42

2009-03-12T13:08:00.003-04:00

I'm currently debating between Wordpress and Blogger. Take a look at the new site:

http://sixbynine.wordpress.com/

Let me know which seems better. So far, Blogger seems more readily customized, Wordpress seems cleaner. It may be that working out a better HTML template for Blogger is a better way to go, but I'm open to suggestions!

Watch the Watchmen

2009-03-10T10:59:00.003-04:00

Inspired by my hatred of Yahoo and my enjoyment of The Watchmen this past weekend.

Reformatting

2009-03-04T22:45:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately-- working on some new formatting to make the whole thing more readable. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
The Management

What's next? Unicorns?

2009-03-03T15:19:00.005-05:00

Rare pink bottlenose dolphin surfaces in Louisiana lake

[Via Geekologie]

Giant snakes, fish with transparent heads, and now pink albino dolphins.... in Louisiana of all places!

Maybe it's in honor of Mardi Gras.

"While this animal looks pink, it is an albino which you can notice in the pink eyes. Albinism is a genetic trait and it unclear as to the type of albinism this animal inherited."
A different dolphin species, the endangered Amazon river boto (Inia geoffrensis), which lives in South America , is sometimes called the pink river dolphin because of its appearance."

Happy Square Root Day

2009-03-03T09:11:00.003-05:00

Square root day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Always vigilant-- Google Trends top search this morning was Square Root Day. Who knew (or cared?)

Seuss

2009-03-02T10:24:00.002-05:00

Dr Seuss remains one of my favorite authors-- The Butter Battle Book, The Lorax, and The Sneetches top my personal list. Seuss was brilliant-- happy birthday.

"Anapestic tetrameter consists of four rhythmic units, anapests, each composed of two weak beats followed by one strong beat; often, the first weak syllable is omitted, or an additional weak syllable is added at the end."

"Lord Byron's epic Don Juan, for example, contains much anapestic tetrameter."

x	x	/	x	x	/	x	x	/	x	x	/
And	to-	day	the	Great	Yer-	tle,	that	Mar-	vel	ous	he
	x	/	x	x	/	x	x	/	x	x	/
	Is	King	of	the	Mud.	That	is	all	he	can	see

Anybody want a peanut?

2009-02-27T13:58:00.003-05:00

xkcd - A Webcomic - Westley's a Dick

Your money or your life

2009-02-27T09:44:00.002-05:00

Taxpayer Beware: Bank Bailout Will Hurt : NPR

Incredibly well-produced piece on NPR this morning-- not surprising since Alex Blumberg works for This American Life.

"This is a robbery note!" Johnson says. "It's saying, 'Guys, either you'll have 20 percent unemployment or national debt will go up to these dangerous levels, unless you buy toxic assets — not for what they're worth, not for what the market price is, as much as you can pay.' "
Johnson says his "first reaction was: 'It's a spoof.' My second reaction was: 'Oh my God.'"

Signed, sealed, delivered

2009-02-26T10:51:00.002-05:00

Obamas praise Stevie Wonder at White House - CNN.com

""I think it's fair to say that had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me. We might not have married," Obama said Wednesday as he and the first lady hosted a concert and award ceremony for Wonder. "The fact that we agreed on Stevie was part of the essence of our courtship.""

Subway Porn

2009-02-26T09:35:00.002-05:00

Subway Map Porn For The Mass Transit Freak

We get so used to road maps that I think subway maps can bring out new ways of seeing cities. Same goes for topographical maps or sewer systems or power lines. Any way of visualizing places or things we've grown accustomed to brings new things to light.

Giant Thai Stingray

2009-02-26T09:15:00.003-05:00

Giant Stingrays Found Near Thai City

Your source for big news about big animals-- real and fictional. This one hasn't been photoshopped, I promise. However, it would be good curried... a bit of thai basil, some ginger, sri rachca, coconut milk... Anyone have good stingray recipes?

"Recreational fishers and biologist Zeb Hogan (wearing cap) hold a live, 14-foot-long (4.3-meter-long) giant freshwater stingray the fishers caught in the Bang Pakong River in Chachoengsao, Thailand, on March 31, 2008. "

"There are accounts of freshwater stingrays growing as large as 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms), which could make them the largest freshwater fish in the world"

I've only got eyes for you

2009-02-25T19:09:00.003-05:00

Shifty-Eyed Thieving Fish Caught on Video - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

Deep-sea fish are just bizarre. That's all there is to it. No light, lots of pressure, and strange prey do odd things over millenia. Creationists eat your hearts out.

Sketches

2009-02-25T10:39:00.001-05:00

Back to the Drawing Board

Drawings and sketches have always been my favorite forms of art. Da Vinci and Van Gogh's pencil and charcoal sketches seem less burdened with formality than their heavy oils. They're more playful and expressive because they weren't really meant for our eyes. They're like personal notes with all the quirks of character that come with that medium.

These architectural drawings are the same way.

Don't Panic

2009-02-25T09:10:00.006-05:00

xkcd - A Webcomic - Kindle

How to shoot down a helicopter with a handgun, and other party tricks

2009-02-24T16:07:00.001-05:00

How to shoot down a helicopter with a handgun. Slate Magazine

The Explainer strikes again:

"Yes, just aim for the tail or the pilot. The tail rotor is critical for stability in the air, but it's generally made of light and vulnerable materials such as fiberglass and hollow aluminum. If a bullet were to strike it in the right place, one of the propeller blades could break off, throwing the craft into a spin. (Even a stray article of clothing can get sucked into the tail rotor and down a chopper.) But the tail rotor is a small target, so you may be better off shooting at the cockpit, in the hope of disabling the pilot."

The King is Dead! Long live the King!

2009-02-24T16:02:00.002-05:00

Today's Pictures: Get Fat on Tuesday

Mardi Gras and Carnival in general are fascinating holidays-- they're all about overturning social order for a brief period of time, breaking down norms and going wild. They even appoint a jester as King (Rex) with the freedom to rule the city. It's dedicated chaos aimed at keeping everything orderly for the rest of the year.

