language & science — #
NY Times: The Benefits of Bilingualism
5 April 2012
science & politics — #
A Message From a Republican Meteorologist on Climate Change
I’m going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real. I’m a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I’m a Penn State meteorologist, and the weather maps I’m staring at are making me very uncomfortable. No, you’re not imagining it: we’ve clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern.
12 January 2012
science & technology — #
The Search for a More Perfect Kilogram
But comparisons since the 1940s have revealed a troublesome drift. Relative to the témoins and to the national standards, Le Grand K has been losing weight — or, by the definition of mass under the metric system, the rest of the universe has been getting fatter. The most recent comparison, in 1988, found a discrepancy as large as five-hundredths of a milligram, a bit less than the weight of a dust speck, between Le Grand K and its official underlings.
This state of affairs is intolerable to the guardians of weights and measures. “Something must be done,” says Terry Quinn, director emeritus of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the governing body of the metric system.
16 December 2011
religion & science — #
Hard to argue with Penn Jillette on this one
There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.
Although I would make a distinction between personal faith in a greater meaning versus religions that encode arbitrary “nonsense” into mores.
14 December 2011
culture & science — #
Sheena Iyengar: The Limits of Blindness on Choice explores the importance of the belief in freedom of choice.
6 December 2011
science & culture — #
What are some things that neuroscientists know but most people don’t?
30 September 2011
science & health — #
This is awesome: 29 year old woman hears herself for the 1st time after receiving cochlear implant