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Having a fat day? At least fat isn't in your name...

Having a fat day? At least fat isn't in your name...

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

A Census of Marine Life expedition discovered a new character for the Mr. Men and Little Miss series - "Mr. Blobby," the fathead sculpin fish, lives in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans at depths of between about 330 feet (100 meters) and 9,200 feet (2,800 meters), according to National Geographic.


Space Jellyfish and Other Photos

Space Jellyfish and Other Photos

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

National Geographic's Space Photos This Week is akin to dangling a shiny object in front of a kitten - the kitten may not knowledgeably be able to discuss the refractive index of said object, but it can think "oooh, pretty"1 and play with it contentedly.

I am not any kind of expert on space, but I can look at the photos of jellyfish-lookalike planetary nebula and think "oooh, pretty" and share them with you.
Watch The Live Dissertation Defense About Citizen Sky

Watch The Live Dissertation Defense About Citizen Sky

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

Last year, DPR AmSci Journal wrote about a great new citizen science program called Citizen Sky [read from August 26, 2009]. This project is collecting observational data on the current eclipsing of the variable binary star system epsilon Aurigae. The primary star is estimated to be 300 times the diameter of our Sun, and the eclipsing object orbits at about the equivalent distance of Neptune from the Sun.
How I spent my weekend ...

How I spent my weekend ...

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

A few days back, it being the Halloween season (at least in America - do other cultures indulge in pagan madness of this sort?) I saw, on some social network or another, a neat carved pumpkin that looked like, I kid you not, R2-D2 from "Star Wars."

It looked quite neat and I have never been a pumpkin carving guy, outside the stuff I do with the kids, but it seemed like a fun idea and a way to do something with the kids.
Quantum Repeater - Top Secret Messages Over Long Distances

Quantum Repeater - Top Secret Messages Over Long Distances

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

Quantum cryptography is the technology of the future for military and financial organizations because it sends information as entangled particles of light - anyone who tries to tap into the information changes it in a way that reveals their presence.

The data is encoded with an encrypted key but one important limitation is range.  The longest distance over which an encrypted key can be sent is approximately 100 kilometers but new technology developed by researchers increases 30-fold the amount of time the memory can hold information, which means that a series of quantum repeaters, arrayed like Christmas lights on a string, could reach distances in excess of 1,000 kilometers.
We've all thought it -

We've all thought it - "Will someone please shut Krugman up?"

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

Some people feel like they were born in the wrong century and should have been born when there were cowboys or knights or whatever.   Paul Krugman simply thinks he was born in the wrong decade and should have come along two decades earlier than he did, when money was free, the Great Society was just being funded and activism mattered. 
WikiLeaks boss walks out on CNN interview when reporter asks him about HIS private life

WikiLeaks boss walks out on CNN interview when reporter asks him about HIS private life

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his organization are famously liberal with the secrets of the U.S. military but he is not so forthcoming about his own private affairs.

Assange walked out of a CNN interview after the reporter asked him about his often terse relationship with fellow workers and the court case in which he was cleared of sex abuse charges in Sweden.
Be anti-evo and be miserable

Be anti-evo and be miserable

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

I get unsolicited mail:

ProEvo: Pro Evolution - Guideline for an Age of Joy


Being on a variety of evolution vs creationism mailing lists, I wasn't initially surprised to receive an apparently evolution-related book in the mail. I'd never heard this author, someone going by the name of Tomotom, so I flipped to the back cover to see what this thing was about.
And While We're On The Subject Of Kraken . . .

And While We're On The Subject Of Kraken . . .

Oct 25 2010 | comment(s)

The Museum of UnNatural History has a page about the Kraken, of course, a pleasant romp through the history of the mythological creature, but unfortunately it does its part to perpetrate a common misunderstanding about the giant squid: that this poor animal is actually capable of taking on a whale.
Though giant squids are considerably less then a mile and a half across, some are thought to be large enough to wrestle with a whale. On at least three occasions in the 1930's they reportedly attacked a ship. While the squids got the worst of these encounters when they slid into the ship's propellers, the fact that they attacked at all shows that it is possible for these creatures to mistake a vessel for a whale.
9 Foreign Rip-Offs Cooler Than The Hollywood Originals

9 Foreign Rip-Offs Cooler Than The Hollywood Originals

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

You think Batman's pretty cool, don't you?  Outside of America, they make Batman even cooler because he guns down bad guys and has sex with the ladies he rescues. 

Other countries have been working around the clock to improve our cultural icons in similar. From Cracked.com, here are 9 ripoffs that are better than the US originals, proving you can create something awesome no matter where you're from or how limited your budget is, as long as you don't give a shit about copyrights.

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Kraken: The Book

Kraken: The Book

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Wait. Which one?

Three, yes three, separate books with kraken in the title came out this year:

  1. China Mieville's Kraken, fiction of the New Weird literary movement. I understand it does legitimately contain a giant squid. Comes highly recommended by an English major friend of mine.