The history and spread of the festivals alone can keep you entertained for hours, but if you start searching Google images....

The Magnum photos from Slate are safe for work, but I'm not guaranteeing anything if you look further afield...

This is your brain. This is your brain on Facebook.

2009-02-24T10:19:00.003-05:00

Facebook et al risk 'infantilising' the human mind | guardian.co.uk

The argument over social networking rages. Does it empower or infantilize? Improve or destroy relationships? Increase our knowledge or decrease our attention span?

Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, and director of the Royal Institution weighs in:

"The sheer compulsion of reliable and almost immediate reward is being linked to similar chemical systems in the brain that may also play a part in drug addiction. So we should not underestimate the 'pleasure' of interacting with a screen when we puzzle over why it seems so appealing to young people."

"It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations. We know that the human brain is exquisitely sensitive to the outside world."

Farhad Manjoo over at Slate has a different take:

"Skeptics often suggest that online social networks foster introverted, anti-social behavior—that we forge virtual connections at the expense of real-life connections. But only someone who's never used Facebook would make that argument. Nobody avoids meeting people in real life by escaping to the Web. In fact, the opposite seems true: Short, continuous, low-content updates about the particulars of your friends' lives—Bob has the flu, Barbara can't believe what just happened on Mad Men, Sally and Ned are no longer on speaking terms—deepen your bonds with them. Writer Clive Thompson has explored this phenomenon, what social scientists call "ambient awareness." Following someone through his status updates is not unlike sitting in a room with him and semiconsciously taking note of his body language, Thompson points out. Just as you can sense his mood from the rhythm of his breathing, sighing, and swearing, you can get the broad outlines of his life from short updates, making for a deeper conversation the next time you do meet up."

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire

2009-02-23T16:12:00.005-05:00

Scientist Looks to Weaponize Ball Lightning | Danger Room from Wired.com

Gotta love scientific mysteries, especially when they account for so many UFO sightings and could be part of a secret military weapons program...

This one works like a smoke ring of high-energy "magnetoplasmoids"

"Koloc called the weapon "Phased Hyper-Acceleration for Shock, EMP, and Radiation" -- PHASER.

"It can be used for a range of purposes from stunning personnel to destroying the functionality of electronically operated devices, smaller rockets, vehicles and packages that represent an immediate threat to the United States," he wrote. "This dial-able PHASER weapon can be set on 'Stun' or dialed down, selecting a non-lethal level for persons needed for later interrogation... One mundane application for law enforcement would be the disruption of the engine electronics to stop vehicles that would otherwise be the target of a high-speed chase. Dialable versions of the PHASER will be available for use in civilian encounters."

Khoda

2009-02-23T15:47:00.002-05:00

Khoda on Vimeo
[Via Geekologie]

Khoda from Reza Dolatabadi on Vimeo.

"What if you watch a film and whenever you pause it, you face a painting? This idea inspired Reza Dolatabadi to make Khoda. Over 6000 paintings were painstakingly produced during two years to create a five minutes film..."

Cool

2009-02-23T15:19:00.001-05:00

2008 Was Earth's Coolest Year Since 2000

I'm no climate-change skeptic, but I do hate the argument that journalists should sensationalize and overstate news about warming in order to rile up public interest. Confirmation bias is bad enough already.

So, it won't surprise me if the news that 2008 is the coolest year since 2000 doesn't make many headlines.

Atlantis: lost, found, lost again

2009-02-23T11:26:00.003-05:00

Google shoots down 'Atlantis' pictures

You'd think that we'd have found an entire submerged continent by this point if it really existed. Of course, sometimes there really are lost shipwrecks filled with gold. And Google's new ocean-mapping tool has opened up some great new options-- including speculation that a rectangle approximately the size of Wales (of all places) was actually Atlantis. Turns out, it's not:

"Bathymetric (or seafloor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the seafloor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data," Google said.

"But you will die, brother, if you go to it long enough."

2009-02-20T14:43:00.001-05:00

"Imagine the face of warfare with autonomous robotics"

The title quote comes from Hemmingway at the beginning of the paper. They have a pretty optimistic take on the potential of military robotics:

"Instead of our soldiers returning home in flag‐draped caskets to heartbroken families, autonomous robots—mobile machines that can make decisions, such as to fire upon a target, without human intervention—can replace the human soldier in an increasing range of dangerous missions: from tunneling through dark caves in search of terrorists, to securing urban streets rife with sniper fire, to patrolling the skies and waterways where there is little cover from attacks, to clearing roads and seas of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), to surveying damage from biochemical weapons, to guarding borders and buildings, to controlling potentially‐hostile crowds, and even as the infantry frontlines."

The list of books and movies imagining the face of war using and war against autonmous robots goes on for pages (if anyone has that list, post it, I'm curious). The upside is, we've got some interesting ways of discussing the moral and ethical dilemmas that come up when robots start killing people. The downside is that we get fiction and reality mixed up. And we often focus on doom and gloom scenarios where robots destroy humanity (Terminator, The Matrix, I Robot, BSG) as opposed to more nuanced approaches (Ghost in the Shell).

100-Foot 'Borneo Monster' found-- Loch Ness Monster Missing, presumed eaten

2009-02-19T22:41:00.002-05:00

100-Foot 'Borneo Monster' Said Photographed | LiveScience

We try to keep on top of late-breaking big-snake news here at 42. Needless to say, this is almost certainly a hoax, but boy oh boy do I wish it wasn't!

"One photo, of a serpentine shape in the Baleh river, was said to be taken from a helicopter by a member of a disaster team monitoring flood conditions. Locals suggest that the animal may be a creature of folklore called Nabau, a dragon-like, shape-shifting sea serpent. Others aren't convinced."

