From the category archives:

science

Use Cockroach DNA To Encode Archives In A Biological Time Capsule

November 10, 2008

Jaron Lanier, with the collaboration of David Sulzer and Lisa Haney came up with this intriguing and highly feasible idea for a Manhattan time capsule … although you could do this anywhere. Some of the cockroach’s genes are extremely stable. They have not changed substantially for millions of years, and are therefore extremely likely to [...]

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Nanobama

November 4, 2008

This is really cool! “We can make pretty much any 2-D pattern by this technique,” Hart said. But in honor of the election, Hart’s lab applied their technique to the now-ubiquitous image of Obama’s face created by Shepherd Ferry. The only overtly political text that accompanies the images on nanobama.com is the tagline, “vote for science.” Nanobama: World’s [...]

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Interesting Pairing in Nature Magazine

October 6, 2008

This is the front and back cover spread of a recent Nature magazine, courtesy of Gawker…

There are some great comments about “Nature Cover Nurtured” on Gawker:

“both those yellow dogs are old” and, “One dog looks hopeful. The other looks confused.”

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George Lakoff & Nick Naylor Know What Joe Biden Needs to Do to Nail the Debate

October 2, 2008

George Lakoff often talks about “frames,” particularly the way Republicans create their own and draw you into them, regardless of what the question or topic was to begin with. If you recall the conversation about ice cream between Nick Naylor and his son in Thank You For Smoking, that’s reframing. Lakoff gives a great breakdown and list of stratagem for Joe Biden to employ against Sarah Palin tonight. It’s well worth a read, even after the debate

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Incompetent People Are Truly Clueless (to their own inabilities)

October 1, 2008

Reading all this about Sarah Palin I’m reminded of a New York Times article by Erica Goode someone pointed me to a loooong time ago on what is now called the Dunning–Kruger Effect… When Sarah Palin tells us she did not blink when John McCain asked her to be his running mate, I have a strong suspicion we’re looking at this effect in action.

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