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cultural literacy
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teaching &
education
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late December 2014 |
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Europa's giant geysers are missing (Scientific American) last seen in late 2013, but not since What the Sky would look like without city lights (NY Times) desert-sky photos superimposed on cityscape photos Shopping for a telescope? get binoculars first (Raleigh N&O) Methane on Mars? (NY Times) is it life or just more hype? abstract from Science |
Amazingly, Astronomy can explain the biblical star of Bethlehem (Washington Post) although perhaps the article meant 'astrology'? |
The battle for the exoplanets (Nature) an attempt to resolve the squabble between various discovery groups Will we find ET life in 2015? (Scientific American) The 10 biggest exoplanet stories of 2014 (Space.com) Do Aliens know it's Christmas? (NY TImes) that would extraterrestrial aliens... not illegal ones damaged Kepler still finding planets (NY Times) Planets-in-the- making (NY Times) ALMA's view of HL Tauri |
Where has gravity been (and not been) tested? (Preposterous Universe) there is a broad region where we have no data about General Relativity Prime gap grows after decades-long lull (Quantum) this year's proof of the Erdos conjecture 6 science stories to follow in 2015 (LA Times) encounter with Pluto, LHC to reach full power, rendezvous with a large asteroid best of 2014 lists Physics World's top 10 Physics breakthroughs of 2014 (Physics World) Rosetta comet landing gets first Top 10 Science Stories of 2014 (Real Clear Science) comet landing first again Top 10 Space/Physics stories of 2014 (Scientific American) comet landing on top again and the readers' choices of stories Science Magazine's top 2014 breakthroughs (Science) comet rendezvous story chosen by editors runnersup are mostly biology readers choose expansion of DNA/RNA alphabet instead Best Physics Videos of 2014 (Scientific American) Biggest Astronomy stories of 2014 (Space.com) the Mars explorations seems to be their 'biggest' and the worst (as in both silly and wrong) article written this past year: Science increasingly makes the case for God (Wall Street Journal) and the top 10 junk science stories of 2014 |
Can counterterrorism cancel democracy? (NY Books) How President Obama (a law professor with a Nobel Peace Prize) came to oversee both a massive killer-drone campaign and the most extensive surveillance operation on American citizens The year in charts (NY Times) inequality in America nears record levels; it pays to be rich; 27 million get 'Obamacare' health insurance How to inspire the 'slacktivist' generation (Washington Post) (slacktivist: the generation that ... wears color-coded bracelets for causes, “likes” them on Facebook, and goes to see a Seth Rogen film to defy North Korea) and the solution: a year of public service In Ferguson (NY Review of Books) why the controversy is not going away CIA: $50 billion annual budget and little scrutiny (NY Times) Senate report likely to cause little change Prejudices of the rich and democratic (Washington Post) why Americans and others feel superior to those who live in poor countries or dysfunctional states Family matters for the rich (NY Times) The Stanford Class of 1994 (NY Times) instead of narrowing the gender gap, tech created an even bigger one and a follow-up comment: Silicon Valley's mirror-tocracy (NY Times) let's not confuse that with real meritocracy 73% of Americans believe in the virgin birth (Pew Forum) More Americans believe in the virgin birth in the manger with visits by wise men guided by a star than believe in the evidence for man-driven climate change or evolution... we are definitely an exceptionalist nation PolitiFact's Liars of the Year: Politicians who played the Ebola fear card (LA Times) why Rand Paul & Phil Gingrey (Congress members AND doctors) are especially shameful Dick Cheney symbolizes how low America can go (Boston Globe) the last word on torture the bad news about the middle- class economy Washingon Post's 6-part series on the current economic mess part 1: Why America's middle class is lost, like most other counties, median incomes in Durham county peaked 15 years ago, and has dropped 20% since part 2: The Devalued American Worker mostly about North Carolina part 3: College and the poor how and why poor people get trapped part 4: Wall Street is richer than ever, yet