  2. HP Newquist's Here There Be Monsters: The Legendary Kraken and the Giant Squid, apparently a chronological account of giant squid in myth and science over the years. No personal recommendations one way or another.
Electron Scattering And The Proton Structure

Electron Scattering And The Proton Structure

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Week number one of my course on Subnuclear Gauge Physics is over. I think that in the first five hours of lesson I have given to my students a reasonable picture of the early experimental attempts and theoretical developments aimed at understanding the structure of atomic nuclei and individual nucleons with electron scattering. So I thought I might try and simplify the picture further, to reach a wider audience here. Of course, the topic is not terribly entertaining, unless one understands fully just how important these studies are for fundamental physics even nowadays -despite having started over 60 years back.
Really, Should You Go To The Bar? Game Theory's El Farol Problem (Answer)

Really, Should You Go To The Bar? Game Theory's El Farol Problem (Answer)

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Yesterday, I posted Game Theory's El Farol Bar problem, with a couple questions. (If you haven't read it yet, go back—the answer's no good without the puzzle.) And the truth is there's no answer, or more precisely, there's no pure strategy that works—if everyone decides to go, the bar's too crowded and it's no fun; if everyone decides to stay home, the bar will be empty and it would've been more fun to go.
Neuroimaging Love - Romance Is More Scientific Than You Think

Neuroimaging Love - Romance Is More Scientific Than You Think

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Do you fall in love using your heart or your brain?   It depends.    For your brain, says a new analysis by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue that won't discourage drug use, falling in love elicits the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine,  but it also affects intellectual areas of the brain.  That's a pretty big endorsement of the brain being number one in romance.
So if love is in the brain and not the heart, is there 'love at first sight' after all?   The science says yes, according to the researchers, who found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.
 
Treating Skin Cancer With Light

Treating Skin Cancer With Light

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Can skin cancer be treated with light? Scientists from the University of California, Irvine say they can treat skin cancer with light - the ability to image cancerous lesions using LEDs might advance a technique for treating cancer called photodynamic therapy (PDT).

In PDT, photosensitizing chemicals that absorb light are injected into a tumor, which is then exposed to light. The chemicals generate oxygen radicals from the light energy, destroying the cancer cells. PDT is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of esophageal and lung cancer.
Recursive Reasoning - People Are Inherently More Strategic Than Previously Believed

Recursive Reasoning - People Are Inherently More Strategic Than Previously Believed

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

Think you're no good at Chess?   Not a strategic thinker?   You're better at it than you may think.

When we make any decisions related to how we think someone else will act,  we must use reason to infer the other's next moves to decide what we must do. This recursive reasoning ability in humans has been thought to be somewhat limited but new research says people can engage in much higher levels of recursive reasoning than was previously thought. 
The Best Leaders Have A 'Dark Side' Also

The Best Leaders Have A 'Dark Side' Also

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

If an isolated question asks you if you are more inclined to vote for one politician who lies about limiting his campaign financing or one who agrees to use only matching public funds in the interests of campaign finance reform and sticks to it, who would you pick?  Obviously if political campaigns were limited to that one topic, the honest politician would win - but quality leadership incorporates 'negative' personality traits too and President Barack Obama was able to spend double the money on advertising of his opponent because he used that strategy wisely.
Not Just Humans - Bee Memory Fades With Age Also

Not Just Humans - Bee Memory Fades With Age Also

Oct 24 2010 | comment(s)

A new study says it isn't just human memories that fade - aging impacts the ability of honey bees to find their way home as well.

Bees are typically impressive navigators, able to wend their way home through complex landscapes after visits to flowers far removed from their nests, even after three to four days of flight time. Mature bees have piloted their way to and from the hive for five to 11 days and old bees have had more than two weeks of flight time but the paper says that aging impairs the bees' ability to extinguish the memory of an unsuitable nest site even after the colony has settled in a new home. 

This Week's Topic:

The Science of Baseball

Baseball Debate Solved - The Head-First Slide Is Quicker

Nothing says fun to physicists and mathematicians like baseball - it's the perfect sport for the...

Is Baseball Biased Toward Lefties?

Is baseball biased toward left-handed pitchers? Indeed it is, says David A. Peters, Ph.D., McDonnell...

Math Professor Makes Division Baseball Predictions - Erroneously Picks Pirates To Finish Last

New Jersey Institute of Technolgy math professor Bruce Bukiet is once again opining on outcomes...

Lower Pitcher's Mound Will Reduce Baseball Injuries - Study

In baseball's golden age, pitchers had a higher mound and threw more complete games but careers...

Baseball And Surgery: Pre-Injury Shoulder And Elbow Readiness Levels Difficult To Re-Attain

Only 45 percent of baseball players were able to return to the game at the same or higher level...

Statistically, The Best Baseball Team Won't Always Win

In order for the best baseball team to win, the National League would have to extend its season...

Anthropologists Examine Why People Don't Care About The Home Run Chase Of Barry Bonds

It seems almost certain that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds will pass Hank Aaron as baseball’s...

The Psychology Of Baseball

It’s the seventh game of the World Series — bottom of the ninth inning, your team is down 4...

Baseball Predictions The Science Way

The New York Mets should expect to win about 90 games in 2007 and the Yankees a whopping 110 games...

Modified Ligament Surgery Improves Outcomes For Baseball Pitchers, Other Athletes

In the largest study of its kind, surgeons at Hospital for Special Surgery have determined that...