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Science and Society Continued

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Natural sciences. Encyclopedia of Earth. Meredith K. Ray, "Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy" (Harvard UP, 2015) Amit Prasad, “Imperial Technoscience: Transnational Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India” (MIT Press, 2014)

Scientific Babel: How Science Was Done Before and After Global English, Gordin. Open Science Directory. Scientists Are Hoarding Data And It’s Ruining Medical Research. The Political Controversy of Wikipedia Science Articles - Pacific Standard. Whether you like it or not, Wikipedia has become the de facto source when you want fast access to information on, well, just about anything.

The Political Controversy of Wikipedia Science Articles - Pacific Standard

Some studies suggest Wikipedia is generally a pretty reliable source of information. But new research suggests that even if Wikipedia is usually reliable, disputes over politically controversial science pages could prevent users from getting the facts they need. "As our society turns to Wikipedia as a primary source of scientific information, it is vital we read it critically and with the understanding that the content is dynamic and vulnerable to vandalism and other shenanigans," ecologists Adam Wilson and Gene Likens write in PLoS One. Likens has something of a personal stake in this. He was among the first scientists to study acid rain and its link to air pollution, and he won the National Medal of Science in 2001 for his research.

» Trusting Experts: Can we reconcile STS and Social Psychology? blog.castac.org. Numerous battles are being fought today within and across America’s political landscape, from global warming to the regulation of new technologies (e.g., GMOs, fracking).

» Trusting Experts: Can we reconcile STS and Social Psychology? blog.castac.org

Science plays a big role in these debates, and as a result, social psychologists, political scientists, economists, and other social scientists have become interested in the question of why people (or rather, certain people) don’t accept scientific findings. These social scientists have converged on a concept called motivated reasoning: that because our reasoning powers are directed towards particular ends, we tend to pick facts that best fit our needs and motivations. Motivated reasoning, in this explanation, is a universal concept, perhaps a product of evolution; all human beings do it, including experts.

Influential science journalists have now started drawing on those findings. And yet, there are times when the concept gets applied to some strange ends. And Americans do live in a polarized time. References. Developing world hospitals receive radical surgery. In 2005, 53 patients with HIV entered a relatively well-resourced hospital in the rural town of Tugela Ferry in South Africa.

Developing world hospitals receive radical surgery

Within weeks, all but one were dead. Their death certificates would record that they died from a new drug-resistant form of tuberculosis. But behind the diagnoses lay a more shocking truth: they were killed by visiting the place where they had hoped to find treatment. The incident at the Church of Scotland hospital was an enormous wake-up call for public health officials across the world. Movie: Harvard's Organs-on-Chips can replace animal testing. Microdevices that mimic human organs could replace animal testing Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Harvard University's Human Organs-on-Chips was crowned Design of the Year 2015 this week.

Movie: Harvard's Organs-on-Chips can replace animal testing

Scientist Tony Bahinski explains how the chips could one day replace animal testing (+ movie). "The problem with animal testing models is the ethics involved," Bahinski says in the movie. "But they are also not very predictive of the human response. The hope is Human Organs-on-Chips will be much more predictive than current pre-clinical models or animal models.

" Why the Great Glitch of July 8th Should Scare You — The Message. Over at Fusion, Felix Salmon tells folk to chill out over The Great Technical Glitch of July 8, 2015 when a computer glitch grounded all mainland United flights, the NYSE went down for the day, and the website of the Wall Street Journal was down, too.

Why the Great Glitch of July 8th Should Scare You — The Message

All this came one day after a huge drop in Chinese stocks. Self-Folding Origami Robots! Her Code Got Humans on the Moon—And Invented Software Itself. Margaret Hamilton wasn’t supposed to invent the modern concept of software and land men on the moon.

Her Code Got Humans on the Moon—And Invented Software Itself

It was 1960, not a time when women were encouraged to seek out high-powered technical work. Hamilton, a 24-year-old with an undergrad degree in mathematics, had gotten a job as a programmer at MIT, and the plan was for her to support her husband through his three-year stint at Harvard Law. After that, it would be her turn—she wanted a graduate degree in math. But the Apollo space program came along. Is your fear of radiation irrational? Listen to or download an audiobook of this story on SoundCloud and iTunes.

Is your fear of radiation irrational?

Bad Gastein in the Austrian Alps. It’s 10am on a Wednesday in early March, cold and snowy – but not in the entrance to the main gallery of what was once a gold mine. Togged out in swimming trunks, flip-flops and a bath robe, I have just squeezed into one of the carriages of a narrow-gauge railway that’s about to carry me 2 km into the heart of the Radhausberg mountain. Fifteen minutes later we’re there and I’m ready to enjoy what the brochures insist will be a health-enhancing environment. The Light of the Trinity Atomic Test. The light of a nuclear explosion is unlike anything else on Earth.

The Light of the Trinity Atomic Test

This is because the heat of a nuclear explosion is unlike anything else on Earth. Atomic Summer: An Essay by Joni Tevis. Operation Teapot, the Met Shot, a tower burst weapons effects test April 15, 1955 at the Nevada Test Site.

Atomic Summer: An Essay by Joni Tevis

Photo via Wikimedia Commons. A Substance So Volatile That A Mosquito Landing On It Will Make It Explode. Eben Kirksey, "The Multispecies Salon" (Duke University Press, 2014) The myth of being 'double-jointed' No doubt you know someone (or more likely, knew someone as a child) who boasted they were double-jointed.

The myth of being 'double-jointed'

These braggarts would then bend their thumbs all the way back to meet their forearms. Holy Ignorance by Garry Wills. When a Republican politician, asked about climate change, says, “I’m not a scientist,” most of us hear just a cowardly way of dodging the question; but the politician’s supporters hear a brave defiance of an alien force. When we hear only “science,” they hear “godless science,” the kind that wants to rob them of their belief in creation and force evolution into their minds.