a huge drag on the economy a black hole for out best and brightest part 5: What's killing entrepreneurship? the great start-up slowdown part 6 What went wrong and how to fix it Links between Citigroup and government run deep (Washington Post) Elizabeth Warren was right How the Democrats failed middle class whites (NY Times) in uncountable ways The vanishing male middle-age worker (NY Times) how America fell behind 20% of Durham County males are unemployed Why American women are leaving jobs behind (NY Times) and why it doesn't happen in Europe: the US's lack of maternity leave, subsidized day care, and parental leave one thing that would help: Stop the conveyor belt between Wall Street and government (Raleigh N&O) ________________ |
In South Korea, teachers become millionaires (Washington Post) and equivalent to rock stars, with stylists and entourages Why laptops should be banned from the classroom (Washington Post) duh Grade Deflation (Raleigh N&O) is giving each school a single grade the best way to improving education? Why American teachers burn out (Washington Post) compared to teachers of other countries who students do better ..... American teachers work twice the hours for less pay and less respect 7 things teachers are tired of hearing from school 'reformers' (Washington Post) at top of the list: don't tell us (teachers) that you (reformers) know more about good instruction than we do NC's Dept of Natural Resources and climate change (Raleigh N&O) the first step is education |
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early December 2014 |
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Life of Mars, eventually (OnPoint) 1-hour radio broadcast Earth-like exoplanets: why astronomers are obsessed (Slate) for the first time ever, we don't want to the center of the universe Rosetta rules out comets as source of Earth's water (probably) (NY Times) 3x as much deuterium in its water compared to Earth's link to Science article Mars Rover: stronger likelihood of past life on Mars (NY Times) presence of liquid surface water for millions of years now seems likely the pluses and minuses of being a Martian Rover (NY Times) why the search for past life of Mars will be neither quick nor straightforward New indications of water on Mars (Washington Post) and a short (?!?) version of the water story from NASA itself How the early Earth lost its original atmosphere ... twice! (MIT) an intense bombardment of small planetesimals Traces of life in a Martian meteorite? (Earth & Sky) or at least of life on Mars in the past December guide to the 5 visible planets (Earth & Sky) Venus and Mars in early evening... Jupiter all night... Saturn in the morning How Jupiter protects (and menaces) life on Earth (NY Times) by perturbing the orbits of asteroids and comets How Saturn is friendly to life on Earth (New Scientist) is any planet an Earth enemy?? Invisible shield discovered in Van Allen belts (Astronomy) it blocks killer electrons Remembering our last footprints on the Moon (Real Clear Politics) Apollo 17, 42 years ago.... I was there |
2 new pulsar- wind supernova remnants (Chanda) with shock-wave mapping How warm gas quenches star making (NASA) |
Planets around dwarf M stars may have lost their chance to be Earth-like early in life (Astronomy) formation during M star's luminous pre-main-sequence phase likely resulted in the burnoff of oxygen and water Ground-based detection of super-Earth 55e Cancri (Astronomy) shallowest transit observed from the ground |
Planck 2014: updates on the early universe (NY Times) forget a 4th neutrino, dark energy drops slightly to 68%, no new light on primordial gravitational waves Avi Loeb on the early universe, nature, and life (NY Times) How primeval galaxies evolved in a web of dark matter (UC-Riverside) with 4 videos Using supermassive black holes to measure galaxy distances (Earth & Sky) Inflation theory co-conceiver Paul Steinhardt on why inflation can't be correct (Scientific American) |
Decades-old quantum mechanics problem solved (Science Nordic) 'how to calculate real life behaviour of atoms" |
