This week, Science for The People looks at the science of the ultimate criminal punishment. Pharmacologist and science writer David Kroll discusses the chemistry of the drugs used in lethal injections. They talk to law professor Samuel Gross, editor of the National Registry of Exonerations, about the rates of false convictions in death penalty cases. And they speak to Johns Hopkins University psychiatrist Dr. James Harris about the complex issues at the intersection of capital punishment and intellectual disability.
Category: Follies of the Human Condition
Intuition
This. A thousand times this.
It just feels right.
Let’s take back the comments section!
Remember when we all left comments on blogs? I looked at some of my old blog posts from 2007-ish, and they’re full of discussions, friendly notes, silly pictures, and occasionally spin off into random banter. I have made friends via blog comments, and found interesting other blogs through the links left by commenters.
Now, all conversation about blog posts seems to happen externally – mostly on social media – and blog comment sections themselves are either empty or filled with spam. Very few of my posts get comments anymore (although I did get this really nice one from a museum in Chile!)
It’s easy to blame others for not leaving comments, but be honest, when did you leave a friendly blog comment yourself?
That’s why I’m planning to spend the month of July actively leaving comments on blogs again. I’ve started a pledge on PledgeBank where you can indicate if you want to join (pseudonyms allowed!) and several people are on board. There’s also a FAQ on my personal blog. Join me!
(And if you want to write blog posts rather than comments, I also recently revealed my secret for keeping track of writing ideas.)
Father Ted Will Not Be at Eurovision
Frankly, I was shocked to learn, when I lived in England from 2010-2012 and was forced to watch the Eurovision song contest, that “My Lovely Horse” from the legendary television comedy Father Ted was not Ireland’s entry every year. Nor will it be Ireland’s entry in 2015.
Apparently, some people actually take Eurovision seriously. These people, I am told, are science bloggers.
It’s Just a Joke
BuzzFeed’s Editor-in-Chief, Ben Smith, seems to be suggesting, in his argument with marine biologists* over a failed parody of shark hysteria, that smart people have bad senses of humor.
Well, at least we know when to use a scatter plot instead of a Gaussian distribution. Burn.
Based on his opinion of BuzzFeed’s level of humor, it also shows a relatively low opinion of the intelligence of BuzzFeed fans. Granted, he probably knows a lot of details about BuzzFeed fans.
*Identifiable as folks with or working toward a biology PhD who suffer from the delusion that they are pirates.
The Finch and Pea 