Science
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Management, Money, Media
Wednesday was a busy day of politicking and schmoozing (as opposed to research and teaching, which is what I actually get paid to do). I spent the morning at a meeting reviewing the current status of developments for the Planck Surveyor satellite here in the UK (Planck will measure the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave…
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One Million Dollars
Remember the news a few weeks ago about “The Million Dollar Homepage” — brainchild of Alex Tew, a student in Nottingham? He sold tiny ads at $1 per pixel and filled a million pixels, and therefore his wallet. The bandwagon-jumping has started: The Homepage4Science has hundreds of thousands of pixels available for “Science Products and…
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Science this week
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Start of a new term this past week, too busy to post much! So, a quick summary: A new collection of Science Blogs, sponsored by the revamped Science-as-lifestyle magazine Seed has gone live. In addition to PZ Myers’ wonderful and oft-cited evolution blog, Pharyngula, the site hosts blogs by cognitive scientists, physicists and science writers…
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“Freak chances of evolution in an indifferent cosmos”
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In a criticism of Richard Dawkins’ upcoming series, The Root of All Evil, attacking religion, Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting tries to find space leftover for, well, god: “It’s also right for religion to concede ground to science to explain natural processes; but at the same time, science has to concede that despite its huge advances…
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23 Short Films About the Leap Second
Today I was interviewed by Felicity Hickson, a student at London’s Royal College of Art, who is making a film about the leap-second that gave us all an extra second on New Year’s Eve. There have been 23 leap-seconds since 1972, and she’s searching for 23 scientists who will each use their own extra 23…
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“What Really Exists”
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For some light holiday reading, check out this slightly mistitled article from the NY Times on the still-unsolved mysteries of Quantum Mechanics. It’s always good PR to have Einstein’s name in the title, but really it’s about a theory — Quantum Mechanics — that Einstein didn’t like much. That article spawned an excellent post from…
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More light, more science, no subways
Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So it all gets better from now on (Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a perfectly reasonable response to the darkness). But what else? A Republican-appointed member of the federal judiciary has slammed the Intelligent Design crackpots, seeing them for the crypto-creationists they can…
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Quick lunch-hour dispatch, all to be clarified soon: Last week I participated in a collaboration between the Dana Centre (the adult wing of the Science Museum) and some artists, entitled “Big Ideas.” Imperial College is to be leaving the University of London. Fantastic late-night Dinner last weekend, with (among many others!) Kosso, Rachel, Imp, Deirdre,…
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From Tokyo
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…where I’m attending the fifteenth Japanese Workshop on General Relativity and Gravitation. At some point, I’ll blog about: All the interesting work being done by the mostly young, mostly Japanese physicists here; The distressing things The Royal Society is saying about open access to scientific information (which has already been covered all over the blogosphere);…
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Helsinki
So, why Helsinki? I was here to be the “Opponent” for a Ph.D. examination for a student at the University of Helsinki. I felt like the host of a talk show: after short presentations by the candidate and me, we sat at the front of an auditorium, and I quizzed him on topics near to…