interweaving ideas
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National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: James S. McDonnell Space Hangar
James S. McDonnell Space Hangar It’s a happy coincidence that I had a space-themed flickr set to upload just the day before the 40th anniversary of humans stepping foot on the Moon with the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar. Displays of toys and science fiction models really convey the cultural impact space exploration has had…
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Understanding the Animal Side of Human Nature
Grrrrr! Credit: Brian Scott Colin Powell’s appearance on State of the Union recently stirred up many healthy debates on Iraq, Obama’s presidency, and Sotomayor, but I found his thoughts on American families most interesting, especially the following: And I’m kind of a simple guy on things like this, John. I watch National Geographic and Animal…
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Cap and Trade to Support the Commons
Awhile back I wrote a column for the Science Creative Quarterly titled The Tragedy of the Commons Explained with Smurfs. It was easily the most buzzed-up thing I’ve every written, earning lots of praise from scientists who understood the reality, and lots of scorn from economists, who are easily offended by reality and prefer to…
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Virginia Living Museum: Costal Plain Aviary
Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron Check out the complete flickr set here.
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Fun With Tick Clockwork
Dermacentor variabilis, female Credit: National Tick Collection Vicky and I went for a short hike in Chesapeake’s Northwest River Park last weekend, a lovely site filled with marshland and waterways for canoeing, camping, … and ticks. Hot summer days combined with the humidity of the wetlands climate equals lots and lots of ticks, and this…
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Hydrocarbon Powered Ecovehicles
I got a fast one pulled on me the other day as I was out for a walk. I saw a car with the following sticker on its rear windshield: Hydrocarbon Powered Ecovehicle I was pretty confused looking at it. The person who had purchased the vehicle was obviously the victim of a very elaborate…
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Virginia Living Museum Mammals Outdoors
There were a lot of neat miscellanous exhibits at the VLM, including an indoor bee hive, fossilized dinosaur tracks, and this nifty display of a snake’s fangs opening and closing: Fangs I finally managed to get some photos of a river otter. These are the most playful animals of the all, always hamming it up…
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Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s “Unscientific America”
Unscientific America Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future is a worthwhile survey of the cultural, academic, entertainment, and political aspects of science in America, and how they all contribute to the steady decline of science primacy in our country. Mooney and Kirshenbaum’s writing benefits from their immersion in…
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EPA Suppresses Report Disproving Global Warming
This is outrageous. I can’t believe that, with the house passing the Climate Change Bill on Friday, which will seek to curb CO2 emissions, it has just come out that the EPA crushed a dissenting report on the supposed dangers of “Global Warming.” The report, titled Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for…
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Virginia’s Mountains and World of Darkness
Eastern Newt The Virginia Living Museum, like zoos and other natural history museums, recreates many different ecological niches indoors, where visitors can get up close and admire the biology in detail. There’s a sense of wonder in admiring the uniqueness of life without it being able to run away and hide. Hermit Crab As nice…
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CIS517 IT Project Management: Effective Project Management
A PDF of this Paper is available here. Effective communications is the single most important attribute of successful project management. Efficient meetings are crucial to project progress and promoting a sense of membership within a team. At the same time, managing daily communications within the team is also important, as team members can be overwhelmed…
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Questions About “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
The profundity of the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has left my mind swirling with deep, philosophical, scientific, and political questions. Maybe someone could help me with them: What was the sociological explanation for incredibly-advanced extraterrestrials adopting stereotypical “gansta” lingo as their primary means of social discourse, as we saw with the twin robots…
