Posts

May 06, 2013

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4:15 AM | Why Pundits Cling to Idiotic Theories About Obama’s Power

Political scientists and poli-sci minded journalists have recently upped the snark and condescension aimed those in the media who don’t understand that the president can’t make people do things they don’t want to do. (For good examples, see Ezra Klein, Jonathan Chait, and Brendan Nyhan.) The bottom line in all these pieces is that people [...]

May 05, 2013

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5:42 PM | How Does Political Ideology Influence Views On Accountability?

Accountability is all the rage these days, whether it’s with regard to schools, hospitals, government agencies, or the local Geico car insurance branch. But not all accountability is the same, and a thought-provoking new study led by Penn’s Philip Tetlock examines how political ideology and trust can influence support for various accountability systems. The study [...]

Tetlock, P., Vieider, F., Patil, S. & Grant, A. (2013). Accountability and ideology: When left looks right and right looks left, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 122 (1) 22-35. DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.03.007

Citation

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6:49 AM | The United Nations wants to hear from you.

The United Nations wants to hear from you.: I have just told them my priorities for creating a...

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12:46 AM | A Good Non-Stick Pan

Everyone needs a good non-stick pan, but what kind? Cast iron can develop a nice season and be a good non-stick surface, but establishing and maintaining that seasoned cast iron can take a little work. Classic teflon is great, but is prone to scratching, can be destroyed by overheating, and the perfluorinated monomers/oligomers that can [...]

May 04, 2013

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6:19 PM | Everything in a giffy From quarks to the universe, all condensed...

Everything in a giffy From quarks to the universe, all condensed to a single gif. It’s a rough idea of things, and not meant to be a real depiction.

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6:56 AM | The Next Black King of the Kentucky Derby – Kevin Krigger

I am really missing the States right now. Today marks the most exciting sport event in my book, the 139th Run for the Roses, the most exciting 2 minutes in Sports: The Kentucky Derby! I can’t even watch it on TV. (Pole sana for me.) But I was scanning my Twitter feed and discovered that [...]

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2:38 AM | "True education means fostering the ability to be interested in something."

“True education means fostering the ability to be interested in something.” - Sumio...

May 03, 2013

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4:40 PM | Iron Man 3 Out Today--Highlight the Science

Thanks to the resounding support from members of the community who trust, use, and rely on Science Buddies for their projects, classroom, and family science activities, we collected a phenomenal number of views in 24 hours--all in the name of K-12 science literacy.

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3:17 PM | Access All Areas: Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research

Lunch in the physics common room at the University of Surrey was a little bit quieter than normal today. Perhaps some of my colleagues were just out enjoying the sunny weather in Guilford, but at least some of them were not here because they are spending the day at a physics lab called GSI in [...]The post Access All Areas: Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research appeared first on physicsfocus.org.

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2:55 PM | Do viruses require the cytoskeleton?

Maybe not.The post Do viruses require the cytoskeleton? appeared first on MicrobiologyBytes.

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1:05 PM | Scientists’ Support for Kiera Wilmot #Solidarity4Wilmot

Here’s what we now know. Kiera Wilmot was re-creating the Drano Aluminum foil experiment at school. She was outside, before the morning bell. She recreated one of those Wow! Science experiments, the kind we see on Myth Busters or You’ve Been Warned! Folks love those shows. They love doing that crazy stuff at home (although [...]

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12:44 PM | Hydrogen

So, we've all heard of hydrogen. First element on the periodic table. Simplest atom with one electron orbiting one proton. Logical symbol of "H" for the element. I do have some vague memory (well, I only remember it because I spilled acid all over my hands - there's a reason I'm not a chemist) of making hydrogen gas in chemistry lab in college by pouring sulfuric acid on metallic zinc (H2SO4 + Zn => ZnSO4 + H2) but I never thought much about the name.Anyway, […]

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6:07 AM | What emoticons reveal about the human brain

Grammar Nazis scoff at it, while others it almost compulsively. Emoticons are the newfangled way of...

May 02, 2013

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3:30 PM | Weekly Science Project Idea/Home Science Activity Spotlight: Crystal Chemistry

School and family science weekly spotlight: grow crystals at home and explore the chemistry behind the big ones!

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3:10 PM | Measles, MMR and the Media

“Scholars have argued that in risk communication a dilemma exists between the media functions of informing the media audience about rational risk behavior, and providing an arena for public deliberation about risk. Optimizing the information function would suggest that media provide clear, unanimous advice without creating confusion by reporting uncertainty and controversy. Optimizing the deliberative [...]The post Measles, MMR and the Media appeared first on MicrobiologyBytes.

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1:54 PM | Solar fuels and artificial photosynthesis diagrams added!

