Christian conservatives are capitalizing on a Supreme Court decision that allows them to use public schools to evangelize children and even to establish churches in school buildings.
xkcd is a nerdy Internet daily cartoon that is written and drawn by a former NASA "roboticist". The subject matter is all over the map [yesterday's (11/4/14) is about TypographicChemistry], but tends to favor physics and computing. He encourages readers of the cartoon strip to send him outrageous questions, and he supplies outrageous but scientifically accurate responses. Some of the best of these have be come a surprising NYT Best Seller.
Tyrone Hayes is a flamboyant, very public scientist who has been campaigning against the herbicide Atrazine for years. The battle between him and Syngenta is pitched and nasty.
Insomnia drugs like Ambien are notorious for their side effects. Has Merck created a blockbuster replacement?
Simon Singh uses mathematical tidbits planted by the nerds and geeks who write The Simpsons to lead the reader on an excursion through some amazing mathematics. The book will appeal to the kind of person who might read JCE, and others with some mathematical background and interest.
A moon-walker is suffering from visions. His proposed human-centered space exploration scheme would divert resources to adventure from science.
One of the pioneers in digital media and networks is disquieted by the dominance of the digital landscape by a few Siren Servers, who capitalized not on their superior products or expertise, but solely on their ability to extract a profit from each of the bits that make up Big Data. He thinks we all should be paid for our contributions, or at least the system be changed so as to provide incentives real contributions.
One could argue that the technological triumphs embodied in our robotic explorations of Mars far exceed those that put men on the moon. Missing, however, is the drama of putting human life at risk, and the ease with which our imagination can put us in the shoes of the explorer. That is not to say that there is not a human element.
All academics are encouraged to become reviewers to keep abreast of new developments in their field, to help shape the direction of their discipline, and as their scholarly responsibility. The article has many more details and is worth a quick look.
What is this? Art? Humor? Sports? Math? – or all of the above? With baseball season starting, I found it irresistible to recommend “Flip Flop Fly Ball”, which reminds me in some ways of the beautiful series of graphical exemplar books by Edward Tufte, and in others of Michael Lewis’ MoneyBall (the book, more than the movie, although the movie was ok).