Update: Scientific American weighs in, though not decisively.

Nxtbook Media - headed for the dustbin of history

2009-02-19T12:15:00.001-05:00

Nxtbook Media - Today's Digital Publishing Solution

The pdf file format is pretty damn versatile. Just about every journal article I've ever read, scientific or otherwise, came in pdf. Rich pdf adds in some handy tools too-- forms and links and so on.

So when I pulled up this (boring) article today, I was a little dismayed when I tried to click on the strange document in front of me-- I couldn't highlight the text, I couldn't save the file to my desktop without downloading some highfalutin software, and it made a weird swooshing sound when I turned the page. Prentious BS.

So, I'm here to tell you now Nxtbook Media-- it's over. This means war. I will find a way to read your files without your software.

Leeks

2009-02-19T10:55:00.001-05:00

Wikileaks Forced to Leak Its Own Secret Info | Threat Level from Wired.com

There is something poetic about this-- due credit to Wikileaks for following through and leaving the leak up though.

More stories on leaks (and leeks) in the future...

Well I'll be damned

2009-02-19T09:14:00.007-05:00

How Catholics calculate purgatory sentences. - By Nina Shen Rastogi - Slate Magazine

Yes, I will. Reintroducing indulgences is an interesting ploy-- a bit like bringing back geocentrism. I suppose it's hard to compete with charistmatic revivalist religions like Pentacostalism (great Economist piece) and Mormonism.

Of course, as one priest points out, "“The good news is we’re not selling them anymore.”"

But what's the point? One of the parishoners asked, "What is five years in terms of eternity?”"

I put together a quick spreadsheet to try and calculate how long I'll be enjoying Purgatory, but there doesn't seem to be any clear equation... Any suggestions?


.	Sins (deadly)	Demon	Virtue	Purgatory = (sin+demon) - (virtue+penance)?	Penance


.	Lust (luxuria)	Asmodeus	Chastity	purged by burning in an immense wall of flame	Confession
.	Gluttony (gula)	Beelzebub	Temperance	purged by abstaining from any food or drink	Communion
.	Greed (avaritia)	Mammon	Charity	purged by lying face-down on the ground, unable to move	Pray for the pope
.	Sloth (acedia)	Belphego	Diligence	purged by continually running	Achieve "complete detachment from any inclination to sin."
.	Wrath (ira)	Satan	Patience	purged by walking around in acrid smoke	?
.	Envy (invidia)	Leviathan	Kindness	purged by having their eyes sewn shut and wearing clothing that makes the soul indistinguishable from the ground
.	Pride (superbia)	Lucifer	Humility	purged by carrying giant stones on their backs

Subtle knives

2009-02-18T18:30:00.001-05:00

Safer kitchen knives | The blunt truth | The Economist

Nothing subtle about it though-- where do we draw the line between paternalism and product design? Sharp knives don't kill people; people kill people. How far should we go to proect people from themselves?

"That suggests a systematic redesign might make most such knives less lethal without making them less effective."

Should "systematic redesign" be mandatory? And if so, how will we cut through to other worlds?

Worth a shot... literally.

2009-02-18T18:14:00.002-05:00

Geographers Find Bin Laden — Theoretically - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

Parachinar. If Osama Bin Laden was an endangered species of wildlife, he'd be hiding in Parachinar.

"So why hasn’t anyone claimed the $50 million bounty on his head?"

Thomas Gillespie at U.C.L.A. thinks we've been looking in the wrong place:

"The theory of island biogeography states that large and close islands will have higher immigration rates and support more species with lower extinction rates than small isolated islands.
These theories can be applied over varying spatial scales to posit bin Laden’s current location based on his last reputed geographic location. Distance-decay theory would predict that he is closest to the point where he was last reported and, by extension, within a region that has a similar physical environment and cultural composition (that is, similar religious and political beliefs)."

I'm deeply skeptical that this method is more accurate than the combined force of greed (from the reward) and actual boots on the ground (CIA, FBI). But, who knows. It does make some sense to think of fugitives as hunted animals after all.

Maybe there are some predator-prey models they could try out next?

It just keeps going and going and going...

2009-02-18T17:44:00.002-05:00

NASA -
Spirit Gets Energy Boost from Cleaner Solar Panels

Not really an original joke, but hey...

"Spirit and Opportunity have been operating on Mars for more than five years in exploration missions originally planned to last for three months. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington."

Work work

2009-02-17T15:37:00.003-05:00

Do You Like to Drink Beer?

Local job listing (and fun Talk of the Nation):

"Volunteers ages 21 to 45 are needed for a new investigational medication study examining cravings for alcohol. Participants will take two 5-day periods of an investigational medication (Strattera®) and make 5 outpatient visits to the UVa C.A.R.E. clinic. On two visits, participants are asked to rate their mood and craving levels after drinking alcohol. Study-related tests include blood, urine, and breath alcohol level. Medication and mental and physical exams are provided at no charge.

Compensation is up to $200.

ATX Alcohol Study IRB-HSR #13464

UVa Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences
Phone: (434) 243-0642 ask for ATX Study
Principal Investigator: Heather M. Haughey, Ph.D. "

Texans likely abducted by meteor, not satellite debris

2009-02-17T11:39:00.001-05:00

SPACE.com -- Texas Fireball Likely Caused by Meteor, Not Satellite Debris

Putting it in terms a Texan would understand, Preston Starr, the observatory manager at the University of North Texas, told the Associated Press that

"Sunday's fireball was likely caused by a meteor streaking through Earth's atmosphere at between 15,000 mph and 40,000 mph. The object would have been the size of a truck and have the consistency of concrete."

Apparently the fireball "appeared over a wide swath of Texas, loosed sonic booms that rattled windows and shook houses."

Did I mention I love Texas?

"Faster than a speeding bullet — and bigger than a Wal-Mart."