That science is marching in a battalion of forces—the media, the academy, the government—that has them besieged. “I’m not a scientist” does not mean, “I have not heard enough about the science, and need to hear more,” but “I know the evil intent or effect of science, and I will not let it affect me.” » Social Science, Socialist Scientists, and the Future of Utopias blog.castac.org. As space colonization becomes a more serious project and an influential utopian imaginary, I am reminded of British scientist and communist JD Bernal’s 1929 warning about “human dimorphism”: Bernal wondered about a future in which “mechanizers” would live an enhanced, technoscientifically-evolved form of life, separated from the “humanizers,” the masses whose physical needs would be equally gratified thanks to scientific advancements—but who would prefer to exist in an atavistic human way, enjoying mundanities such as friendliness, poetry, dancing, drinking, singing, and art.

His figure for that version of the good life seems to have been filched from whatever exposure he had to colonial anthropology—he calls it the “idyllic, Melanesian existence.” Image: The assembly of the ‘Stanford Torus’ space colony design. The Life of a Clinical-Trial Guinea Pig. At some point during the fall of 2005, Brian Stone grew tired of throwing up in a bucket and decided to go rogue. Stone (who requested that his real name not be used) was doing his vomiting three days a week at an inpatient clinical-trial site in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, following a tip he’d gotten from a stranger at a bar. “He had quite a few to drink,” Stone recalled, “and he was yakking about a place where he could get paid $2,500 just to do painkillers and drink alcohol. And everyone was laughing at him, like, ‘You’re full of shit.’” As it turned out, he wasn’t. History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places.

Earthquakes

Cave: Nature and Culture, Crane, Fletcher. Ice and Sky - The History of Climate Change. Nature Soundmap. Earth - Your life on earth. Explore BBC Earth's unique interactive, personalised just to you. Find out how, since the date of your birth, your life has progressed; including how many times your heart has beaten, and how far you have travelled through space. Investigate how the world around you has changed since you've been alive; from the amount the sea has risen, and the tectonic plates have moved, to the number of earthquakes and volcanoes that have erupted.

Grasp the impact we've had on the planet in your lifetime; from how much fuel and food we've used to the species we've discovered and endangered. Wind Map. An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future. How Radio Enthusiasts Are Listening to Earth’s Secret Symphony. Earthprints: Andasol solar power station. On a barren, sun-baked plateau in southern Spain, row upon row of gleaming mirrors form one of the world's biggest solar power plants and harness the sun's power even after dark. How a Conservative Billionaire Is Moving Heaven and Earth to Become the Biggest Alternative Energy Giant in the Country - Pacific Standard.

Dueling Weathermen of the 1800s: A Bitter Dispute That Preluded Modern Weather Forecasting. Hurricane Pioneer: Memoirs of Bob Simpson, Simpson, Dorst. Video: Inside the core of Patricia, the strongest recorded hurricane to strike Mexico’s west coast. Walking the Tornado Line. Big Data Is Teaching Us About the Nighttime Migrations of Birds, by M.R. O'Connor.

Chronology of the Universe [Video-infographic] Lightyear.fm. Spaceprob.es catalogs the active human-made machines that freckle our solar system. Earth Polychromatic Camera. Meteorite: Nature and Culture, Golia. History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places. Asteroid-bound spacecraft gets its first scientific instrument. Astronaut fashion: What went wrong? There’s no style in space these days. Stellarium. Our Sun Came Late to the Milky Way’s Star-Birth Party. This graphic shows the evolutionary sequence in the growth of massive elliptical galaxies over 13 billion years, as gleaned from space-based and ground-based telescopic observations. The growth of this class of galaxies is quickly driven by rapid star formation and mergers with other galaxies. NASA Graphics Standards Manual. If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A tediously accurate map of the solar system.

WebGL Globe. Stunning Cosmic Snapshots Document Astronaut Scott Kelly's First Six Months in Space. 8,400 High-Res Images From The Apollo Moon Missions Were Just Put Online — Here Are The Best. How a Secret Spy Satellite's Camera Found a Second Life Mapping the Moon. ISS Finder on the App Store. What It Looks Like To Leave Our Solar System At The Speed Of Light. The Changing Face of Space: New Horizons for NASA, and Women. NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan Discusses Space Science, Her Career. What Happens When You Get Your Period In Space? How did you get that job: deputy administrator of NASA. Famous Berkeley Astronomer Violated Sexual Harassment Policies Over Many Years, University Investigation Finds. Geoffrey Marcy to Resign From Berkeley Astronomy Department.

How Astronomers Sought to Intervene With Geoff Marcy — and What’s at Stake for Women in the Field. Heating houses with 'nerd power' History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places. Decoding the ‘internet of ants’ Everything You Need To Know About Millipedes. Tracking the Atlantic Coast Leopard Frog. Archaeological News - The Latest Up-to-date News In Archeology. NASA: Climate Change and Global Warming. Beloved Brontosaurus makes a comeback. Anonymous sexism in paleoanthropology · john hawks weblog. Finis Dunaway, "Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images" ( Treasured Trees, Yamanaka, Rix, Harrison.

Few science museums use the word 'agriculture' to teach. Elephants and Kings: An Environmental History, Trautmann. Le cerveau à tous les niveaux. The superpower police now use to tackle crime. A Roomful of Death and Destruction by Luc Sante. Do your hair and fingernails grow after death? Who Owns the Dead? Working Next to Death in the Pathology Lab. What Would You Do If You Found a Bag of Human Ashes? - Articles. Does an epitaph really matter when the dead can’t re...