Random Thoughts

When I tweet links to science articles, I lose them in the Twitter stream of "more" as they descend further and farther below the bottom of the page. I use Twitterbar to tweet as I browse during research for various freelance writing gigs. On most days, I tweet several science links, intending to return to the items. But I rarely do. Posting science links with briefest descriptions here as "blog-blurts" might serve me better. An example: Earth's geodynamo may have churned up as early as 3.45 billion years ago (via Scientific American).  Image: Aurora…

The government is monitoring and restricting my consumption of Advil Cold&Sinus©, and it is all Japan’s fault.A Japanese chemist first synthesized ephedrine into Methamphetamine in 1893. Twenty-six years later, another chemist produced a crystallized form of methamphetamine, known on the streets as “crystal meth.” Three years after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Abbott Laboratories gained the approval of U.S. Food and Drug Administration to produce methamphetamine for treating a wide variety of illnesses such narcolepsy, depression, chronic alcoholism, and hay fever. One year later,…

The Rules Of Poetry Write what you want   any way that you wish it doesn't even have to scan   as long as it rhymes - -ish. And as long as at least one person says:   " It's good, innit? " you can totally disregard the millions of readers who say:   " Bin it! "

According to a new study of 504 death penalty cases in Harris County, Texas between 1992 and 1999, a defendant is much more likely to be sentenced to death if he or she kills a "high-status" victim - a white or Hispanic victim who is married with a clean criminal record and a college degree. The study appears in a recent issue of Law and Society Review "The concept of arbitrariness suggests that the relevant legal facts of a capital case cannot fully explain the outcome: irrelevant social facts also shape the ultimate state sanction" says Scott Phillips, associate professor of sociology and…

When it comes to wine, 'green' labels just don't pack the same financial wallop that they do for low-energy appliances and organically grown produce. A new study has found that organic labels actually decrease the price consumers are willing to pay for their wine. Wines made with 'organically' grown grapes rate higher on a widely accepted ranking, said Magali Delmas, a UCLA environmental economist and the study's lead author, and these wines can even command a higher price than their conventionally produced counterparts - as long as wineries don't use the word "organic" on their labels. When…

In a new study dedicated to the blatantly obvious, a Georgia State political scientist says that residents of states with more government corruption may not only lose trust in political officials but also in the general public. The study will be published in American Politics Research. The research looked at arrests of government officials in 50 states combined with 2002 through 2004 survey data of the American National Election Studies panel, which produces data on voting, public opinion and political participation. The findings show that people living in a state with more convictions for…

Newspaper headlines report the total medal count as the most noteworthy measure of a country’s success in the recent Olympic games. The top three were the US with 37, Germany with 30 and Canada with 26. This can be misleading, because the numbers don’t take into account the very different resources available to athletes from different countries. It’s like comparing athletics at a university that has a well-funded sports program and 30,000 students to that of a small college with 2000 students and no sports budget at all.   I think it might be more revealing to compare medal counts in…

An impressive insight from someone who never tried to get qPCR to work: Thus it is said:The path into the light seems darkthe path forward seems to go backthe direct path seems longtrue power seems weaktrue purity seems tarnishedtrue steadfastness seems changeabletrue clarity seems obscure - Tao te Ching, transl. Stephen Mitchell Read the feed:

According to a new study in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, educational DVDs do not improve overall general language learning abilities Among 12- to 24-month old children, and manufacturers' claims that these infant-directed media can teach children specific vocabulary words have not been substantiated. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, studied vocabulary acquisition among 96 children age 12 to 24 months. Participants were tested on measures of vocabulary and general development, and their primary caregivers (77 mothers, seven fathers…

Let me also say what I don't mean by final, underlying, laws of physics. I don't mean that other branches of physics are in danger of being replaced by some ultimate version of elementary particle physics. I think the example of thermodynamics is helpful here. We know an awful lot about water molecules today. Suppose that at some time in the future we came to know everything there is to know about water molecules, and that we had become so good at computing that we had computers that could follow the trajectory of every molecule in a glass of water. (Neither will probably ever happen, but…