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12 reasons why there is something
Why is there something rather than nothing? Pick your favorite reason among Michael Shermer's picks in Nothing is Negligible: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing. In the meantime, while...
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Poincaré, Einstein and Picasso: children of time
posted by @ulaulaman about #cubism #PabloPicasso #AlbertEinstein #HenriPoincaré #mathematics #art #relativity A great thanks to Marco Fulvio Barozzi: his post(1) about Miller's book is the main...
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And a possible NSERC proposal
If we decide to follow the CIHR proposal outline I've made in the previous post, we'll probably do a separate proposal to NSERC on the role of uptake sequences in the mechanism of DNA uptake. I was...
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Gas-guzzling paint
I have an article published in The Economist's Babbage blog. Here's the blurb: Armies need to be prepared for the threat of chemical weapons. Part of that preparation means being able to decontaminate...
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Handheld chemistry
There was a time when chemists regularly reported the taste of newly synthesized compounds as well as other physical data (density, color, etc.). There was also a time when chemistry kits suggested...
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How We Changed Penguins Just by Watching
If a penguin falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, I don't know what kind of forest that is—but everyone who's interested in penguins is probably hanging out a lot closer to the South...
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Are proteins wet and gooey?
To me this protein image looks wet and gooey. Initially I found that disconcerting, because I'm used to the dry solid appearance of the more standard visualizations. But now I think that 'wet and...
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Pluot?
Pluot? Wasn't that formerly a planet? Actually it's plum-like fruit that is a back-cross hybrid between a plum-apricot hybrid and a plum, all part of the genus Prunus. In general they are most like...
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Why do thoughts of death make people more religious?
Are there atheists in foxholes? It's another fascinating topic that has seen quite a lot of development over recent years. The study that kicked it all off was one by Ara Norenzayan and Ian Hansen, at...
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The conduct of science
I have an article published in The Economist's Babbage blog. Here's the blurb: Most scientific research is about incremental improvements to existing theories. Every so often, though, an anomaly...
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Publishing on preprint servers... do you do it?
In following up the arsenic in DNA story for The Economist, Rosie Redfield has brought some interesting issues to light. Dr Redfield, who blogs on this network, has recently published a paper in...
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Red Dwarfs
A version of this was written as a guest post for an artist friend's blog.If you see a colored compound in chemistry, you can almost bet that it will contain a transition metal. Though we think of...
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Friday Fabulous Flower - Waterlily
With so many summer flowers withering in the heat and drought, it stands to reason that the only flowers that are looking good are aquatics. Our waterlilies are just cultivars of Nympaea odorata,...
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ALife 13 at Michigan State
The 13th conference on Artificial Life is going on right now at Michigan State University. Follow tweets at #alife13, and see program here. Being hosted by BEACON, it's got lots of evolution in action.
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Detecting fraud
Uri Simonsohn has now posted a working paper describing how he detected those two recent cases of data fraud. Should my other writing projects progress fast enough, I'll write about it soon. I'll also...
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Making up your data
Having finished reading the Simonsohn paper on detecting fraud, I have come to two conclusions: 1. Making up high-quality data is really hard. Part of the problem with making up data is that you have...
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Hot summer garden pointers
Here's a few pointers for gardeners suffering through a hot, dry summer. 1. Do not water lawns. Grasses naturally go dormant in hot, dry weather, so don't go against nature. 2. Plant okra. This isn't...
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Anti-vaccination propagandists help create the worst whooping cough epidemic...
The great northwest of the U.S. is known for its natural beauty. It's also a high-tech region with a highly educated public - not exactly the kind of place one would expect to fall for the...
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The Stoneflies: Old or New?
Little snowfly Capnia nana, from here. Despite being a working entomologist, I have to confess that there are some insect groups with which I am not entirely familiar. The stoneflies, Plecoptera, are...
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