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Space Census Finds Extra Penguins, Poop
Playing what might have been the world's most tedious game of Where's Waldo?, scientists used photos taken from space to count all the emperor penguins in Antarctica. They found more than a hundred...
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On Freeman Dyson, cadmium estimation and the joy of chemistry
Freeman Dyson who is a hero of mine is someone who has done lots of interesting things during a long and fruitful life. If you look at his writings or talks it is easy to mistake him as a philosopher...
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It never rains on field trips - sure
In a quite unusual break from field work, gardening, and taxes, the Phactors are off to St. Louis for some botanical doings, and the plan is to work in a walk through the Missouri Botanical Garden,...
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A notice from Zoominfo
Hello Connor, ZoomInfo is the world's most comprehensive directory of business information on people and companies. As part of our commitment to your privacy and your ability to control online...
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Gravity vs height
(powered by scilab) Source code: G = 6.67428 * 10^(-11); R = 12745594/2; M = 5.9742 * 10^(24); function g = myg (x) g = G*M/(R+x)^2 endfunction xdata=linspace(0,2*R,5000); plot(xdata,myg) eps =...
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It never rains on field trips
The drive to St. Louis was pretty wet; it rained the whole way and hard at times. The traffic going into St. Louis was terrible as usual just crawling along the last few miles to cross the Mississippi...
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Outer Space
Perhaps at first the images seem like the brush strokes of artist infatuated with geometry and abstract forms. Then precise patterns becomes unmistakable and you envision the path the spacecraft traced...
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Of all the crazy.....Editor's edition
I serve as an editor for several scientific journals. Basically I assess submitted manuscripts at a general level to see if the work is appropriate for the journal. I also make sure the work appears...
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Tax Day - My wife is back and decompressing
Well, the Phactors have survived another tax season, physically, financially, and psychologically. Today has been a long day, for both of us, and we still have a couple of hours to go because the late...
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How fear and anxiety leads to more religion - a presentation
On Saturday I gave a presentation in Bournemouth to the Dorset Humanists, on the topic 'Fear and God'. In the talk I review many of the studies I've covered on this blog, looking at how and why fear...
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The Corotocini in their Gut-Swollen Glory
Specimen of Thyreoxenus brevitibialis, photographed by Taro Eldredge. Staphylinids are one of the most diverse groups of beetles out there, despite not looking like what most people would identify as...
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Human Dung Wins Interspecies Taste Test
A panel of experts in Nebraska has declared human dung more appealing than that of several other species. These experts didn't so much announce their decision as fall headfirst into baited poop traps...
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How does epigenetics shape life?
Identical twins, despite being biologically identical at birth, grow up to become unique individuals. Sure they may have a lot more things in common than two randomly picked individuals, yet there are...
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In which I am elsewhere
Today I am featured on the ace Any Other Woman, writing about the pill and how it works. Clare, Aisling and Anna have built a truly wonderful community of intelligent, smart, funny and brilliant women...
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Naturally naturalized bulb
In the far dim wilderness recesses of our gardens, our property abuts properties on both the east and west in places where no human foot has tread for decades. The Phactor has been thinking of...
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Homeopathy Awareness Week
And of what should you be aware? Well, homeopathy has no scientific basis what so ever and is nothing more than magic water and magical thinking (look up placebo effect). However, here's another...
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A citation against citations
In the latest issue of Angewandte Chemie, Stanford chemistry professor Richard Zare has some cogent words of advice for assessing young faculty members when they are up for tenure. Zare has written the...
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Final checks on a surprising competence gene (Whew!)
We now have almost all the data in place for our paper about the roles of all the genes in Haemophilus influenzae's competence regulon. We (really the RA) created deletion mutations of all the 26...
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The Psychologist on Replication
The Psychologist solicited opinions on the importance of replication from a number of researchers, including yours truly. See a preview here.
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Latest on our #arseniclife manuscript
Here's an update on the status of our #arseniclife manuscript. We originally submitted our manuscript to Science at the end of January, and posted a copy of it on the arXiv server, asking for...
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