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Holiday season retrospective
Quite a few holiday posts have accumulated over the past couple of years, and like watching the miracle on 42nd street for the 42nd time, why not do a bit of a retrospective?There was a time when the...
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Political retirement in Lincolnland
The most recent former governor of Lincolnland, Rob Bag-o-chips has been retired to a federal pen for the next 12 years (85% of a 14 year sentence) making him the 4th of the last 7 to end up in the...
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Why Good Time Estimators Are Better at Math
Since most of us were never called on in class to answer a tough time-estimation question, or quizzed on the lengths of tones in milliseconds, we don't have a good grasp of our skill in this area....
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Friday Fabulous Flower - King's Mantle
Today seems like the first of winter; up to now it's definitely been fall. So nothing else to do but go on safari to our glasshouse for a dose of tropics. While you typically think of tropical plants...
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Rats with tails - squirrels
Although the dozen or so fox squirrels that inhabit the Phactors' estate are big, handsome, fat critters, they are terribly destructive, greedy sods, chewing on everything (bonsai trees!), digging...
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Who gives a fig?
Rachael Roscata asks: "So not to go on a tangent and cause a billion questions beginning with "Well what about...", but what about a fig? Is it a fruit?"Well, the Phactor doesn't have to go out on a...
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The Social Season
The social season has descended upon us, and this isn't to complain because there are worse things to do than hanging out with friends and acquaintances, eating and drinking and talking. Last night was...
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Moderate believers might benefit from less, not more religion
I always enjoy analyses of religion done by people whose main research focus lies in other fields. They tend to have quite a refreshing take. So here's a study written by three outsiders. You probably...
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Archaeologists vs. Paleontologists
The following blurb is from http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Archaeologist#Archaeologists_VS_Paleontologists The rivalry between archaeologists and paleontologists has been around ever since Hanna...
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Real vs. fake science: How can you tell them apart?
Yesterday, I posted at Double X Science a checklist of 10 questions anyone should ask themselves when assessing a claim that purports to have a scientific basis. It starts like this: Pseudoscience is...
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The State of Peridinium
As I've said on many an occasion before, dinoflagellates are complicated. Obscenely complicated. So when my search for a random post topic brought up the dinoflagellate genus Peridinium, I approached...
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The First Quantum Computer
In a nondescript office park outside Vancouver with views of snow capped mountains in the distance is a mirrored business park where very special work is being done. The company is D-Wave, the quantum...
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Dear Santa
Mostly the Phactor has been good, and if not good, at least legal, and if not legal at least discrete. So the Top 100 Exotic Food Plants would make a great present. After all the Phactor already has...
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Problems with My Citations
Google Scholar Citations is not quite working the way I had expected. Apparently I am the author of a 1935 paper on Field of Science in the journal Women. I wish.Title: Field of ScienceAuthors: Bjørn...
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Lessons from Kobe on Life's 3-Pointers
You might expect NBA players to know when and where to take their shots. They get paid millions of dollars a year to work out, avoid hitting their heads on door frames, and put the ball in the basket....
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Bad landscaping
Once you've grown enough trees and shrubs, and cut down enough overgrown landscaping, you can see the future problems with new landscaping. Take a look at this bed featured as part of a HGTV dream...
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On reproducibility in modeling
A recent issue of Science has an article discussing an issue that has been a constant headache for anyone involved with any kind of modeling in drug discovery - the lack of reproducibility in...
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Origin of Species Book Club
Ok, back on the 150th anniversary of the publication The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, I wanted to read The Origin of Species and blog about it at the same time. Too many distractions came up,...
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Higgs day
I've just write on my italian blog that: There will be no dramatic announcement, but only new and more stringent limits on the Higgs mass(1) and the conclusion of the today Higgs' event confirms that...
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Higgs Boson is not quite what was expected
The Phytophactor does not want to be left out of the excitement whirling around about the imminent arrival of data supporting the existence of the infamous Higgs Boson. Now this is quite out of the...
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