"Go to work on an egg"

2009-02-17T11:32:00.001-05:00

New research shows high-quality protein in eggs contributes to power, strength and energy

In the 1950 the UK Egg Marketing Board launched an ad campaign suggesting that people should "go to work on an egg." Witty stuff. Turns out they might have been onto something:

"high-quality protein in eggs contributes to strength, power and energy in the following ways:
Sustained energy
Muscle strength
Gold-standard protein
Satiety & Weight Management
Value & Versatility"

Of course, you can have too much of a good thing...

Overpaid, oversexed, and over here

2009-02-17T11:17:00.001-05:00

The Richard Casement internship | The Economist

Go show the Brits what for:

"We invite applications for the 2009 Richard Casement internship. We are looking for a would-be journalist to spend three months of the summer working on the newspaper in London, writing about science and technology. Our aim is more to discover writing talent in a science student or scientist than a scientific aptitude in a budding journalist. Applicants should write a letter introducing themselves and an original article of about 600 words that they think would be suitable for publication in the science and technology section. They should be prepared to come for an interview in London or New York, at their own expense. A small stipend will be paid to the successful candidate. Applications must reach us by February 20th. They should be sent to: casement2009@economist.com."

The end of the world as we know it

2009-02-16T16:19:00.002-05:00

Nuclear submarines collide in Atlantic | guardian.co.uk

This pretty much sums it up: "They can't see each other in the water," one official said.

Really? Of course, this could be a massive coverup of renewed Franco-British squabbling, with the captains of each ship playing a high-risk game of nuclear chicken... Who turns away first?!

"Kate Hudson, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament chairwoman, described the incident as "a nuclear nightmare of the highest order".
"The collision of two submarines, both with nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons on board, could have released vast amounts of radiation and scattered scores of nuclear warheads across the seabed," she said. "The dents reportedly visible on the British sub show the boats were no more than a couple of seconds away from total catastrophe."
Hudson said it was the first time since the cold war that two nuclear-armed submarines were known to have collided."

Life of Pie

2009-02-16T10:30:00.002-05:00

Pi Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mark your calendars, we're celebrating the geekiest holiday of the year. Apparently MIT, home of my favorite open-source educational materials and media lab, sends out acceptance letters so that they arrive on Pi Day. It's that good.

So, prepare your pies of all sorts: charts, small Indian currency worth 1/192 of a rupee, shiny-loving birds, or post-irradiation examinations. The best pi-pun wins a prize!

Knight-errant

2009-02-15T17:03:00.004-05:00

NPR: Knights in Training

The Knight Foundation and their Digital Media Center are helping NPR journalists go multi-media. It seems tough to capture audio and photos (AND video) all at once, but they're finding a way.

I wonder if there are any positions open for squires?

Belief in Gravity (I mean evolution...)

2009-02-13T18:58:00.002-05:00

How depressing.

So easy a caveman could do it?

2009-02-13T18:28:00.005-05:00

Why Not Bring a Neanderthal to Life? - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

Geico jokes aside, William Saletan over at Slate did a piece on this exact same question a few weeks ago. The biggest question seems to be consent, but does anyone really consent to being born?

Saletan puts it this way:

"Is the idea repugnant? Absolutely. But that's not because we'd be defacing humanity. It's because we'd be looking at it."

I'll put out the same question as Tierney:

"What do you think? Should we try to resurrect a Neanderthal?"

Holophonics

2009-02-13T18:06:00.002-05:00

Grab your headphones, put them on, and listen to the virtual barbershop. It appears that "holophonics" in particular may be nothing special, but binaural recording in general is remarkable and slightly eerie. I vaguely recall that some TV shows have started using a similar technique to make it sound as if a phone is actually ringing in your house. Anyone know more about it?

Original demonstration from the 80s

Holophonic sound samples.

Seduction. It's not hard to imagine some interesting applications for this technique...

[Thanks to Jaime for the tip!]

Breaking news: Crush on Olivia Judson continues

2009-02-12T13:27:00.006-05:00

Op-Ed Contributor - The Origin of Darwin - NYTimes.com

Scientist, writer, public intellectual... Nope, not talking about Darwin. He was great, but the beard just doesn't do it for me. Olivia Judson, on the other hand, should be the new face of evolution: author of Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation, an evolutionary biologist with degrees from Stanford and Oxford, and generally drop-dead gorgeous.

Oh, and it's a great article. Read it.

"[Darwin] practiced a kind of ideal, dream-like science. He examined the minutiae of nature — shells of barnacles, pistils of flowers — but worked on grand themes. He corresponded with lofty men of learning, but also with farmers and pigeon breeders. He observed, questioned, experimented, constantly testing his ideas."

Her blog is also fantastic and well worth a read. Anyway, who would you select to share your genetic material with? Judson, naturally.

Darwin, but no Lincoln?

2009-02-12T11:27:00.002-05:00

Google's Darwin logo was creative, finches and all, but where's the logo for Lincoln's birthday?

The iWish, aka the Pomegranate phone

2009-02-12T09:26:00.001-05:00

Pomegranate | NS08

Key features:

Projector

Global Voice Translator

Coffee Brewer

Shaver

Harmonica

"Yes, it's finally possible."

No, it isn't. Sorry. It's actually a viral ad campaign for... Nova Scotia!

Dance, Dance, Evolution

2009-02-11T13:35:00.001-05:00

2009 AAAS/Science Dance Contest

That's right, a contest to translate your Ph.D. thesis into an interpretive dance. Speaks for itself really-- Geeks getting down. Most of them are pretty bizarre and you'll definitely need the "For an explanation of this dance, click "(more info)"" links off the the side. Even after reading them I couldn't tell you what half of it was about.

