Science & Society

Bias And Balance There is a founding principle in law: audi alteram partem. It is Latin, and means, literally "Hear the other side." It refers to a principle of fairness, justice and ethics: the requirement that statements from both sides of a contest in law must be examined with all due diligence to determine the truth of a matter to a high standard of probability. The audi alteram partem principle recognizes the right of each side in the legal contest toa full and fair opportunity to challenge the evidence presented by the other party, to summon witnesses, to present evidence and to have…

Listen to Mars, now listen to me, now listen to Mars. This is what Mars could sound like, if it sounded like me. Today, we listen to sonification of data, artistic interpretation, and discuss which is ‘better’ and which is ‘more real’. Can we hear a point to converting astronomy data to sound? I’m on a podcast. Thus rings the intro to my 365 Days of Astronomy podcast this month, titled "Music on a Planetary Scale".  Follow that link to hear the full show, and some ground samples of what to expect from Project Calliope. Alex Alex Every Tuesday at The Satellite Diaries, every Friday at the…

Jason Hoyt, Ph.D., is Chief Scientist and VP of R&D at Mendeley, and asks researchers which side they want to be on in the march of history - legacy toll access to results or open access of both science and publication. Clever researchers will, of course, ask why they need to change anything if this is actually a 'march' and will happen with or without them.   Pioneers are the ones who get arrows in the back, after all, and scientists are progressive politically but conservative when it comes to their careers, so asking today if a scientist wants to be on the side of open access -…

Yesterday, JR Minkel tweeted this: @jrminkel The most striking science analogy I've ever heard: http://bit.ly/auGvp4 The link leads to a brief excerpt from an NPR story in which Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David Linden says, If there were a giant with her head in Baltimore and her toe off the coast of South Africa and she was bit by a great white shark on the toe on Monday, she wouldn’t feel it until Wednesday and she wouldn’t jerk her toe until Saturday. That is to say, the human neuron response is slow. And Linden could have just said that. But instead, he chose to illustrate the point…

M.A.D. 2.0 The greatest fear of mankind after World War 2 was the real possibility of a World War 3. It was a rational fear of a very real threat: the global destruction of civilization. Nations, most especially the USA and the former USSR, found themselves in a mad race to build more bombs, more powerful bombs, megadeath bombs. The military theory behind this madness was that if a nation had weapons enough to utterly destroy any enemy then it would not be attacked.  But a first strike might reduce the ability to launch a counterstrike powerful enough to utterly destroy the enemy, so it…

Tylophora Indica ( Asclepiadaceae)   Root or leaf powder is used in diarrhoea, dysentery and intermittent fever. Dried leaves are emetic diaphoretic and expectorant. It is regarded as one of the best indigenous substitute for ipecacuanha. The roots are suggested to be a good natural preservative of food. It is traditionally used as a folk remedy in certain regions of India for the treatment of bronchial asthma , inflammation , bronchitis, allergies, rheumatism and dermatitis.

I needed a good laugh this morning, so a tip of the hat to Fox News for the welcome relief. On the Google News homepage, I saw this humdinger of a headline: "Fox on Sex: 5 Ways to Get Your Wife to Have More Sex With You" I don't know about you but when I think about how to increase my frequency of making the beast with two backs, I think Fox News.1 Good thing they came through. A "sexologist" named Logan Levkoff, Ph.D. (and Logan is a female, BTW) advises the following: OK guys, stop all your whining and complaining for a second and listen up: If you want more sex from your wives, you have…

A couple months shy of a year ago, I was raving about the news that a new giant squid documentary was in the works. Guess what? It's still in the works! If this weren't so deadly serious (joke) I'd be laughing my head off about the meta-meta-reporting. I'm writing a blog post . . . about an article . . . about a documentary . . . that hasn't been filmed yet. And you're still reading? You should probably just go outside a watch a tree grow. But wait, before you go, a pop quiz: Can squid hear? Why do I ask? Well, this latest article about the documentary quotes a pioneer of deep-sea…

Fix can mean to repair or to gimmick, as in 'the fix is in'.  I'm not going to tell you how to repair science journalism.  A few wingnuts stalwarts here at Science 2.0 beat that to death.  Their suggestions include sack the journalists, and also rehire journalists.  Be like ESPN.  Be ISO9000 (say what you'll do then do what you say).  Possibly, don't fix it. I will tell you how to gimmick science journalism.  Remember, science is about asking the right questions, and there are divergent questions implicit in 'fixing science journalism'.  The first is…

LONDON, August 19, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Against all odds, traditional advertising is perceived by consumers as more informative, entertaining and necessary than online advertising. Of more than 1,200 people surveyed for digital marketing show ad:tech London by Zussi Research, 69 per cent believed traditional advertising was relevant to them, compared with 45 per cent for online. For the TV generation of those aged between 25-34-years old the gap widens further: 81 per cent (traditional) versus 53 per cent (online). Worse still for digital marketers, annoyance around advertising on the web…