Science & Society

Barry Kibrick, producer and host of the PBS program "Between the Lines" has given me permission to share his weekly newsletter which alerts readers of current and archived programs and delivers a warm salutation. Kibrick interviews authors with unique depth and insight. He not only reads the books first – he analyzes them for wisdom, relevance and integrity. At present, "Between the Lines" airs in San Francisco; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Central, Mich.; Ohio-W VA and N. Eastern Kentucky; New Orleans, LA; Chicago; Oceanside, CA; Lawndale, CA; El Segundo, CA. The program is archived at "On Demand…

This older talk by computer science pioneer Richard Hamming is awesome: One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to…

John Hawks is not happy with it. I clicked on this John Timmer story about the new website, “Understanding Science”, directed toward the public and K-12 educators. What I found staring at me was a giant picture of a 27-step flowchart.I’m not going to reproduce it.  You can go over there and look if you must. I’m not kidding: “The Scientific Process” has 27 steps arranged in four interacting vortices. If you have trouble envisioning how this works, you can go to the “Understanding Science” site, and the Flash animation will helpfully take you through the 55 steps in the flowchart that…

It seems that music has extraordinary magical powers. Famed for being able to tame wild beasts, set a romantic mood, keep you exercising for longer and make babies smarter, music has taken a multifaceted and complex role in our society.  Our search for the panacea of our times may lie in your iPod.  The benefits of music lie in the development of music therapy, an alternative medicine that uses music to gain both physical and emotional healing and body wellness. Music therapy may involve either making music or listening to a wide variety of music types.  Research has shown…

There has been a perception that running has the same metabolic cost per unit of time no matter the speed — in other words, that the energy needed to run a given distance is the same whether sprinting or jogging.   Not so, says Karen Steudel, a zoology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.   Though sprinting feels more demanding in the short term, the longer time and continued exertion required to cover a set distance at a slower pace were thought to balance out the difference in metabolic cost. A new study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, says that the…

New research on the reporting of medical treatments in the Australian media showed slight improvements in accuracy but the overall quality of health reporting remained poor, says a study of more than 1,200 health news stories published by Australian media outlets.   It found that over the past four years there was only small improvement in quality of coverage of the availability of new treatments, the potential harm of interventions and accurate analysis of any benefits. The report evaluated medical news stories against 10 criteria including: how well the story covered the benefits,…

Extreme violence resulting in multiple deaths occurs with mounting frequency around the world. March 11, 2009, a teen in Germany slaughtered 15 people, UK News reports. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090312/twl-teen-warned-of-german-school-sho... The German teen openly warned of his intention in an internet chat room the night before, "No one sees my potential. I'm serious. I have weapons and I will go to my former school in the morning and have a proper barbecue." The youth who reported the Web connection after the mass murder said he hadn't take the teen seriously. A gunman in Alabama…

Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, issued a response to Pope Benedict's statement on condom use: "As the pope traveled to Africa, he chose this moment to make what appears to be his first unequivocal statement opposing condom use. In an interview on the papal plane to Cameroon, the pope acknowledged the HIV/AIDS crisis but claimed that the distribution of condoms would not resolve the problem. In fact, he said, condom use 'increases the problem.' "The pope will find that few Catholics and even fewer medical personnel agree with his stance. Several bishops in Africa, including…

Need a few Irish Gaelic words for the pub? Want a few trivial tidbits to impress your fellow revelers? Plan to discuss science (eolaíocht) over pints? Read on! Take a PDF cheat sheet with you to your local tavern and impress the lasses with your ability to order another pint, ask friends if they're drunk, and even wrangle a few kisses because you're Irish. After downing a few pints of Guinness, it's time to get down to business. Do you study éiceolaíocht (ecology)? Or do you prefer eolaíochtaí saoil (life sciences)? Perhaps you could discuss the latest forás na heolaíochta…

I have a curious mind and like to find out how and why things work. Unlike my husband and my two boys, I don’t necessarily take things apart to uncover how they operate (what is it with the Y chromosome and the inherent need to do this?) – instead, I’m more of a look-it-up-and-research-it type of girl. Thank goodness for Google. At the same time, there are some of life’s mysteries that I am happy to accept. I don’t really understand how volume control works. I mean, I know it has something to do with sound waves and amplitude – but all I really know is when I turn the knob up, I can suddenly…