If you want some real science dancing, TED is the place to be:

Moving on-- Modern Darwins

2009-02-11T12:23:00.004-05:00

Modern Darwins — National Geographic Magazine

Celebrate Darwin's brilliance, curiosity, and insight, but let's move on to the fittest scientists of the new generation. That said, this article doesn't do anyone any favors by using religious language to talk about evolution:

" To understand the story of evolution—both its narrative and its mechanism—modern Darwins don't have to guess. They consult genetic scripture."

This goes back to the point made in the NYT op-ed about opening evolution up to a different type of critique by attaching it to one man and using terms and ways of thought that attach too easily to religion. Not that evolution shouldn't be open to critique or skepticism-- that's part of the scientific method-- but I'm coming around to the idea that "Darwinian" evolution might need to be ditched.

Nano Nymphaeaceae

2009-02-11T11:19:00.003-05:00

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/nu-wli012909.php

Nymphaeaceae, naturally, are water-lillies. These researchers are looking at the behavior of single-atom sheets of graphite-oxide. By floating them on a pool of water, they can examine how the sheets interact when they bump against each other:

"The effect reminded the researchers of water lilies on a pond, and Huang asked his sister to help to create a Chinese water painting similar to that of Claude Monet's series of paintings "Water Lilies" to demonstrate the idea. The artwork was chosen as one of the first illustrated covers for the 130-year-old journal."

Jive, n.

2009-02-11T09:49:00.001-05:00

Oxford English Dictionary jive, n.

1. Talk or conversation; spec. talk that is misleading, untrue, empty, or pretentious; hence, anything false, worthless, or unpleasant; vaguely, ‘stuff’; = JAZZ n. 3a.

1928 R. FISHER Walls of Jericho 301 Jive, pursuit in love or any device thereof. Usually flattery with intent to win. 1929 T. GORDON Born to Be 236 Jive, a misleading remark. 1932 MUSE & ARLEN Way down South 50 Thus the enamoured customer completed his meal, without ever having taken his eyes off that tantalizing brown, with her suave Birmingham jive. 1935 Swing Music Autumn 55/2 Maybe you think that that is all jive. You are wrong if you do. It is the way I felt about these new records. 1946 MEZZROW & WOLFE Really Blues iii. 37, I used to hear a lot of medical jive. Ibid. 375 Jive n., confusing doubletalk, pretentious conversation, anything false or phony. Jive that makes it drip, clouds that produce rain. 1954 L. ARMSTRONG Satchmo x. 150 There was lots of just plain common shooting and cutting. But..that jive didn't faze me at all. Ibid. xii. 193, I bought a lot of cheap jive at the five and ten cents store to give to the kids. 1956 M. STEARNS Story of Jazz (1957) v. 50 The attitude of several modern jazzmen, born and bred in the South, is striking: ‘This hoodoo jive is nowhere,’ they say, ‘but man, watch out!’ 1960 in P. Oliver Blues fell this Morning vii. 197 I'm evil and mean and funny, so don't come back with that line of jive. 1972 M. J. BOSSE Incident at Naha iii. 152 Maybe some of his Christian sentiments sound corny today, but..he had cut through a lot of the jive of his own time, and he had, like, the balls to fight injustice. 1973 Black World Oct. 36/2 Everything that we do must be aimed toward the total liberation, unification and empowerment of Afrika... Anything short of that is jive.

2. Jazz, esp. a type of fast, lively jazz; ‘swing’.

1928 (title of gramophone record by Cow Cow Davenport) State Street Jive. 1937 New Yorker 17 Apr. 31/3 The music of hot bands..is referred to as swingor jive, of which, in turn, there are several kinds. 1939 San Francisco News Let. 1 Sept. 12/2 Fats Waller..is the King of Jive and gets off some fine stuff. 1946N. & Q. 13 July 20/1 Mr. Mitchell Parish, the American song-writer,..told me that he uses jive to describe syncopated music played noisily, and (usually) fast, with great emphasis on rhythm. 1959 ‘F. NEWTON’ Jazz Scene i. 12 In Sophiatown and the rest of the South African ghettoes the ‘jive bands’ play what is patently jazz. 1960 Down Beat 9 June 15 Regarding the word jive, Wilson said, it is nothing more than an obsolete slang term for jazz.

b. Lively and uninhibited dancing to dance-music or jazz; spec. ‘jitterbugging’.

1943 Dancing Times Dec. 117/1 The rhythm of the Jive is not an entirely new one. 1957 C. MACINNES City of Spades I. iv. 24 I'll teach you..bop steps, and jive, and all. 1958 Listener 20 Nov. 848/1 Jive and tribal dancing. 1969 H. HORWOOD Newfoundland x. 69 The jive..is still the universal dance of..outport youngsters.

3. A variety of American English associated with the Harlem area of New York; slang used by American Blacks, or by jazz musicians and their followers. Also attrib., as jive talk.

1938 C. CALLOWAY Hi De Ho 16 Jive. 1. Harlemese speech or lingo. 2. To kid along, to blarney, to give a girl a line. 1943 Time 26 July 56/2 A jive-talk glossary that is strictly Dracula has been put out by Parents' Institute. 1944 D. BURLEY (title) Original handbook of Harlem jive. 1944 E. CONRAD in Ibid. 5Jive is one more contribution of Negro America to the United States. Ibid. 6 Jive talk may have been originally a kind of ‘Pig Latin’ that the slaves talked with each other, a codewhen they were in the presence of whites. 1960 Time & Tide 24 Dec. 1599/2 Jive-talk is nothing new. It goes back at least to the thirties when for the first time a brand of jazz, swing, grew to be a cult. Jive was originally the patois of Harlem, not jazz musicians' slang; but with time the distinction was lost. 1965 Economist 4 Sept. 888/2 Some common American jive~words (nappy, funky) are left out [of the Penguin English Dictionary].1971 Black World June 92/2 All the rest of that jive talk about white liberals and Rhett Butler is part of another conversation, Sam. 1971 Melody Maker 13 Nov. 31/1 That is if you forget the usual jive phrases that whittle their way into his conversation. 1973 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 June 604/4 A narrative tone which frequently coincides with the fast, obscene jive-talk of his characters.

