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 Wednesday, July 1, 2009
 by hoyasmeg
Dinosaur mummy yields its secrets:
[Via BBC News | Science/Nature | World Edition]
A beautifully preserved dinosaur found in the US retains remarkable detail of skin cells.
[More] Now this is really cool. The dinosaur's soft tissue was so well preserved and then replaced by minerals that its underlying structure was still maintained. So they could actually see cellular structure.
They could determine that the skin had two layers, just as expected by study of modern relatives of the dinosaur. They found that in regions of the dinosaur that had shown bite marks in previous fossils, the skin was much thinner explaining why predators would go for that region first.
[More at a Man With A PhD]
Technorati Tags: Science 10:19:44 AM 
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 by seier+seier+seier
Lessons Learned -- Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking:
[Via Manage by Designing]
"You never learn by doing something right [OE]cause you already know how to do it. You only learn from making mistakes and correcting them."
Russell Ackoff
Design and "design thinking" is gaining recognition as an important integrative concept in management practice and education. But it will fail to have a lasting impact, unless we learn from the mistakes of earlier, related ideas. For instance, "system thinking", which shares many of the conceptual foundations of "design thinking", promised to be a powerful guide to management practice, but it has never achieved the success its proponents hoped for. If systems thinking had been successful in gaining a foothold in management education over the last half of the 20th century, there would be no manage by designing movement, or calls for integrative or design thinking.
[More] This is a very interesting discussion. It seems to me the problem is not with systems thinking but with the attempt to create a defined process for it. Human nature includes trying to grasp innovation by naming it. In many cases, old fashioned hierarchical approaches are being use to try and fold systems thinking into them.
[More at SpreadingScience]
Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0 9:49:13 AM
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 by hiddedevries
A Climate (Communication) Crisis?:
[Via Dot Earth]
If experts change how they describe global warming, will people wake up?
[More]
Interesting points but trying to be more emotional and dramatic is not very effective when facts are trying to be exchanged. There has been a lot of research done that exposes the steps individuals and communities progress through as they adopt new idea and change their viewpoints. It might be better to be aware of this than to try framing exercises.
The five steps are awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption. Different people move through these steps at different rate.This results in a differentiation of a population into different groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority,
Scientists are generally on the innovator/early adopter spectrum of things, especially compared to the entire population, which, by definition, is mostly the 68% in the middle.
Innovators and early adopters take their cues from outside influences and their own experiences. They are open to ideas that come from outside the community and move much faster through the five steps than others. They are not as dependent on community influences as the majority are.
So scientists are influenced by people who are outside their direct social network. We are trained to do that in order to examine data, converting it into useful knowledge that gains us understanding of the natural world. We have a lot of training that helps us have the sagacity to determine the usefulness of a new idea. even if the idea comes from someone 'outside.'
But, for the majority of people in the middle, outside influences are suspect. They usually will only adopt an innovation or change their opinion when a respected member of their own community, of their social network, tells them to. They are generally influenced only by those close connections in their social network.
[More at SpreadingScience]
Technorati Tags: Social media 9:48:04 AM
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Eartly Adoption: Not Just For Tech?:
[Via Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech]
There is a great post from Louis Gray that I’ve been thinking about lately with an interesting view of 5 Major Stages of early adopter behavior.
The Five Stages of Early Adopter Behavior include:
Discovery, QA and Spreading the Word
Promotion and Collaboration
Mainstream Use and Engagement
Sense of Entitlement, Nitpicking and Reduced Use
Migration to Something New, Call to Move Followers
You can read the full descriptions of the 5 Stages here.
[More]
I've discussed early adopter behavior before. The first few steps compress the normal 5 step process everyone goes through in adopting a new innovation – awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption. Entitlement and migration describe something else – some of the early stages of adopting a new innovation require the rejection of the previous one.
This is also behavior seen by innovators. Innovators love something new and even after adopting a new innovation are often looking for the next best thing. But almost anyone who adopts a new innovation must break away from the old one.
