Explaining risk: Know your Aristotle

post from Top stories on 08 August 2012 10:04:10 PM. © Top stories

I was shocked to discover recently that a professor colleague had not grasped the difference between absolute and relative risk. He was excited by an intervention that reduced the risk of a primary outcome by 50%.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/explaining-risk-know-your-aristotle

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New clues about dark energy and dark matter

post from Top stories on 08 August 2012 09:56:53 PM. © Top stories

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Astronomers have constructed the largest-ever three-dimensional map of massive galaxies and distant black holes, which will help the investigation of the mysterious ?dark matter? and ?dark energy? that make up 96 percent of the universe.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/new-clues-about-dark-energy-and-dark-matter

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Physics and math shed new light on biology

post from Top stories on 08 August 2012 09:53:08 PM. © Top stories

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Although the qualitative description of evolution ? its observed behavior and characteristics ? is well-established, a comprehensive quantitative theory that captures general evolution dynamics is still lacking.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/physics-and-math-shed-new-light-biology

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Why do older adults display more positive emotion

post from Top stories on 08 August 2012 09:11:48 PM. © Top stories

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Research has shown that older adults display more positive emotions and are quicker to regulate out of negative emotional states than younger adults.

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http://machineslikeus.com/news/why-do-older-adults-display-more-positive-emotion

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Space Apps Company Seeking Crowd Funds For Space
Exploration, Research, and Education

post from Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News on 08 August 2012 07:16:43 PM. © Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

Boulder, CO (SPX) Aug 08, 2012
Uwingu LLC, a space-themed, for profit start up, is seeking crowd-sourced funding to launch an ongoing series of public engagement projects. Uwingu's mission is to use proceeds from those projects to generate funding for space exploration, research, and education efforts around the world. Uwingu's crowd funding agent is IndieGoGo, a leader in the field. Uwingu (which means "sky" in Swahi

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http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Space_Apps_Company_Seeking_Crowd_Funds_To_Lau
nch_Aims_to_Further_Space_Exploration_Research_and_Education_999.html

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New US website lets 'crowd' fund college grad
startups

post from Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News on 08 August 2012 07:16:43 PM. © Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

San Francisco (AFP) Aug 8, 2012
A former Google executive on Wednesday opened an online venue where college graduates with dreams of starting companies can be matched with investors and mentors. Recent and soon-to-be graduates are invited to pitch entrepreneurial ideas at Upstart.com, which one-time Google Enterprise president Dave Girouard created as way for young people to launch businesses with "crowd funding." "Thr

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http://www.space-travel.com/reports/New_US_website_lets_crowd_fund_college_grad_s
tartups_999.html

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NCBI ROFL: Rating of personality disorder
features in popular movie characters.

post from Discoblog » NCBI ROFL on 08 August 2012 07:00:32 PM. © Discoblog » NCBI ROFL

“BACKGROUND:
Tools for training professionals in rating personality disorders are few. We present one such tool: rating of fictional persons. However, before ratings of fictional persons can be useful, we need to know whether raters get the same results, when rating fictional characters.
METHOD:
Psychology students at the University of Copenhagen (N = rated four different movie characters from four movies based on three systems: Global rating scales representing each of the 10 personality disorders in the DSM-IV, a criterion list of all criteria for all DSM-IV personality disorders in random order, and the Ten Item Personality Inventory for rating the five-factor model. Agreement was estimated based on intraclass-correlation.
RESULTS:
Agreement for rating scales for personality disorders ranged from 0.04 to 0.54. For personality disorder features based on DSM-IV criteria, agreement ranged from 0.24 to 0.89, and agreement for the five-factor model ranged from 0.05 to 0.88. The largest multivariate effect was observed for criteria count followed by the TIPI, followed by rating scales. Raters experienced personality disorder criteria as the easiest, and global personality disorder scales as the most difficult, but with significant variation ...

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Science Jokes at Comic-Con 2012

Jokes about the law of cosines and integrals may not be everyone?s cup of tea. However if you?re the kind of person who finds the zeroth law of thermodynamic hilarious (I know I do) then there are comic strips out there for you. I?m always surprised how many science jokesters there are out there.

This year at Comic-Con International I got the chance to talk to two people who find the humor in Heisenberg?s uncertainty principle, poke fun at photonics and laugh at logarithms.

Bill Amend started drawing Foxtrot in 1988 and has worked in nerdy science punch lines throughout the strip. He majored in physics while at Amherst College then switched to cartooning full time after he graduated.

Image from GoComics.com
My favorite fun fact about him; he claims he was briefly president of his high school?s math club until his impeachment, but doesn?t say why. My theory is he tried to divide by zero.

Jorge Cham graduated with a degree in robotics from Stanford University, and is the creator of the definitive comic about life as a grad student PhD Comics (short for Piled Higher and Deeper). It?s an often untold story, full of sleepless nights, overly demanding professors, research papers and the occasional sleep deprived zombie. Sounds like comedic gold to me.

Image from PhDcomics.com
Cham has also started producing videos about some of the mysterious forces of science like dark matter and the Higgs boson. He also just debuted a science travel show called PdDetours where he and his team visit labs around the country. First stop, NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to get the inside scoop on the rover Curiosity that just landed on Mars. Keep an eye out, because I think he?s got one about Comic-Con coming up too!

Listen to this week?s PhysicsBuzz Podcast to hear interviews with Amend and Cham.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/physicscentral/PhysicsBuzz/~3/tBiasVG3_bI/science-
jokes-at-comic-con-2012.html

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Global Warming - Can We Agree on Something

Our last post generated more than a hundred comments. It is clear the subject is high on the emotional scale. Unfortunately, we have two polarized groups that are intent on looking for further "proof" their position is right.Yesterday's WSJ had an Opinion page post titled A New Climate-Change

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20756/Global-Warming-Can-We-Agree-on-Somethin
g?from_rss=1

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Video of Curiosity saying bye bye to its heat
shield

As the rover Curiosity descended to the surface of Mars, the heat shield that protected it from the heat of atmospheric entry was ejected while still high above the rusty plains. Cameras pointed downward captured images of the heat shield as it fell[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BadAstronomyBlog/~3/WuYlk7s1GlE/

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