4. Marijuana, or a cigarette containing it.

1938 Call-Bulletin (San Francisco) 19 Mar., The cigarettes are variously called sticks, reefers, tea gyves, Mary Anns and goofy butts. 1952 N.Y. Times 29 Apr. 25 So Diane smoked jive, pod, and tea. 1955 U.S. Senate Hearings (1956) VIII. 4168 ‘Sticks’, ‘reefers’, ‘jive sticks’. 1963 ‘D. RUTHERFORD’ Creeping Flesh ii. 124‘Jive’ originally meant marijuana. 1972 Lancet 16 Sept. 565/1 She was convinced that only in the institution could she ‘make it without jive’, for she invariably used heroin whenever she was sent home.

Form and function-- will all cyborgs look this good?

2009-02-10T13:37:00.005-05:00

'Immaculate' Prosthetic Aims To Make Fake Limbs More Attractive, They Totally Succeed - Geekologie

I'm fasinated by prosthetics, partly because they improve people's lives so dramatically and partly because the engineering is so brilliant. From Oscar Pistorius's 'cheetahs' to Dean Kamen's new "Luke arm," it's really only a matter of time before some athletes and people in specialist occupations (from military to industrial) are voluntarily switching out 'natural' body parts for engineered ones.

It's also a case of reality imitating and inspired by science fiction, with Kamen's prosthetics inspired by those in Lucas's movie. The new design above goes even further though, actively aiming for a non-human aesthetic and emphasizing the fact that it can move in more ways than a 'natural' arm. Bring on the cybogs.

"Let us now kill Darwin"

2009-02-10T11:36:00.001-05:00

Essay - Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live - NYTimes.com

Darwin-- the name, the beard, the Beagle. They're catchy. He makes a great figurehead. Look at that furrowed brow. He oozes authority and learned wisdom. He looks like a cross between Moses and Socrates.

The point is well-made though:

"Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution."

Mendel alone is well worth more attention. MIT has an amazing biology lecture on Mendel that captures the eccentricities of scientific discovery. And his story is just as captivating as Darwin's, even if it doesn't include seafaring:

"Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, discovered that in pea plants inheritance of individual traits followed patterns. Superiors burned his papers posthumously in 1884."

We also have to remember how far the theory of evolution has come since Darwin's time:

"Darwin was an adult before scientists began debating whether germs caused disease and whether physicians should clean their instruments....
In 1860 Louis Pasteur performed experiments that eventually disproved “spontaneous generation,” the idea that life continually arose from nonliving things."

By anchoring evolution to Darwin we hold onto an 'ism' that is too easily dismissed as ideology rather than science:

"We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism.... “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.”"

So maybe we should drop Darwin Day? It's Lincoln's birthday on Thursday anyway, so we can always switch from one venerable beard to another.

Palca on Darwin

2009-02-09T17:30:00.001-05:00

Darwin, Britain's Hero, Is Still Controversial In U.S. : NPR

NPR's Joe Palca starts off a week of Darwinian coverage.

""There are actually 34 states in the United States that have passed anti-evolution laws of one kind or another," says Krishtalka, "whether it's stickers in textbooks or warnings that 'Reading this book with be injurious to your mental health," whether it's California or Alabama or Louisiana. For the record, in Kansas, the teaching of evolution in schools never stopped because all of the regulation and rules that the anti-evolution segment of the Kansas City Board of Education tried to get through were never enacted.""

Innovation at NASA: what a joke?

2009-02-09T17:22:00.001-05:00

Astronaut's Video Satirizes NASA Bureaucracy : NPR

Heard it on NPR... this morning. It's promising that NASA is open to internal critique. Let's hope they do something about it-- I still want to be an astronaut and the only way that's going to happen is if NASA gets it together and revives the space age.

""That's not the kind of agency you would like to have running rocket programs," says McCurdy. "It might be OK for Social Security check disbursement, but it sure isn't going to be good for rocket science.""

Ask and tell

2009-02-09T17:06:00.002-05:00

Op-Ed Contributor - An About-Face on Gay Troops - NYTimes.com

Venturing into politics for the first time. Advances in civil rights often seem to come in fits and starts, with compromises along the way. "Don't ask, don't tell" was a painful compromise that's finally being revistited:

"Last year the principal architects of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” former Gen. Colin Powell and former Senator Sam Nunn, said it was time to “review” the policy.

That’s a polite way of saying they’ve changed their minds. So have many of us who wore the uniform in 1993 and supported a policy that forced some of our fellow troops to live a lie and rejected thousands who told the truth."

I've got the whole world in my hand

2009-02-09T11:30:00.001-05:00

Book Search

Google Books goes mobile. A quick scroll through looks promising-- I found Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott right off the bat in the Science & Math section. It's one of my favorites and well worth a read if you have a chance.

More important is what this could promise for developing countries. If the world's store of literature becomes available for free to anyone with a cellphone it suddenly opens new options in rural areas with cell access but without textbooks. Combine it with something like MIT's OpenCourseware initiative and you're really talking about making the best educational material (although not teachers) available for free anywhere in the world.

If only it was actually ON the moon...

2009-02-09T11:25:00.001-05:00

Moon station | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Impressive photo [via Bad Astronomy] of the International Space Station (ISS) passing in front of the Moon. As Phil points out, the perspective is bizarre-- the Moon is over 1000 times farther away than the station, but it looks like it's passing right over.

Darwin Day

2009-02-09T10:31:00.002-05:00

Darwin Day Celebration

All this week I'll be posting Darwin/evolution stories. There are going to be a lot-- NPR and all the major science journals have special editions and articles coming out all week. Check in for updates to this evolving story....

Word games

2009-02-09T10:18:00.003-05:00

I have a thing for being able to see data. It makes a mass of floating information instantly interesting and comprehensible. It shows relationships and trends and ideas that we might miss otherwise.

