Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The Guardian asked a group of scientists to submit their favourite jokes, and yes, there were a few rather lame ones in the mix, but worry not, because I’ve distilled the brew down to the top 10 best, so here they are … (and each is followed by the name of the learned individual who … Read more
Merriam-Webster, yes the dictionary not a person, is able to track the words that people lookup, and so determine which is in fact the most popular. To quote their press release … SPRINGFIELD, MASS., December 3, 2013—Merriam-Webster Inc., America’s leading dictionary publisher, has announced its top ten Words of the Year for 2013. This year’s … Read more
Over a year ago in one of the keynote talks at the Science Writing in the Age of Denial Conference, UW–Madison genetics and molecular biology professor Sean Carroll outlined what he calls “a general manual of denialism”. That basically consisted of six tactics that have been used time and time again in denial campaigns since at … Read more
I tripped over this today and thought to myself … “Ohhh interesting” … MIT have put all their courses on-line and made them freely available to all. “The idea is simple: to publish all of our course materials online and make them widely available to everyone.” Dick K.P. Yue, Professor, MIT School of Engineering OK, … Read more
The name “rhizocephalan barnacles” sounds rather harmless, but this little creature does stuff that simply blows the head right off most biologists. The Wikipedia entry is a big clinical, so is there anything that captures the true horror here? Yes there is, deep sea news does a fine job … You’re lingering on the shoreline, … Read more
Not everybody is a complete idiot, in fact most people are generally quite sensible, and yet there are indeed some complete are utter fools around as well. Take for example the Conservative Christians on the Texas State Board of Education that have been attempting to insert religious superstition into science textbooks for years by attempting to … Read more