science & technology

“So, Geologist, When Are You Going On Your Next Dig?”

October 13, 2011

Rocking Discovery: Boulders rub shoulders during quakes (ht, Julie) While the others wandered off to see the sites, as geologists are wont to do, Quade climbed under the truck to get out of the beating sunlight. That’s when Quade noticed something very unusual about the half-ton to 8-ton boulders near the truck: they appeared to [...]

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National Fossil Day!

October 12, 2011

As much as I love trilobites, here is a photograph I took of pretty Missippian-age crinoids on display at the Smithsonian Museum. Ok, ok, Matt has a trilobite head for you who insist. Happy Fossil Day! Hug your favorite dead-and-preserved-in-the-rock-record critter today! Don’t forget to donate to science classrooms in honor of Earth Science week, [...]

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Words Of Interest

October 11, 2011

In Space Dust: Your Tax Dollars At Work, Boing Boing’s Maggie Koerth-Baker interviews Attila Kovacs, a University of Minnesota astrophysicist. Kovacs is spot on about the cost of doing science and the altered scientific priorities of once-great corporate research labs, and his final words sum up why I support the government funding of science. Basic [...]

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Michael Hart’s “Ode To Steve Jobs”

October 6, 2011

One of the last things Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, wrote before he passed away was an essay on Steve Jobs, on the occasion of the latter’s resignation as Apple CEO.  Here is an excerpt from Michael’s piece that reminds why both of these great people will be sorely missed. We live in an [...]

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Please Give To Science In Classrooms!

October 5, 2011

Yes, it’s that time of year again when I beseech you, dear readers, to donate to the DonorsChoose Science Bloggers For Students online charity challenge that helps high-poverty science and mathematics classrooms in need. There is a lot less fanfare and competition between us science bloggers this year, but classrooms are more underfunded than ever. [...]

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Learning How To Learn

September 28, 2011

“To understand is to invent.” – Jean Piaget The latest Accretionary Wedge topic is Back To School. Anne Jefferson, professor of hydrogeology and one of the blogging pair at Highly Allochthonous, has a set of questions for students, professors, those outside academia and science fans. The following are specific questions addressed in this post: If [...]

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Hack Your Town

September 7, 2011

“If guns are about power, then hacking is about secret knowledge, and knowledge is also power.” – Charlie Stross in The Fear Factory “Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.” – H. Jackson Brown Chicago Trib news app developer leaves Chicago and moves to small town of [...]

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DC Quake

August 25, 2011

Me: “Mom! Did you feel the earthquake?” Mom: “You know, Maitri, I felt this couch shake and wondered what it was. But I didn’t want to say anything.” Me: “Sweet! You felt the DC earthquake!” Mom: “It was in Washington DC and I felt it in northeast Ohio? What magnitude?” Me: “Good question. It was [...]

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On Bayes And Uncertainty Analysis

August 18, 2011

“When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” — Thomas Bayes, British mathematician and Presbyterian minister The New York Times reviews Sharon Bertsch McGrayne’s The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy. Three [...]

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Seismic Interpretation Rage 1

August 4, 2011

Some of you have asked what my typical work day looks like. Thanks to MemeBase, I can now bring you samples of the daily challenges and small victories of an exploration geophysicist in cartoon form. Introducing Seismic Interpretation Rage. There’s a lot more where this came from. Tweet

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