Missing Evidence

post from Gravity Control Idealism on 14 July 2006 07:32:00 PM. © Gravity Control Idealism

When the first lunar samples were returned to Earth a battery of tests were conducted to determine if the material represented a threat to our terrestrial ecology.As it turned out, the lunar material did not carry any extraterrestrial baggage in the form of bacteria and or virus, but some of the tests indicated that the lunar material produced some very peculiar effects.In 71 I received a

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Dietary stress

post from Sciencebase Science Blog on 14 July 2006 07:00:00 PM. © Sciencebase Science Blog

“Diet is an important part of healthy living,” Jeremy Nicholson of Imperial College revealed to SpectroscopyNOW, “it is just some things that are supposed to relieve stress - and widely touted by healthfood companies as being good for you - do not metabolically ameliorate the effects of even very minor experimental stress.” He and his [...]

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China Builds a Better Internet

post from Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog on 14 July 2006 06:36:00 PM. © Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog

China Builds a Better InternetChina is looking to become a scientific leader, with projects like China’s Next Generation Internet, to strengthen their economy by creatingits own scientific and technological breakthroughs?using a new and improved version of today’s dominant innovation platform, the Internet. “CNGI is the culmination of this revolutionary plan” to turn China into the [...]

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Monkey what

post from Pharyngula on 14 July 2006 05:49:12 PM. © Pharyngula

Monkey what?

The Apostropher is committing blasphemy, heresy, and sacrilege with this surreal "Monkey Jesus" abomination. I must respond in kind with…Dr Monkey.

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World's First Handheld Electronic Reader

post from Science Blog - on 14 July 2006 04:40:55 PM. © Science Blog -

The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has unveiled a groundbreaking new device, the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader. The portable Reader, developed by the National Federation of the Blind and renowned inventor Ray Kurzweil, enables users to take pictures of and read most printed materials at the click of a button. Users merely hold "the camera that talks" over print-a letter, bills, a restaurant menu, an airline ticket, a business card, or an office memo-and in seconds they hear the contents of the printed document played back in clear synthetic speech. Combining a state-of-the-art digital camera with a powerful personal data assistant, the Reader puts the best available character-recognition software together with text-to-speech conversion technology-all in a single handheld device.

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Hold the presses: Evolution confirmed!

post from The Island of Doubt on 14 July 2006 04:15:43 PM. © The Island of Doubt

Anyone want to take a run at anticipating the reaction from creationists to the news that "Finches on Galapagos Islands [are] Evolving" (Associated Press, July 14)? I'm thinking they will latch onto the story's first paragraph, which ever so slightly introduces a microscopic degree of uncertainty into the most powerful unifying principle in biology.

I don't fault reporter Randolph E. Schmid or his editors. They're writing for the general public, so it makes sense to lead off a story on evolution thusly:

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Giving robots perception

post from Science Blog - on 14 July 2006 04:15:13 PM. © Science Blog -

We are sitting in a soccer stadium and discover our neighbor sitting in the 10th row. We recognize him with no difficulty at all, even though he is wearing sunglasses and a cap in his club colors. Complex recognition processes like this work because the brain, sensory organs and nerve pathways are able to pick up stimuli and process them. The ability to classify things (categorization) appears to be a fundamental characteristic of human intelligence, and one that gives robots a real "headache". In situations in which a robot has no access to knowledge of a pre-defined environment, and pre-programmed control is therefore not possible, the robot will tend to fail miserably in its task. But it is precisely autonomous robots capable of acting in response to a given situation that could be of great use to humans.

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Mercury atomic clock keeps time with record
accuracy

post from Science Blog - on 14 July 2006 04:12:38 PM. © Science Blog -

An experimental atomic clock based on a single mercury atom is now at least five times more precise than the national standard clock based on a "fountain" of cesium atoms, according to a paper by physicists at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the July 14 issue of Physical Review Letters.

