaster in the making?, an anemic 257 visits.

Yeah, I can see it. Neither calls to me. The first is just reaching to regular readers who might be in San Francisco, the second is a reblog of someone else's bad dating advice.
State Secrecy After A Trivial Invasion: A Personal Anecdote

State Secrecy After A Trivial Invasion: A Personal Anecdote

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

On August 21, 10:25:20 and 10:51:16, a mid-level aid on my opponent's staff signed up on my Political Action Committee's website to "Turn out voters, Make policy, Fundraise, Volunteer in general" on both occasions. 

This occurred only 4 days after an annoucement was sent to the broader Columbia Alumni Community.  A few days later a lobbyist from a large Albany Law Firm asked for a call.  "What do you want kid?" He asked me.  "You can't be serious about trying to unseat a sitting speaker.  There are easier ways to get into public office." 
New Year with a Bang?

New Year with a Bang?

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

Will your new year start with a BANG?



Well, it might, if you bring it in with this molecule.  This is trinitramide, a compound newly synthesized at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden.  It has the formula N(NO2)3, and as such is the newest nitrogen oxide to be discovered.

ADHD Yoghurt For Winning The Drug War

ADHD Yoghurt For Winning The Drug War

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

What is the most popular form of Citizen Science?

Some want to make us believe it is SETI@home, 8 year olds being pressured by overenthusiastic teachers, or people in their backyards looking for comets.

Aravallis , biodiversity. mining and society

Aravallis , biodiversity. mining and society

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

Aravalli hills are around 600 km long and cover very rich diversity due to their peculiar location . However unlike temperate hills this hill range passes through hostile climate of Rajasthan and Gujrat on one side and somewhat friendly climate on its other side as it divides Rajasthan in two zones. Mining activity , population growth and greed of the man has denunded the Aravallis and biodiverstiy is being lost each day due to man made activity. Plants do not know the rules and regulations they simply die if their society is dead. Plants also live in society or groups and if the big trees dry up the smaller ones follow and if the trees dry up the soil is gone from the hills. Once top soil is gone hills cant be reforested.
Science Questions For The New Year

Science Questions For The New Year

Dec 31 2010 | comment(s)

Here are a few questions I would like to see answered in Science 2.0 during 2011. First I would like to see a major scientist explain why the laws of nature are almost the same nearly everywhere. Especially interesting would be an explanation of why distant galaxies seem to obey the same laws we have on Earth. What connects the distant places together across the vacuum of space? How do we know? Next I would like to see a well established scientist explain why the vacuum of space that appears to be empty has physical properties that can be measured. Especially how does space produce constants that govern electric and magnetic fields? When a displacement occurs in a field, what physical thing is being displaced?
California Market Squid: Supplementary Material

California Market Squid: Supplementary Material

Dec 30 2010 | comment(s)

A couple of recent articles on the closure of the California market squid fishery focus on the southern (Van Zant in the Long Beach Press-Telegram) and northern (me in the Monterey Weekly) fishing grounds.

From the state's Market Squid Fishery Management Plan, which is available in its entirety here, comes a nice map showing the concentration of squid landings in the two primary fishing grounds: Monterey Bay and the Southern California Bight:
Ransoming My Future

Ransoming My Future

Dec 30 2010 | comment(s)

The Political and Financial Leaders of today have ransomed our future.  No one is innocent.  People of the earth you have all been poisoned.  The only antidote is a drastic program of retraining, retooling, and
reform.  Short of this, a Jeffersonian call to revolution is the only alternative, and one which I do not relish.  Our debt per capita is more than most people's retirement accounts.  A quick reading of history will show that the French had the same problem before their problems started a few hundred years ago.  As they say, "the only war the french have won since then has been the French Revolution."  Our atmospheric and oceanic  environments have degraded to the point where ecosystems are soon to be
Unidentified Squid Boats

Unidentified Squid Boats

Dec 30 2010 | comment(s)

Apparently, the New Zealand Air Force just released a bunch of documents pertaining to UFO investigations over the past 50  years.
They include a well-known sighting from 1978 in which a cargo plane said it was being followed by strange lights - and was backed up by radar images from air traffic controllers. However, an Air Force report at the time explained it away as lights from Japanese squid boats reflecting off clouds.
If you ask kiwi UFO aficionado Jeff Stone, this explanation is completely bogus.
Is A Ph.D. A Waste Of Time?

Is A Ph.D. A Waste Of Time?

Dec 30 2010 | comment(s)

The Economist argues, as they would be expected to argue, given their free market leaning, that due to the glut of Ph.D.s and therefore the poor job market (in academia), it is a waste of time.   A Ph.D. who enters the job corporate world for anything except basic research has the wrong set of skills, according to corporate hiring managers, so it is actually better to hire a bachelor's or Masters degree and spend the time in the corporate world.  Numbers bear it out.  While a Ph.D. earns more than a bachelor's degree today the difference between a Ph.D. and a Masters is barely noticeable.
Someone's High On Placebos

Someone's High On Placebos

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

Last Wednesday, this paper, published in PLoS ONE, hit the popular news in the medicine/science category, with articles such as this one from MedPage Today and this, from Reuters.

A conundrum for the anti-science left - GMO plants could combat climate change

A conundrum for the anti-science left - GMO plants could combat climate change

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

Like the right, the left has its anti-science contingent and agriculture is ground zero for the zealots in the environmental movement.   To be sure, any science that is misused can have devastating consequences but genetically modified foods - those that can resist blight or grow in poor climates - have done a lot of good for feeding poor people and had no ill effects whereas so-called 'organic' food can only be purchased for reasonable cost by those fortunate enough to live near it.    
Scientific Method In Decline?

Scientific Method In Decline?

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

Jonah Lehrer in The New Yorker about the slipperiness of the scientific method:

"The Truth Wears Off: Is There Something Wrong With The Scientific Method?"
The test of replicability, as it’s known, is the foundation of modern research. Replicability is how the community enforces itself. It’s a safeguard for the creep of subjectivity. Most of the time, scientists know what results they want, and that can influence the results they get. The premise of replicability is that the scientific community can correct for these flaws.
Mold Gets Jet Lag Too

Mold Gets Jet Lag Too

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

It's no secret that humans are not the only species with circadian rhythm - a biological clock.   Studying red bread mold may teach us how our own internal clock works and by experimenting with the fungus’ response to light and darkness, researchers can explore its reaction to different substances, food and temperatures.

Basically, giving mold jet lag may help us mitigate it in humans.
Clusters, Technopolis, And A New Industrial Policy

Clusters, Technopolis, And A New Industrial Policy

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

Sorry I've been absent for a while. (I hope you missed me!) Here's one thing that's been keeping me busy:
Cancer’s Inconvenient Truths

Cancer’s Inconvenient Truths

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

Inconvenience #1: Genetics represents < 10% of the risk but most of the science

A Study Of Revenue Producing Opportunities For New York State Through Efficiency And Green Initiatives

A Study Of Revenue Producing Opportunities For New York State Through Efficiency And Green Initiatives

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

 New York State would achieve significant cost savings, while also creating opportunities to generate revenue with state owned assets by shifting to Real Time Pricing. Furthermore, the state may act as an innovator by helping to mature developing technologies which would facilitate the adoption of real time pricing for residential constituents. It is believed that the complete migration of all New York customers to RTP is inevitable in the future. Real-time pricing (RTP) is a rate class where customers pay for the electricity they consume based on wholesale hourly market prices.