A set of diagrams describing solar fuels and artificial synthesis has now been added to Learn Chemistry. These diagrams were part of a policy report, Solar Fuels and Artificial Photosynthesis: Science and innovation to change our future energy options, produced by the RSC Science team and released at the 1st UK Solar to Fuels Symposium, held in London in January 2012. The release of the report marked the beginning of the RSC's programme of activities to raise awareness of the environmental […]

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12:28 PM | Quantum biology comes of age

Fifteen years ago, a colleague of mine in the Molecular Biology Department at Surrey by the name of Johnjoe McFadden was brave enough to give a seminar on quantum mechanics to my Physics Department. He wanted to toss around an idea, which he proposed could explain a phenomenon known to take place in E. coli [...]The post Quantum biology comes of age appeared first on physicsfocus.org.

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12:00 PM | Teachable Moments In Science: Kiera Wilmot

Photo via WikiMediaScience is fun! Part of the fun is failing, failing again, and pushing a hypothesis forward or rejecting it based off of evidence. This involves a ton of mistakes - some of which are more dangerous than others. We need to learn how to turn reasonable mistakes into teachable moments.16 year old Kiera Wilmot of Bartow High School mixed toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil on school grounds without supervision, resulting in a small non-harmful explosion. She was […]

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4:01 AM | Infographic 3

This is exactly the kind of infographic this world needs more of. Totally worth checking out in detail – and sharing with your friends! ——————————– ——————————– Thanks to visual.ly for this awesome infographic all about science (and for a easy blogging week for me ). Also, thanks to the Santa Catalina School and Flickr’s Creative Commons for this lovely […]

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4:01 AM | The “Bradley effect” Is Alive and Well For SSM Polling

New research from the University of Maine’s Richard Powell: Prior public opinion research has identified a wide range of circumstances in which polling results may be tainted by social desirability bias. In races pitting a Black candidate against White opponents, this has often been referred to as the “Bradley effect” (aka “Wilder effect” or “Dinkins [...]

May 01, 2013

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6:25 PM | Citizen Science at the Phillies game!

Citizen Science at the Phillies! On April 25, 2013, Project MERCCURI team members were joined by Philly volunteers to help engage hundreds of Phillies fans in our citizen science project to compare microbes on Earth to microbes in space. This event was part of the Philadelphia Science Festival. Thanks, Philly!! Learn how to get involved in Project MERCCURI here.

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6:08 PM | Florida teen charged with felony for trying science

News of Kiera Wilmot’s arrest has seriously unnerved me. She is the Florida high school student who was experimenting with common household chemicals in science class that resulted in a minor explosion. There were no injuries and no damage to school property; however, she was taken away in handcuffs, formally arrested and expulled from school. [...]

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3:08 PM | World’s Smallest Stop Motion Movie Made with Atoms!

This darling stop motion video was released yesterday and is already a big hit. IBM decided to take the challenge of moving 5,000 atoms around in order to create a short stop motion video, capturing the images using a scanning tunneling microscope. How important is the scanning tunneling microscope in science? Half of the 1986 [...]

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2:53 PM | Plant viruses as gene delivery vehicles

Getting RNA into cells is a major barrier to future theraputic approaches, so robust systems are urgently needed.The post Plant viruses as gene delivery vehicles appeared first on MicrobiologyBytes.

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1:00 PM | Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists

The following excerpt from Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists (TED Books, 2013) by Ainissa Ramirez—a science evangelist, material scientist and one of Scientific American’s Google Science Fair judges—has been reproduced with permission from TED Books. The artist Pablo Picasso once said that all children are born artists and that [...]

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5:31 AM | Last In, First Out: When A Policy’s Shortcoming Is Its Strength

I’ve been making my way through Richard Kahlenberg’s biography of Albert Shanker, and one of the recurring themes that jumps out at me is the way long-lasting policies can emerge from the confluence of short-lived circumstances. Previously I wrote about this kind of “policy stickiness” in the context of higher salaries for teachers with Master’s degrees, [...]

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3:28 AM | Jetpack Rocket Science – With Derek Muller

The fantastic Derek Muller (aka Veritasium) has a fantastic new video about the physics behind jetpack rocket science. Newton’s third law tells us that this should be fairly simple, but is it simple to demonstrate? You’ll have to watch to find out!

April 30, 2013

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9:44 PM | Kids Need Sleep

From a new paper in the Journal of School Health: We used data from the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Logistic regression analyses evaluated the association between insufficient sleep and school violence behaviors, controlling for demographic factors. In addition to examining main effects, interaction terms were entered into the models to examine whether [...]

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9:41 PM | There Is No Hypothetical “Other” Common Core

Over the last few months there’s been an uptick in critiques of the Common Core. Some are legitimate (implementation!), some are asinine (indoctrination!), and some fall somewhere in between. One complaint that slots into the third category is that the Common Core simply isn’t the right collection of standards and curricular guidelines for getting the [...]

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6:00 PM | Radiometric Dating: Playing Half-life Odds

Roll the dice in a fun hands-on simulation of an isotope's decay to better understand the way scientists date mind-boggling old matter. A Winning Math and Geology Combo! Students will need a 100 'marked' dice (a piece of tape on...