Vidi: Science

Jul 14, 2009 Alun Science 2 Comments Vidi

This is a test of the new book­mark­ing script I’m work­ing on. This one does the sci­ence posts and should run on Tues­days around 7pm.

Cor­rel­a­tion, Caus­a­tion, and Coin­cid­ence One Astronomer’s Noise
Nicole tries to claim there’s a dif­fer­ence between cor­rel­a­tion and caus­a­tion in a bid to dodge the blame for the USA’s fail­ure to win the Con­fed­ra­tions Cup.

SNAIL’S TALES: Another well hid­den tree frog
Snail’s Tales is an inter­est­ing read, but you could just fol­low it for the photos.

the quacko­meter: What Next for the Brit­ish Chiro­practic Asso­ci­ation?
It looked like the Brit­ish Chiro­practic Asso­ci­ation would suc­cess­fully sue Simon Singh for defam­a­tion, des­pite their claims being non­sense. A recent art­icle in the BMJ now sug­gests it’s pos­sible their only hope of win­ning is by claim­ing to be a bunch of incom­pet­ent numbskulls.

Dis­ap­pear­ing The Sci­ence News | The Loom
Catch the news in Sci­ence before it dis­ap­pears! The Daily Telegraph’s attempt at writ­ing up a student’s research on rape as an enter­tain­ing piece has backfired.

Ask­ing for it — Bad Sci­ence
Related to the link above, here’s Ben Gol­dacre on how the news story in the Tele­graph was not about women ask­ing to be raped.

Times Higher Edu­ca­tion — NHS trust chief accuses Edin­burgh pro­fessor of speak­ing out of turn
Edin­burgh defends its aca­dem­ics right to be curi­ous. It should be nor­mal prac­tice, but that doesn’t stop it being laudable.

Epi­gen­et­ics: It’s All in the Pack­aging | New­s­week Sci­ence
(via BoraZ) A descrip­tion of epi­gen­et­ics, another strand of inher­it­ance which oper­ates along­side genet­ics. Bio­logy is not all in your DNA, which is going to com­plic­ate Star Trek plots massively.

Ashes crick­eters could be caught out by cli­mate change | guardian.co.uk
It’s not just shame­less time-wasting which is end­ing the golden age of cricket. Cli­mate change could lead to the Aus­trali­ans humi­li­at­ing Eng­land on a num­ber of sim­ilar pitches. It’s a dis­heart­en­ing pro­spect for those Eng­land fans who like to see their team humi­li­ated on a num­ber of pitches each with their own character.

A tale from the trenches of sci­ence journ­al­ism : Pharyn­gula
This makes a nice change from the sci­ence journ­al­ist = evil vil­lain trope that I’ve seen in a few places recently. It’s handy to know there’s frus­tra­tion on the journ­al­ists’ side too. It sug­gests coöper­a­tion would be more use­ful than conflict.

Advanced Fel­low­ships In the Dark
This is depress­ing. The STFC, the fun­ing body for UK astro­nomy, con­tinu­ing to cut down astro­nom­ical research in the UK to a more man­age­able level.

The Strange case of Epsi­lon Aurigae EIU Astro
Epsi­lon Aurigae would seem to be a very large star with a com­pan­ion. Things get really strange when you look at its light curve. It seems to get dim­mer for around two years at a time. That would sug­gest it’s being orbited by some­thing big­ger, but we can’t see it. It’s too dim to be a star, so what is it?

The first Earth­ling to jour­ney to Mars — Conan the Bac­terium | The Observer
Bac­teria have been shown to be viable after being left on the Moon, so it’s pos­sible ter­restrial bac­teria can travel to Mars. It’s even pos­sible that they have in the past, hitch­ing a lift on met­eor­ites. There’s also a tar­di­grade going. I’d be will­ing to bet a large amount of money that it will come back alive.

SNAIL’S TALES: Dar­win was a mala­co­lo­gist!
And if you don’t know what a mala­co­lo­gist is then you need to visit Snail’s Tales. The ‘mal’ always makes me think ‘bad’. But it’s not.

Galactic Inter­ac­tions: How much Dark Mat­ter do you hold in your hands?
Rob Knop is able to put a fig­ure on how much Dark Mat­ter is likely to be around you. It’s quite a small figure.

LookUP Wid­get | Astro­nomy Blog
Can you help test the LookUP wid­get? If not, then use it. It’s a nifty tool.