Author: Josh Witten

http://www.thefinchandpea.com

Is it “Doctor Princess” or “Princess Doctor”?

Thanks to the enjoyable Bragg Lecture by Sir Paul Nurse (Nobel laureate and president of the Royal Society) at the Physics of Living Matter conference here in Cambridge, I now know a bit more about how to order British titles. The correct order is “Professor Sir Paul Nurse”, much like “Vice Admiral Lord Nelson“.

This got me to thinking about how we would sort it out if one the British royalty dedicated themselves to the pursuit of knowledge. Would it be “Doctor Her Royal Highness Princess Whatsherface”? Would it be acceptable to shorten it to “Her Royal Doctorness”?

With the dedication of Prince Charles to more mystical medical remedies, I’m not sure they’ll need to worry about this issue any time soon.

Eagles at Rugby World Cup

Having played with and/or traded knocks with many of the players on the Eagles World Cup side, I could not be more pleased with their play so far. These guys are playing up to their potential. The quality of the play (as well as the improved TV coverage in the US) should make everyone hopeful for the future of rugby in the US. Also, coach Eddie O’Sullivan deserves high marks for his selection of talented and complementary players.

Ask for Evidence

Sense about Science, a UK based group trying to equip the public to understand scientific and medical claims to which they are exposed, has launched a new campaign Ask for Evidence that seems well worth supporting.

The concept is simple and should make sense to most people. When someone makes a claim, you should (and have every right to) ask why you should believe that claim. Ask for evidence. Below, I have illustrated an example of this: Continue reading “Ask for Evidence”

A dry eyed goodbye to the Space Shuttle

Point the first: I think NASA should have more funding; but, like everyone else, I’m not going to bother saying what programs I’m going to raid to fund my pet programs.

Point the second: I kind of wish we’d been spending all that money we spent putting people into space on the unmanned, scientific instruments that have actually been illuminating our solar system, our galaxy, and our universe. That is not to say that I really regret the manned space flight program, as I’m not sure all those unmanned scientific instruments would have been built without the big goals associated with manned space flight (e.g., walking on the Moon). I’m just not particularly sad that the shuttle is being retired, nor I am particularly upset that there is no replacement ready to go. Continue reading “A dry eyed goodbye to the Space Shuttle”

Walking in the moonlight. . .with lions

A new paper in PLoS One suggests that we humans may be afraid of the dark and associate evil goings on with the full moon because that is when lions try to eat us. Continue reading “Walking in the moonlight. . .with lions”