climate Raise the gasoline tax (NY Times) The Lima climate agreements (NY Times) _________________ Torture and lies: the release of the CIA torture report the best analysis & commentary so far The CIA is still running amok (Politico) Torture is Who We Are (The Atlantic) 'A country is what it does" Our views of torture depend on who's doing it (NPR) research on torture: first, you deny it's really torture; second, you say everybody else does it; third, you blame on the times Fear and Torture (New Yorker) John McCain: "Our enemies act without conscience. We must not" (USA Today) "The truth is ... a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it ..." ................... the facts: How to lie and get away with it (Washington Post) 10 examples of the CIA director's sworn testimony vs. the truth A clickable map of torture findings (Washington Post) 26 Detainees Wrongly Held (NY Times) apparently mistakes count only if they aren't made by us Dick Cheney, serial liar (Politico) still lying about torture, still giving ammunition to Al Qaeda If those techniques were approved, why did the CIA still lie about torture? (Washington Post) the excuses and excusers: Here Come the Torture Apologists (NY Times) not surprisingly, Dick Cheney and Mike Rogers appear ready to do it again they even have a web site John Woo, the original "It isn't Torture" lawyer (NY Post) Dick Cheney and the torture of the innocent (The Atlantic) so what if an innocent person (mistaken identity) died during torture... Cheney: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective Gift guide for torture apologists (NY Times) what to do about it: Overseas, Report Prompts Calls for Prosecution (NY Times) Human Rights Watch: prosecute (Washington Post) the Geneva Convention requires it ACLU says 'pardon Bush, Cheney, and the torturers' (NY Times) how else to establish that torture is illegal? Time to pay reparations to those we tortured? (New Republic) wait.... what?.... we tortured people?? The Continuing Evil of Guantanamo (The Intercept) how can we/USA expect other countries to not torture our journalists when we behave as badly ? NC senator Burr (new head of Senate Intelligence): No, I won't hold hearings on torture report (Raleigh N&O) this incident will be only 'a footnote in history' and What held up the release of the CIA Torture Report (The Intercept) although GW Bush et al. still seems to think we did no wrong (Washington Post) and anyway, revealing our torturing habits would hurt us in the eyes of the world (Washington Post) because owning up to torture is worse than the torture itself? _________________ how new technology does a disservice to us all... although to some more than others hey Uber: hire some people to answer the phone! (NY Times) why do billion $ tech companies behave so badly? because they can but that's minor compared to The Evil that is Uber (NY Times) ditto, Facebook How the impatience of the 'Facebook roommate' destroyed a once-important publication (Washington Post) on the demise of The New Republic (or what comes from having too much unearned money) ditto, from The Atlantic ditto, from the New Yorker ditto, from the NY Times The 'Culture of Free' in the aftermath of Napster (NY Times) so what if thousands of jobs are lost? and finally, the consequences: The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans (The Atlantic) who have mostly themselves (and their 'sharing economy') to blame The Cheapest Generation (The Atlantic) oldie but goodie, and true more than ever _________________ s & m alums: the good: S&M alums study NC congressional gerrymandering (Raleigh N&O) or how Republicans won 80% of the districts with only 54% of the vote ... link to the arXiv article Time for non-partisan drawing of district lines (Raleigh N&O) the bad: Republican Ralph Hise leads effort to stop Medicare availability for the poor in NC (WUNC) perhaps we at NCSSM should have spent more time on character and empathy training fortunately, Hise's plan for managed care (vs. patient-centric care) was defeated by his fellow Republicans on 12/9/2014 and the ugly: Jonathan Jordan and how he and his fellow Republicans distort the truth about education funding in NC (Jonathan Jordan) in his own words, designed to mislead: maintaining that a 2% funding increase -- when school enrollment has increased by 10% -- is actually an increase in funding! (who taught him math??) _________________ the economy and the middle class Why America's middle class is lost, part 1, (Washington Post) like most other counties, median incomes in Durham county peaked 15 years ago, and has dropped 20% since How the Democrats failed middle class whites (NY Times) in uncountable ways The vanishing male middle-age worker (NY Times) how America fell behind Why American women are leaving jobs behind (NY Times) and why it doesn't happen in Europe: the US's lack of maternity leave, subsidized day care, and parental leave 20% of