Well, here's a new one, applied to this blog:

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." -The Red Queen

2009-02-07T13:33:00.006-05:00

Chess is beautifully and almost infinitely complex. When you play, you have to visualize where the pieces on the board can move and then extrapolate out, imagining where they might move one, two, three, or more moves down the line. You have to anticipate where your opponent might move and how you can react.

Usually, this all happens in your head. But now there's a chess program, Thinking Machine 4, that allows you to see the strength of different moves and the lines of attack and defense as the game unfolds. It's designed as an art project, but I think it has a lot of potential as a chess training tool. At the moment, the computer isn't a terribly good player and the abstract pieces are simply annoying. Still, if you combined the idea with a decent chess program like Shredder you could have a powerful learning tool.

"Thinking Machine 4 explores the invisible, elusive nature of thought. Play chess against a transparent intelligence, its evolving thought process visible on the board before you.

The artwork is an artificial intelligence program, ready to play chess with the viewer. If the viewer confronts the program, the computer's thought process is sketched on screen as it plays. A map is created from the traces of literally thousands of possible futures as the program tries to decide its best move. Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine."

Latitude and Longitude

2009-02-06T16:30:00.001-05:00

Google Latitude

New Google mobile app lets you track yourself and your friends with a GPS enabled phone. My phone is about 10 years old, so I can't say whether I like it or not, but I can see how it'd be handy, especially as Wi-Fi and GPS/Skyhook coverage expands.

Privacy issues will always plague this sort of application, but it's voluntary, so I really don't see the problem. If I want to broadcast my location, that's up to me.

Total Recall

2009-02-06T15:07:00.002-05:00

Body Armor Recalled by Army

"Army Secretary Pete Geren has ordered the recall of more than 16,000 sets of body armor following an audit that concluded the bullet-blocking plates in the vests failed testing and may not provide Soldiers with adequate protection."

We've come a long way from Ned Kelly's improvised body armor (in the picture above), but it's disgraceful that we'd send soldiers into the field with poorly tested armor.

Black Sheep

2009-02-06T14:57:00.001-05:00

Borrowed Gene Blackens Wolves -- Pennisi 2009 (205): 4 -- ScienceNOW

Turns out North American wolves interbred with domestic dogs thousands of years ago:

"Black wolves are quite rare outside North America. So Barsh and his colleagues think that more than 10,000 years ago, black dogs migrating with people heading across the Bering Strait into North American interbred with wolves, introducing the K locus variant. "Typically, hybridization is thought to retard adaptation. However, every once in a while, [a variant] is introduced from one species into a second and is advantageous," says Hopi Hoekstra, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. "This is really an exceptional finding.""

Ferrofluids

2009-02-06T14:39:00.003-05:00

A lot of people are familar with these already, but the Creative Commons photos on Wikipedia are just too impressive not to share. The ability to visualize the otherwise invisible:

"Ferrofluids are tiny iron particles covered with a liquid coating, also surfactant that are then added to water or oil, which gives them their liquid properties. Ferrofluids are colloidal suspensions -- materials with properties of more than one state of matter. In this case, the two states of matter are the solid metal and liquid it is in."

Ooblek 2.0

2009-02-06T14:22:00.003-05:00

LiveLeak.com - Cornstarch Monster on a Speaker

Non-Newtonian fluids are a staple in elementary (and high-shool) science classrooms. I think one of the driving forces behind good science is a child-like (but not childish) wonder at the world. It's a desire to tinker and experiment and get your hands dirty. And it's an appreciation of counter-intuitive things that just look cool.

Also worth taking a look at ferrofluids. You can see a video here.

And at surface tension in oil streams.

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."

2009-02-05T10:04:00.001-05:00

1-Ton Snakes Once Slithered In The Tropics : NPR

The loss of megafauna weighs heavy on my heart. The world would be a more exciting and interesting place with wooly mammoths, giant sloths, saber-tooth tigers, and 1-ton snakes.

Having owned and travelled in a school bus for a time, it's especially evocative to hear that Titanoboa cerrejonensis grew as long as a school bus and ate crocodiles whole. Of course, this doesn't always end well for the snake.

The Internet

2009-02-04T18:08:00.006-05:00

Visualizing data and mapping the internet. Take a look here for more.

"Partial map of the Internet based on the January 15, 2005 data found on opte.org. Each line is drawn between two nodes, representing two IP addresses. The length of the lines are indicative of the delay between those two nodes. This graph represents less than 30% of the Class C networks reachable by the data collection program in early 2005. Lines are color-coded according to their corresponding RFC 1918 allocation as follows:

Dark blue: net, ca, us
Green: com, org
Red: mil, gov, edu
Yellow: jp, cn, tw, au, de
Magenta: uk, it, pl, fr
Gold: br, kr, nl
White: unknown"

The biggest event you've never heard of

2009-02-04T17:26:00.001-05:00

TED: Ideas worth spreading

The TED conference slides under the mainstream radar every year. I honestly can't understand why, because it brings together some of the more brilliant people alive today and gives them a chance to say something interesting in a short presentation.

Note of caution: you can easily get drawn into watching one video after another and find yourself half way through next week, unable to decide whether to spend your life pursuing statistics, development work, fine art, or engineering.

I wrote a short piece about the conference last year for NPR's Intern Edition.

Skyhook or Skynet?

2009-02-04T14:46:00.003-05:00

Skyhook Wireless - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Researching digital media and came across an MIT paper about innovation that describes the development of GPS (hard to believe the final Air Force GPS satellite went into orbit in 1993). Skyhook has received plenty of publicity and it's a great idea, but I can't help but laugh at the name and the story.

"As long as most Wi-Fi users haven't turned off their access points (or moved, or bought new ones), Skyhook delivers an address more reliably than the Pentagon, and with more precision."

