Science & Society

Of Trees, Fighter Jets, And The Mysteries Of Science Funding

By the time Dr. Maciej Zwieniecki returned to the blackboard, I’d gotten sufficiently lost in the intricacies of fluid dynamics that I wasn’t sure how much more I could absorb from his lecture on vertical water transport in trees.  Still, I could objective ...

Article - Holly Moeller - Dec 3 2011 - 1:11pm

Where Am I?

I looked at my watch after the English gentleman walked away. The half hour discussion had begun with my question, “Excuse me sir, could you please tell me about places to see in this town?” I had to stop this person and ask him because unlike anyone else ...

Blog Post - Animesh Chatterjee - Dec 5 2011 - 10:09pm

Blue, Green, And The Color Of Corporate Personhood

Let me begin by saying that I bleed blue. Not Yankee blue or horseshoe crab copper — IBM Blue. I was raised on a corporate paycheck and through all the years my mother worked for the computing giant (and the months I spent in sales internships with them) I ...

Article - Holly Moeller - Dec 9 2011 - 12:30am

Bloggers Are A Little Less Under The Constitution?

Bad news for bloggers; the courts love to protect journalists, even those shysters who use 'anonymous' sources that have directly led to the rash of modern journalists inventing even Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that were made from whole cloth- ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 8 2011 - 11:55am

Evolution Is Like Porn In Turkey? A Christmas Story

Think Christmas has gotten way too secular?  Turkey may be the place you want to move because they make sure kids stick with religion, though the 2.2% who are not Muslim will be tough to find so your Christmas dinner might be poorly attended.  Knowing how ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 16 2011 - 4:14pm

Benefits Of New EPA Rules Greatly Outweigh Costs, If You Use Pretend Money

What is a paltry $195 billion in real cost versus $1 trillion in potential savings? Fans of 'jobs created or saved' fuzzy economics will love a report by the Joint Center For Political and Economic Studies, which says that six new Environmental P ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Dec 22 2011 - 1:16pm

A Top 10 Science Stories Of 2011 List

Los Alamos National Laboratory's top 10 science stories of 2011 include alternative energy research, world record magnetic fields, disease tracking, the study of Mars, climate change, fuel cells, solar wind, and magnetic reconnection.  Mars Habitabil ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 23 2011 - 11:03am

Partisanship, Simplicity-Seeking, And Maladaptation

“Malicious,” “diatribe,” and “preposterous” are words recently thrown at me. (How remarkable that I lived nearly 60 years before drawing this kind of vitriol. Maybe I haven’t been assertive enough!) When a scientific question has political implications, pe ...

Article - Fred Phillips - Dec 27 2011 - 6:44pm

10 Key Science Events Of 2011

The previous year has forced us to confront difficult science questions: Was processing patents Einstein’s real strength? Are there any other planets out there like Earth? Why is the universe composed of matter instead of antimatter? 2011 had a bumper cro ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 30 2011 - 6:31pm

What does one mean by equality?

One nice features of Science 2.0 is the way it links to Science Codex and Real Clear Science.  The latter of these sometimes directs me to a journal called The Atlantic, in which I read What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success The S ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Dec 31 2011 - 12:20pm