Durham County males are unemployed one thing that would help: Stop the conveyor belt between Wall Street and government (Raleigh N&O) _________________ Why/when our memory fails (NY Times) NYT takes on the issue of N. d. Tyson's memory 'problems' A Raleigh bus ride (Raleigh N&O) an adventure where you'll likely not encounter the 1% science The Next Plan to Get Climate-Change Denialism into Textbooks (National Journal) 'Truth in Texas Textbooks' (now there's a misnomer) will rate textbooks Digital Einstein now available to anyone (Princeton) 13 volumes up to 1923 now finished Why electric eels' shock is so powerful (NY Times) the shock is exactly like a Taser's What Michael Mann (climate scientist) has to be thankful for in 2014 (Philadelphia Inquirer) despite 2014 likely being the hottest year of record Parsing the science of Interstellar with Kip Thorne (Scientific American) and who now has an entire book on 'Interstellar' science |
Dubious Review (Raleigh N&O) UNC BOG 'reviews' UNC systems' Institutes and attacks many for 'lack of diverse' points of views... (Raleigh N & O) chutzpah from a group noted for its astounding lack of diversity College for Grownups (NY Times) college education as is is unsustainable If you don't talk about it in school, it didn't happen (Indy Weekly) NC Republicans & the AP History Exam Half of all kids are traumatized (and NC is higher than average) (The Atlantic) great news for teachers... and maybe why more than half of all teachers are traumatized The astounding poverty level of young people in Durham-Chapel Hill (The Atlantic) so much for the positive effect of nearby universities .... or maybe it's the trauma they've experienced? NC Education Dept pushes history curriculum invented by Koch-brothers foundation (Charlotte Observer) what's next? Koch science? Bill Nye, the anti-science guy? (The Federalist) uhh, no. but an excellent example of how conservatives confuse real science with politics |
late
November 2014
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NASA's remastered view of Europa (NASA) with new colors and more detail, and a video explaining why it's a high priority for a visit A Geologic Map of Vesta (Earth & Sky) Canada's Sudbury Basin formed by comet impact (Scientific American) 1.8 BY ago (make that 1.8495 BY ago) |
Globular-Cluster Origins Mystery Deepens (Hubble/ESA) Milky-Way-type clusters found in a small galaxy without old stars |
'Spooky' Alignment of SMBH Rotations Axes (ESO) parallel spin axes occurs across billions of light years The Youngest Galaxies? (Subaru) appearing only 700 MY after the Bang Dark Galaxies in the Coma Cluster (Sky and Telescope) 98% dark matter vs. our Milky Way's 73%... did they lose their stars, or not have any to begin with? Star-Making Ends Early for Merging Galaxies (Hubble) |
Spacetime Curvature & the Higgs saved the universe from collapse during inflation? (Phys.org) |
Colorado's Udall: unfinished business (Denver Post) will he reveal the government torture and illegal surveillnce reports? Newsweek asks the same question 5 Huge Executive Orders that No One Has Ever Called Unconstitutional (Newsweek) comparisons to Obama's possible actions America -- Top Dog Nation in Inequality (NY Times) and that doesn't count being worst in number of vacation days and our lack of access to social security services, etc. ... but considering our status as the lowest-tax nation, this isn't surprise When Whites Just Don't Get It, Part IV (NY Times) how many more parts will be needed?? |
What It Really Means To Be a Public School Teacher Today (Washington Post) a reasoned (and emotional) response to Time's Rotten Apples |
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early
November 2014
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Philae lands on Comet (3 times!) (Rosetta) harpoons fail, but lander is stable, but in shadow NY Times story The 'Red' in Jupiter's Red Spot (Earth & Sky) does it come from chemicals on top (dissociated by sunlight) or below? 8 billion asteroids in the Oort cloud? (Sky and Telescope) The 5 visible planets in November (Earth & Sky) Mars at night, Jupiter after midnight, Mercury before dawn Human Spaceflight: Find Asteroids to Get to Mars (Nature) and forget asteroid retrieval Pluto and Beyond (Scientific American) from the November 2014 issue ... searching for the origins of the solar system |
star formation and turbulence (Chandra) insights from the Virgo and Perseus galaxies Starquakes set Magnetar ringing like a bell (NASA) with a video |
