ideonexus

Tag: science

  • There’s Only One Human Race

    Nobel Laureate, James Watson, recently made the claim that blacks were ‘less intelligent,’ than whites, which just goes to show, being smart in one area doesn’t prevent you from being foolish in other realms. The following message is from the American Anthropological Association: “race” has no scientific justification in human biology. Tiger Woods coined the…

  • A Tale of Two Flatland Movies

    Flatland the Movie VS Flatland the Film I really enjoyed and appreciated Edwin Abott’s 1884 classic book Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions, which tells the story of Square, a lawyer living in Flatland, a two-dimensional world that has height and width, but not length. It’s in the public domain and free to download at…

  • Global Cooling Disproves Global Warming Theory

    Sorry gang. I have converted. I no longer accept Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory. I simply cannot reply to the deluge of facts presented in David Deming’s Year of global cooling article. The Cognitive Dissonance it’s causing in my brain has given me no choice but to accept that I was wrong. Deming’s a geophysicist, adjunct…

  • The OLPC XO-1, Shortcut to the Information Age

    So I got my OLPC XO-1 in the mail about a month ago, and I’m still wrestling with my opinion of it. Personally I think it’s the bee’s knees. Everyone who comes into the comic shop fawns over it. I’m the envy of the local geek crowd. I love it when people ask me, “What’s…

  • Somma’s Stochastic Revised

    My friend BMF photoshopped up the following version of my Somma’s Stochastic Eponym following a comment thread about what symbol best represents science, since the atom caused some confusion: Somma’s Stochastic Revised Bet you wish you had added me to your Facebook friends list now Ira Flatow?!?! Scientists everywhere are going to see this and…

  • My Scientific Eponym: Somma’s Stochastic

    I’ve been trying to figure out how to immortalize myself with my very own Scientific Eponym, and… Eureka! Behold! Somma’s Stochastic Somma’s Stochastic states that the number and intensity of logical fallacies employed by a pundit in a debate is inversely proportional to the empirical evidence supporting their position. Stated Simply The less science behind…

  • The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum

    French Astrolabe, 1600s The Hubble Telescope was impressive. For some reason, I’d never realized how huge this orbiting eye on the Universe actually is, easily three-stories tall. Scale was a common theme for me throughout the museum. The walk-through size of Skylab, the claustrophobia-inducing interior of the cramped Mercury capsule. These pictures won’t fully communicate…

  • Mind Webs: 49 hours Worth of Speculative Fiction Radio

    Mind Webs CD Cover Here’s an online treasure trove of audio files brought to you by the Internet Archive of the 1970s radio series Mind Webs. The show featured the greatest speculative fiction stories from top-notch authors of the day. You can find a summary of plotlines here. I’ve been listening to the shows for…

  • Review: Sunshine

    Scene from Sunshine Aside from the original Night of the Living Dead, I full on loathe zombie films. The plots are always the same, a virus (or magic) turns people into perpetual-motion flesh eating things. Big whoop. That was until the independent film 28 Days Later came out and reinvented zombies. Only these weren’t walking-dead,…

  • How Much is a Blue Whale Worth? Establishing a Market Value for the Environment

    Blue Whale Display American Natural History Museum Photo by Ryan Somma Whale-watching businesses use blue whales to sell their product. Documentary-makers use blue whales to sell Nature Films. Nature magazines like National Geographic use blue whales to sell magazines. Marine Biologists use blue whales to learn more about the natural world. Whalers use whales to…

  • PZ Myers is Rockin’ on my Facebook! Suck it H8rs!!!

    PZ Myers on my Facebook A Biology professor at the University of Minnesota, PZ Myer’s sharp wit and powerful logic put the smack down on Intelligent Design’s anti-science agenda. For the last five years, Myer’s evolution-promotin’, evangelical-blastin’, cephalopod-appreciatin’ blog Pharyngula has generated between 10,000 and 25,000 hits daily and posts that exceed hundreds of comments.…

  • The Smithsonian Natural History Museum

    I’ve got a huge backlog of photos I need to get up on Flickr, enough to cover several months worth of Saturndays. Here’s two sets from the Smithsonian Natural History Museum: Hall of Bones Man and the Manlike Apes The Hall of Bones does a great job of illustrating the incredible biological and adaptation diversity…