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Unofficial "Ask a ScienceBlogger": Childrens
Books (UPDATED)

Over at fellow SBer {Worlds Fair][worldsfair}, they've put up an unofficial "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question, about childrens books:

Are there any children's books that are dear to you, either as a child or a parent, and especially ones that perhaps strike a chord with those from a science sensibility? Just curious really. And it doesn't have to be a picture book, doesn't even have to be a children's book - just a book that, for whatever reason, worked for you.

I've got two kids, a girl who's almost six, and a boy who's three. And they're both showing serious signs of being pre-geeks. Whenever we go to a new place, the first thing they do is head for the bookshelves to see if there are any books they haven't seen yet. My daughter's school had a book fair last year, and we ended up spending a little over $100 on books for a kindergartener, and another $30 or so for the (then) 2yo. So obviously, I end up spending a lot of time reading childrens books!

There are a few books that really stand out in my mind as being special:

"Giraffes Can't Dance", by Giles Andreae, illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees. This isn't a science book at all, but it's simply one of the most wonderful children's book I've seen. The story is wonderful, the rhythm and the rhyme structure are fantastic, and the art is bright and beautiful in a cartoonish sort of way.
"Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story", by Lisa Westberg Peters, illustrated by Lauren Stringer. We bought this one for my daughter last december, after PZ recommended it on his blog. It's a beautiful book - great art, and it's actually really compelling for a child. Most kids science books have a kind of dull style to the writing; my daughter will generally want to read them once or twice, but once she understands what's in them, she doesn't want to read them again. But this one, she's either read it or had it read to her at least fifty different times.
"Rumble in the Jungle, Commotion in the Ocean, et al", by Giles Andreae, illustrated by David Wojtowycz. We started getting this series when my daughter was threeish, because it's by the same author as "Giraffes", and liked it so much that we have continued to get it for my son. Each book is about some environment and the animals that live in it. Each animal gets a little rhyme and a picture. The art is bright and colorful, and the rhymes are clever and very amusing to the kids.

UPDATE: I realized that I forgot one of my favorite books from my childhood: "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss. In general, I'm not actually a huge Dr. Seuss fan: so many of his books are just rhyming nonsense. But the Lorax was one of my favorite books as a child; it turned me into a mini-environmentalist at the age of four. My son doesn't quite get the book yet; my daughter definitely does. No list of science-ish kids books would be complete without it.

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Unofficial "Ask a ScienceBlogger": Childrens
Books

Over at fellow SBer {Worlds Fair][worldsfair}, they've put up an unofficial "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question, about childrens books:

Are there any children's books that are dear to you, either as a child or a parent, and especially ones that perhaps strike a chord with those from a science sensibility? Just curious really. And it doesn't have to be a picture book, doesn't even have to be a children's book - just a book that, for whatever reason, worked for you.

There are a few books that really stand out in my mind as being special:

"Giraffes Can't Dance", by Giles Andreae, illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees. This isn't a science book at all, but it's simply one of the most wonderful children's book I've seen. The story is wonderful, the rhythm and the rhyme structure are fantastic, and the art is bright and beautiful in a cartoonish sort of way.
"Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story", by Lisa Westberg Peters, illustrated by Lauren Stringer. We bought this one for my daughter last december, after PZ recommended it on his blog. It's a beautiful book - great art, and it's actually really compelling for a child. Most kids science books have a kind of dull style to the writing; my daughter will generally want to read them once or twice, but once she understands what's in them, she doesn't want to read them again. But this one, she's either read it or had it read to her at least fifty different times.
"Rumble in the Jungle, Commotion in the Ocean, et al", by Giles Andreae, illustrated by David Wojtowycz. We started getting this series when my daughter was threeish, because it's by the same author as "Giraffes", and liked it so much that we have continued to get it for my son. Each book is about some environment and the animals that live in it. Each animal gets a little rhyme and a picture. The art is bright and colorful, and the rhymes are clever and very amusing to the kids.

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Read The Full Article:
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/07/unofficial_ask_a_scienceblogge.php

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