We've gone from guiding ICBMs to Moscow to BMWs to Starbucks in 10 years.

The Economist-- "Insert witty title here"

2009-02-04T09:54:00.001-05:00

Air force one | The Economist

America overtakes Germany as the world's biggest wind-power market |

First off, good pun. Don't know that The Economist gets quite enough credit for their consistent wit.

Second, it's good to see that wind power keeps growing despite (or perhaps along with) the recession. Each time I drive through the American West, I'm blown away (Is the Economist hiring?) by the long lines of wind turbines. They're majestic and elegant and would drive Don Quixote wild.

Evidence of Combat in Triceratops

2009-02-03T16:31:00.004-05:00

"Evidence of Combat in Triceratops," PLoS ONE

Combine this with the possibility of cloning extinct creatures and life gets more interesting all the time:

"This pattern is consistent with Triceratops using its horns in combat and the frill being adapted as a protective structure for this taxon. Lower pathology rates in Centrosaurus may indicate visual rather than physical use of cranial ornamentation in this genus, or a form of combat focused on the body rather than the head."

"He therefore found his father alone, hoeing a vine."

2009-02-03T15:55:00.001-05:00

Gardening gives older adults benefits like hand strength and self esteem

In The Odyssey, Odysseus finds his father Laertes alone in the garden when he returns to Ithaca:

""I see, sir," said [Odysseus], "that you are an excellent gardener- what pains you take with it, to be sure. There is not a single plant, not a fig tree, vine, olive, pear, nor flower bed, but bears the trace of your attention."

-Book XXIV

It's good to see there's some scientific evidence backing up the health benefits of gardening. The allotment gardens in England are a particularly impressive example. It's not surprising that the same holds true for young kids:

"Shoemaker, who also researches gardening as a prevention strategy to childhood obesity, said that studying the physical benefits of gardening is important for older adults because gardening is a physically active hobby that provides an alternative to sports or other exercise."

"There's a lot of natural motivation in gardening," Shoemaker said. "For one thing, you know there's a plant you've got to go out and water and weed to keep alive. If we get the message out there that older adults can get health benefits from gardening, they'll realize that they don't have to walk around the mall to get exercise.""

Slate on vultures

2009-02-03T15:03:00.003-05:00

The life story of a vulture. - By Constance Casey - Slate Magazine

Counterintuitive stories appear to be Slate's speciality. Take a common belief or perception, flip it on its head, and you've got your piece. Good formula.

"Unjust though this is, it's understandable that we find the carrion-eating birds gruesome. Most of us would rather not think of ourselves as meat, and the details of vulture dining are hard to get comfortable with. Vultures, whose name comes from vellere, Latin for to tear, begin their eating at vulnerable spots on the carcass—the anus and eyes."

If wishes were fishes

2009-02-03T12:06:00.004-05:00

Doodle 4 Google

I enjoy Google's side projects. This one is a bit soppy, but since I enjoy the logo artwork on the search engine page so much, this seemed like it was worth sharing.

Wreck of HMS Victory Found in English Channel - NYTimes.com

2009-02-02T16:30:00.001-05:00

Wreck of HMS Victory Found in English Channel - NYTimes.com

I love shipwrecks. Add in "possibly four tons of gold coins valued at $1 billion." Maybe this could be part of the economic stimulus package? Federally funded treasure hunts. Not so different from what we're doing now really....

Extinct ibex is resurrected by cloning - Telegraph

2009-02-02T14:38:00.001-05:00

Extinct ibex is resurrected by cloning - Telegraph

(via Geekologie)

Dinosaurs. That's right:

"It has also increased the possibility that it will one day be possible to reproduce long-dead species such as woolly mammoths and even dinosaurs."

1950- The Turing Test

2009-02-02T13:53:00.002-05:00

Computing Machinery and Intelligence, By A. M. Turing

"I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?""

I've read about this article in science fiction and so on for years, but never came across the original article until now. It's dated, but more relevant all the time. A friend of mine suggested an alternative test for machine intelligence-- intentional creation of art.

Google-- "To organize the [world]... and make it universally accessible and useful."

2009-02-02T13:32:00.003-05:00

Google Earth, Google Ocean

The Guardian breaks the news that Google will add the ocean surface and seabed to Google Earth.

"It's a really useful tool for scientists, to [be able to] share data on the oceans," said David Sandwell, professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, at the University of San Diego.. "For me, it's the detailed global tectonic structure of the sea floor … if you're a physical oceanographer, the important thing is that the currents and tides are affected by things that stick up from the sea floor."

I'm just hoping they'll integrate Google Earth with handheld GPS and cellphones. Distributed geographic information gathering seems like it could be incredibly powerful.

Nice threads

2009-02-02T12:53:00.003-05:00

Better spider silk | Does even more than a spider can | The Economist

Combine with the spider-goat, and we could be onto something...

I've always loved the stories of attempted spider-farming:

"Compared with silkworms, spiders are aggressive and will eat one another, making it inadvisable to keep many spiders together in the same space." (Wikipedia)

I'll have to track down the historical account I came across a few years ago, but the idea of frustrated scientists watching their spider herds consume each other is priceless. It's like farming tigers.

Drake [revised]

2009-02-02T12:41:00.002-05:00

Broadcasting but not receiving: density dependence considerations for SETI signals

The Drake equation is an attempt to estimate how many extraterrestrial civiliations exist in our galaxy and how many of those we might eventually contact. It's an interesting idea, and gets a lot of coverage in astrobiology and skeptic publications, but it's essentially pure speculation:

The Drake equation states that:

where:

N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;

and

R^* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy

f_p is the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_ℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point

f_i is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life

f_c is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

This paper proposes a change in one of the variables, which is interseting, but still doesn't really lead us anywhere.

"Results show that under certain assumptions, a galaxy can be teeming with civilizations yet not have a guarantee of communication between any of them given either short lifetimes or small maximum distances for communication."