In honor and anticipation of Opening Day, I bring you Sandy Koufax, which is really all any baseball fan should need. This post mashes up two separate entries I filed two years ago about Sandy Koufax, who is — don’t argue, you’re wrong — the greatest pitcher ever.* I’ve taken parts of both those posts,…
Monthly Archives: March 2011
Uncategorized
Sleep, Vaccines, and Stoners as Arms Dealers: The Week’s Glitter
by David Dobbs •
A while back I considered writing a book about sleep. I’ve learned since that’s a sure sign predictor of a good NY Times story sometime in the following 5 to 10 years. So here it is: The latest science on sleep. In the same vein as the old kissthisguy.com, McSweeney’s brings us a great new…
Uncategorized
The Science of Swearing. Read the F’ing Thing!
by David Dobbs •
Don’t miss this. Over at Mind Hacks, blogger, psychiatrist, and writer Vaughan Bell, always on the lookout for items of scientific importance and wonder, has turned up an entertaining study of teenage swearing. Teenagers love to swear. Says who? Says science you melon farmers. And what could be better than a top ten of teenage…
Brains and Behavior, Uncategorized
Is Sharing a Technology? John Hawks Asks the Kids
by David Dobbs •
Is sharing a technology? These may seem an odd question. But over at John Hawks’s Weblog, of all places, John Hawks is spinning an intriguing argument that the social context supporting behaviors such as sharing and counting plays such a vital role that it amounts to a sort of technological infrastructure — and its outcome…
Culture of Science, Uncategorized
Cosmology journal declares enemies evil, war won, all life alien
by David Dobbs •
I lack time to do this justice, but thought it should enter the public record. The Journal of Cosmology’s latest release about the Hoover assertions about signs of alien life in a meteor, below, speaks for itself. You can find other context at my prior post on this. I should note that when the journal…
Brains and Behavior, Uncategorized
The Pope’s Balls, Nagel’s Bats, Barthes, Baldwin, and other pleasures
by David Dobbs •
I’ve been head-down on a complicated piece of writing this week; an enormous pleasure, but it steals you away. Forgive the quiet. Below is what broke through. The week’s upper-deck shot was hit by Joe Posnanski: In the car that day, I finally figured it out … finally figured out what kept Dad going through…
Uncategorized
How to Crack Open Science – from ScienceOnline
by David Dobbs •
What’s Keeping Us from Open Science? Is It the Powers That Be, Or Is It… Us? from Smartley-Dunn on Vimeo. Despite all its wonders, science today operates under some enormous constraints, many of them concentrated around the academic paper, which started as a way to spread science faster and wider, but now often serves more…
Uncategorized
Arsenic Author Dumps Peer Review, Takes Case to TED
by David Dobbs •
Back in December, when NASA-funded researcher Felisa Wolfe-Simon caught criticism online for her paper asserting a particular bacteria was incorporating arsenic into its DNA, virtually rewriting the rules of life, she declined to talk to the press, saying she preferred to limit debate to the peer-reviewed press. She said, to be exact Any discourse will…
Uncategorized
Journal of Cosmology Takes “You Ignorant Slut” Route
by David Dobbs •
The meteoric alien saga is getting deeply weird. My earlier post covered and tracked this fracas over a paper finding signs of alien life in a meteor. As I said then, the journal publishing it seemed the most interesting thing about it. It has proven the case, and continues to do so. Here’s a snippet…
Uncategorized
Arsenic Paper Reviewer Can’t See Out of Ivory Tower
by David Dobbs •
As the Bug said to Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black (at about 1:20 in clip above) “You don’t get it.” Even as the blogosphere tries to check the claims (and press coverage) of last week’s Richard Hoover paper about alien life in meteors, behavioral and evolution researcher Zen Faulkes, over…
Page 1 of 2
1 2 »