Curious Wavefunction has been thinking about what might constitute the science version of the BBC booklist you may have seen popping around places like Facebook, in particular.
It is a great start to a list in need of expansion (great blog, too). I’ve read most of these, but the list suggests a few I hadn’t heard [...]
Archive for the ‘Science/Geek’ Category
The science version of the BBC booklist
February 23rd, 2010
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Why I Don’t Go In The Water: The gentle nurturing of apex predators
November 17th, 2009
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National Geographic photog Paul Nicklen comes face to face with a leopard seal of unusual size.
One seal brought a penguin over to me. I didn’t touch it; I just sat there and photographed. The penguin took off, and the seal grabbed it, brought it back to me, and put it on my camera dome [...]
Biofortified with Extra Goodness
October 26th, 2009
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Here’s something to pay attention to: Biofortified, a pro-science group blog that takes on some of the hysteria surrounding GMO food.
Near Death Experiences not paranormal, just a wiring issue
October 8th, 2009
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Near death experiences always seem start out the same way — there was a tunnel, then a light…
Paranormalists often point to the commonalities of near death and out-of-body experiences as evidence of the proof of an afterlife or astral projection. Turns out there is a more mundane — though fascinating — explanation. These experiences are [...]
Why I don’t go into the water…bone-eating worms at whale fall
October 5th, 2009
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That’s whale fall — what happens when an enormous cetacean corpse hits the ocean floor — not whale fail — what happens when Twitter breaks.
You see, when the carcass lands on the bottom of the sea, a whole host of unpleasant critters come out to eat it in a process that can take months — [...]
UPDATE: Cancelled! One Month Only: The $100 Psychic Challenge!
October 1st, 2009
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I have in my grubby little hands a slip of paper that could grant your favorite charitable organization $100.
Last night, I did the somewhat unthinkable (or at least, unreasonable) for a self-avowed skeptic: I bought a Powerball ticket. I lost, of course, as do the vast, vast majority of people who buy these tickets. [...]
Flacks exaggerate importance of medical research
July 15th, 2009
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I missed this earlier and, at the risk of getting myself into trouble, I’d like to say a few words. Ben Goldacre in The Guardian turned his eye toward a recent study about the quality of press releases from major American medical research centers. Having worked in at least one top research institute [...]
Massive Bat Die-off in NJ? Maybe…and another fungus to blame!
June 5th, 2009
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The Star-Ledger reports that 95% of NJ bats died off this winter from a fungal infection known as “white-nose syndrome.” That sounds pretty damned scary, until you read the article and find that the headline was taken from a single reported hibernaculum (cool word meaning place where critters hibernate), the Hibernia Mine in Rockaway Township. [...]
Kim Stanley Robinson’s Top 10 Mars Novels
June 4th, 2009
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Personally, I abhor top 10 lists as gimmicky click bait (for shame Newsweek, that trick works for Cracked, but it is unseemly for you), but I’ll forgive IEEE Spectrum for this list of Kim Stanley Robinson favorite Mars-related SF novels. There are at least three novels on this list I’ve never heard of, let [...]
Why I don’t go into the water Britain …Reason #1,767
June 2nd, 2009
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The Telegraph reports finding a 600ft jellyfish crop circle found in an Oxfordshire field.
Kill it!!! Oh, wait…
At the end of the article, the writer oddly refers to an entirely different crop circle from last year, and reuses the quotes from a retired astrophysicist on how THAT crop circle encodes pi.
I had to re-read [...]
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