The difference between screwing around and science
[Note for CoE and direct evolution relevance: Towards the end of this HHMI Holiday lecture is a really good discussion about the difference between the inductive data-gathering + intuitive leaps...
View ArticleMore Viral Medicines
As a follow-up to Episode 50 (or possibly the unconscious reminder/inspiration for the bacteriophage part of episode 50), this guy from Wake Forest has been treating cancer with viruses. It seems the...
View ArticleBlack Blizzards and Rabbit Drives
America has been the land of real estate scams ever since Leif Ericson named a glacier-covered pile of rock “Greenland.” And only in America could you plow up 30 MILLION acres of deep-rooted native...
View ArticleA Different Take on Thanksgiving
Out on a beautiful chill morning at the Bog Garden, or hiking the Laurel Bluff Trail, watching a Great Blue Heron flapping heavily across the water, it’s pretty easy to feel all mystical and spiritual...
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Episode 51: Cathy Russell, Microbiologist and Myth-Maker
Though I didn’t say so during the episode, thanks to Tom Drury for our musical tag. Haven’t used it in a while, but its chant-like vocal goodness seemed particularly appropriate today. You see,...
View ArticleSunday Morning Science
I stayed up to finish last night’s episode, which means I fell asleep with it still fresh in my mind, which sometimes means that my subconscious will continue to work on it while I’m off roaming the...
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Holiday Lectures 2012
Last year I reviewed the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Holiday Lectures on human evolution in Episode 20. Coincidentally, one of my students, Paulnisha Granger, was at those lectures last year as...
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The Arrow of Entropy Points Left
Last week’s guest Cathy Russell described an arrow of evolution, leading to greater and greater complexity, greater and greater compassion. In other words, progress. You can see that arrow right at...
View ArticlePodcast Homework?
In preparation for this weekend’s discussion of adaptive radiation with Luke Harmon, here’s a couple of good documentaries about cichlid fish, which he will mention as one of the classic examples....
View ArticleEpisode 52: Luke Harmon
Today’s episode might sound as though I am ragging on the writers of fantasy for varnishing their tales with a thin veneer of scientific lingo. That is not so. My view is, We gotta start somewhere....
View ArticleGuest Post: Michael Hager, Scholar of the Sword
It’s been a week since I saw Cloud Atlas, and I’m still trying to decide whether I liked it or not. While I ponder, enjoy our very first guest post, from Mike Hager, as a follow-up to my anti-Viking...
View ArticleERB
Scrolling through some older posts today, I was reminded of The Illusion, which I saw at Triad Stage this past summer. The Illusion (by the same guy who wrote the screenplay for Lincoln, which was...
View ArticleWhat’s more daring than politics?
Politics . . . ON FIRE!!! *** I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to explain the Israel/Palestine thing to a ten-year-old over breakfast (not my idea; he brought it up, and I am honor-bound to answer...
View ArticleBaby Universes?
My old buddy Tom Drury sent me this link, over a year ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGGmuUvA2Mg&feature=related Finally got around to watching it today, while I was shopping for audio gear...
View ArticleFree Enough Will
In my big classes, I use these little RF transmitters we call “clickers.” They’re great, when used properly, for keeping the students engaged and for tracking where the class is as a whole. Like any...
View Articlethe joy of parenting
Wow, I forgot to publish this a week ago when I wrote it. That’s why the time stamp is corrected. My wife and I went to see The Imposter at Geeksboro yesterday. I’ve been reading Why Everyone (Else)...
View ArticleEpisode 53: Uncle Randall Reviews Several Things
Orson Scott Card is a science fiction writer who lives here in Greensboro. I’ve written him a couple of times over the past two years, inviting him to do an interview about how he reconciles his...
View ArticleMeme Pool: Called Shots
This morning NPR posted about the top ten memes of the year. #1 was, obviously (unless you’re a cave troll), that Gangnam thing that my 10-year-old has been walking around doing for the last month or...
View ArticleEpisode 54: Luke Harmon, continued
As I mentioned during the episode, I’ve read more about Stephen Jay Gould than I’ve read of his writing directly, though I have a post on one of his more famous arguments here (it must be famous if...
View ArticleDe-Motivating Students
Yesterday, on my way back from picking up the bagels that were to fuel our trip to Raleigh’s NC Museum of Natural Science, to deliver the bird carcasses from our fall migration study, Shankar Vedantam...
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