Debris-Strewn Construction Yards of Exoplanets (Hubble) the disks left behind after exoplanet formation |
Hiding in Plain Sight: Half of all stars live outside of galaxies? (Nature) believe this at your own peril published article in Science How G2 Survived its Encounter with the Milky Way's Central Black Hole (Earth & Sky) G2 was not a gas cloud, but a binary star! and now, it's a single large star?? Evidence Builds for Dark-Matter Explosions at Galactic Center (Scientific American) but not so fast, say others Dwarf Galaxies Dim Hopes of Dark Matter Detection (Quanta) |
Closing Entanglement's Last Loophole? (NY Times) how can we be sure that quantum experimenters have freedom of choice? New Experiment Aims to Solve Neutrino Mass Mysteries (Scientific American) NoVA begins at FermiLab Do Quantum Effects Result from Interactions between 'parallel' everyday worlds? (Scientific American) what??? and the arXiv paper String Theory: Circling the Drain (Real Clear Science) electron's electric dipole moment limits get smaller... Is the Higgs not really the Higgs? (phys.org) maybe it's the techni-Higgs? |
The Blindness of the Supreme Court (New Republic) no lack of diversity, but a lack of human experience Obama (finally) comes out with a strong statement on Net Neutrality (NY Times) but how long will it occupy his attention span? Gerrymandered NC districts leave voters without real choices (Raleigh N&O) Why the unenployment rate keeps dropping, but the economy doesn't seem better (Atlantic) the rise of invisible unemployment The Midterm elections Why losing the Senate is a consequence of Obama's incompetence (Salon) how Obama mishandled education, the economy, war, climate change, and Medicare and Social Security (for starters) Why Democrats Deserved to Lose the Senate (Atlantic) is the double mention of 'Hagan' unintentional or poetic justice? So Wrong About So Much (Salon) the Republican party, that is The Fast World and a nonsense American election (NY Times) __________________ Cosmologist: Religion could be gone in a generation (Salon) Praise the Lord! Starkest Global Warming Warning Yet (NY Times) food shortages, flooding, and mass extinctions Republicans, Meet Science (NY TImes) climate change, evolution, and Ebola... meet Ted Cruz A Republican Takeover over Congress? (Rachel Maddow) Be Very Afraid Interstellar, the movie The Science of Interstellar from Sky and Telescope from Preposterous Universe mostly junk, along with hagiography from The Guardian reasonable, at least from London's Science Museum much better from Wired more complicated _________________ Why Interstellar Travel Won't be Anything Like in the Movie (Popular Science) The Physics of Spinning Spacecraft (Wired) Will Wormhole Travel be Possible? (Popular Science) __________________ Voter Suppression From Rocking to Blocking the Vote (Raleigh N&O) what happens when you don't pay attention Suppressing the Youth Vote (Indy Weekly) in NC's Wautauga county The Republican Purge of voters (Slate) the most brazen voter suppression yet __________________ more Science Prehistory's Fabulous Future (NY Times) discoveries of bigger dinosaurs & walking fishes keep on coming The Most 100 Cited Papers of All Time (Nature) but don't expect Astrophysics papers on the list Quantum Effects in Biology (Aeon) The Physics of Leaves on Train Tracks (PhysicsBuzz) with equations! __________________ ... The Plague of 'Unintelligent' Blacks (Atlantic) Charles Barkley, Barak Obama & Respectability Politics |
The Coming Crisis: Too Few NC Teachers (Raleigh N&O) and after cuts to per-pupil spending, elimination of teacher tenure and pay for advanced degrees, teacher raiding by higher-paying states, this is a surprise??? Parents Give Rampant Testing an F (NY Times) Your Professor Isn't a Lazy Luddite (Slate) and he/she may be doing you a favor Do Schools Really Need Principals? (Slate) what happens when teachers rule! In-State Tuition: A Handout to the Rich (Washington Post) the UNC scandal keeps on going UNC 2005 NCAA champs: 2 semesters, 35 bogus classes (Raleigh N&O) UNC FB player sues UNC for false education (Raleigh N&O) The Unasked Why (Raleigh N&O) why do we fail to teach so many young black males how to read? UNC faculty want to regain trust (Raleigh N&O) UNC faculty talk apology, forfeits for sham grades (Raleigh N&O) UNC spends $800,000 for public relations firm to spin scandal (Raleigh N&O) UNC Athletic Director: " ... it's not as bad as I was thinking" (Raleigh N&O) wow No More Athletic Scholarships? (Raleigh N&O) |