The Finch and Pea

Science Caturday: Schrodinger’s Cat is Named SUSY?

Posted on 18 May 2013 by scienceartness | Leave a comment

For a kitty that might be dead, he sure keeps busy.

photo via Cheezburger.com

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Posted in Science Caturday

Tagged physics cat, Schrodinger's cat, science cat, supersymmetry, SUSY

Insurance Industry: 4 on Dubiosity Scale

Posted on 17 May 2013 by Josh Witten | Leave a comment

Contrary to political posturing, there are more than two positions on the climate change issue. There are political conservatives who accept anthropogenic climate change, but prefer using market forces to address the problem. These individuals rate a 4 on my Dubiosity Scale (1 is the most dubious).

According to an article in the NY Times by Eduardo Porter, the US insurance industry may also rate a 4. It accepts the scientific consensus position, but is reluctant to engage in political squabbles, because the threat of punitive regulation is a bigger risk than increased payouts due to worsening weather:

Yet when I asked Mr. Nutter what the American insurance industry was doing to combat global warming, his answer was surprising: nothing much…Instead, the focus of insurers’ advocacy efforts is zoning rules and disaster mitigation. – Eduardo Porter

Porter summarizes the position of a 4 on the Dubiosity Scale in his last sentence:

And that’s the best hope for those concerned about climate change: that global warming isn’t just devastating for society, but also bad for business. -Eduardo Porter

But, what happens when the issue is so politicized that the market forces are responding to the politics and not the market?

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Posted in Curiosities of Nature, Follies of the Human Condition

Tagged climate change, Insurance, Linkonomicon

Thinking about Angelina

Posted on 17 May 2013 by Josh Witten | Leave a comment

Writing in Forbes, David Kroll has a very thoughtful take on Angelina Jolie’s announcement that she had a preventative double mastectomy after learning that she was at exceptionally high risk for developing breast cancer. While taking nothing away from Jolie’s bravery in writing about her choice, Kroll raises concerns about health care access, gene patents, “certainty” in medicine, and the influence of celebrity (which could be both positive and negative in this case):

On the one hand, I am stunned by the bravery of this high-profile woman to not only undergo such a transformative surgery and then write about it in the nation’s newspaper of record less than three weeks later…On the other hand, I do worry that the ensuing publicity surrounding her announcement might evoke some magnitude of panic in women with breast cancer, particularly those who don’t have BRCA1/2 gene mutations or cannot afford to have the testing done…My primary concern is that some women with breast cancer may think that they are not being aggressive enough with their current treatment plan. – David Kroll

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Posted in This Mortal Coil

Tagged Angelina Jolie, BRCA mutation, Breast cancer, David Kroll, Forbes, Genetic testing, Linkonomicon, Myriad Genetics

Classing it up

Posted on 16 May 2013 by naylorsa | Leave a comment

William Curtis School (Adolf Cluss, 1875), O Street, NW between 32 and 33rd Streets. Razed 1951. DCPS Archives

Those of you out there who went to graduate school, try to think back to the early days….I know the PTSD makes it difficult, but try to remember the beginning of graduate school. Do you remember the required classes that you had to take? These classes were a mostly a hodge podge of random professors talking about either their own work, or a concept they may not even be familiar with. I read a Commentary in the journal Cell the other day that gives me hope that schools will consider modifying their graduate curriculum and spend more time on teaching. Continue reading →

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Posted in Follies of the Human Condition

Tagged STEM, graduate education, curriculum, pedagogy, Harvard

You are probably going to be ok

Posted on 16 May 2013 by Josh Witten | Leave a comment

Vaughan Bell penned an insightful piece for The Guardian about psychologically recovering from disasters. Evidence and expert opinion from world leading health agencies supports the statement that the vast majority of people who experience a “disaster-level” trauma recover, psychologically, on their own.

The evidence does not support the trendy notion of “psychological debriefing” – one-off counseling immediately after events to help people “process” – in fact it shows that it is worse than doing nothing. The actual experts in disaster relief seem to be wise to the research and using methods to help identify those people who do need help, rather than “helping” people who do not need it.

*Hat tip to Ed Yong.

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Posted in Follies of the Human Condition

Tagged Linkonomicon, Emergency management, Psychology, Guardian, Disaster Relief and Recovery, Mental health

Old Maps, Ingenuity, and the Internet

Posted on 16 May 2013 by Josh Witten | 1 Comment

Plate CXXVIII. Roseburg Quadrangle, Oregon, Land Classification and Density of Standing Timber (Cartography Associates CC BY-NC-SA)

I love old maps. Many are wildly inaccurate. Many are fanciful. Many are surprisingly well done. In our era of Google Maps and GPS, it is easy to forget that early mapmakers could not easily see what they were drawing from above. The combination of skills, tricks, rules-of-thumb, and artistry that goes into cartography bends the mind.

David Rumsey has collected maps for decades and decided to donate his map collection to the Internet. Now, the internet has one more thing with which it can distract me.

*Hat tip to Rebecca Rosen.

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Posted in The Art of Science

Tagged Cartography, David Rumsey, Linkonomicon, Maps

The Art of Science: Who’ll Stop the Rain

Posted on 15 May 2013 by scienceartness | Leave a comment

Every movie villain worth his salt schemes to control the weather; now that experience is available to New York City museum-goers. The Museum Of Modern Art’s Rain Room, open from May 12 to July 28, is a “large-scale environment” which will allow visitors to “experience how it might feel to control the rain.” The work, by design group Random International, consists of a structure that pours down water like rain, except when its sensors detect the presence of a human body.

MoMA says that the piece “also invites visitors to explore what role science, technology, and human ingenuity can play in stabilizing our environment.” Well maybe – although I doubt that creating blatantly fake environments which allow humans to “control nature” does much to advance our thinking about our real relationship with, say, weather and climate. Let’s just call it an undoubtedly cool piece of techno-art that will be a magnet for New Yorkers and tourists alike this summer.