It may well be a different process for the innovators/early adopters than for the rest of the group, the early and late majorities. Most people are informed about what choices to make by early adopters/innovators. These people do not generally discover new innovations and will adopt what others tell them to. They rely on key influential members of the community to inform them about new innovations.
[More at SpreadingScience]
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0 9:46:50 AM
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 by Photographer Jerry Lee
Paul Krugman's column today exposes the denialism prevalent in many Representatives in Congress.
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldnâo[dot accent]t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason âo[per thou] treason against the planet.
To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
Greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster than predicted. So is sea level rise. Ice cap extent, age and thickness is declining faster. Some models predicting a 4 °C rise by century's end now predict 9 °C. The deniers have absolutely no credible evidence for why this is happening. They do not attempt to really rebut any of this, something they tried to do 15 years ago when the science was not as strong.
Now they just put their heads in the sand and claim that it is all a conspiracy.
So, in the presence of so much data and so much science pointing to tremendous changes, about 200 Representatives deny it is happening, mostly for political reasons.
[More at Path to Sustainable]
Technorati Tags: Environment 9:43:56 AM
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Potential wind power is 23 times current US electricity use:
[Via Nature Blogs - All Stories]
When the National Academies of Science recently looked at the potential for renewable energy deployment in the states, its expert panel made some reasonable assumptions, such as limits imposed by manufacturing capacity and the current electric grid. This week, the NAS Proceedings will see the publication of a paper that considers what would happen if we dropped reasonableness from the analysis and calculated what we might achieve if we pushed wind power to its maximal capac...
[More] The name of the paper is Global potential for wind-generated electricity. It is Open Access so anyone can read it. Here is the abstract:
The potential of wind power as a global source of electricity is assessed by using winds derived through assimilation of data from a variety of meteorological sources. The analysis indicates that a net- work of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines restricted to non-forested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity could supply > 40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, > 5 times total global use of energy in all forms. Resources in the contiguous United States, speciï¬[trademark]cally in the central plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current demand for electricity in the United States. Estimates are given also for quantities of electricity that could be obtained by using a network of 3.6-MW turbines deployed in ocean waters with depths < 200 m within 50 nautical miles (92.6 km) of closest coastlines. Cool. It is a thought experiment type of paper but does provide some real direction. And as this figure shows, the US is in pretty good shape:
[More at Path to Sustainable]
Technorati Tags: Energy Use, Environment, Science 9:42:06 AM
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 by Lee Nachtigal
Science Teacher Retention: It Takes More Than Money:
[Via AAAS News - RSS Feed]
Science Teacher Retention: It Takes More Than Money
High school science teachers value control over their lesson plans and prestige in their school districts more than salary increases, according to a survey discussed at AAAS.
[More] I am very willing to believe that it would be lot easier to retain science teachers if they did not have to put up with some of the control of curriculum by non-scientists or administrators. But then that really only happens because administrators do not really respect the science teachers.
So the two problems go hand in hand. But then, that is because our education system is based on an out-moded approach where finding and disbursing information is hard and must be carefully taught by authority figures.
[More at A Man With A PhD]
Technorati Tags: General 9:39:57 AM
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 by noodlemaps
I discuss Paul Krugman's column on the cynical ploys of so many Representatives in Congress at Path to Sustainable. In this case, their denialist views on climate change.
As I said, it reminds me of the fable about the scorpion and the frog. This led me to a very interesting page about the ethics of the situation. In particular, it discusses the scorpion's response or defection, in the context of a real game, one with a definite end..
As the scorpion thinks, 'If the game comes to an end, then I need to get mine before that happens. I need to grab for as much of what is available NOW before the frog gets theirs.'
If there is no future, no shadow on the scorpion, then it might as well do what it wants and follow its nature. No future means it is free to defect from the beginning and never have to cooperate.
Since the scorpion will cynically defect and sting at the first opportunity (why wait until the end anyway?), the decision of the frog now becomes paramount. What should the frog do?
[More at A Man With A PhD]
Technorati Tags: Government, Politics 9:37:57 AM
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Well, I've not used this in a while and it appears that the sire will be gone by the end of the year, as Userland will no longer be hosting the site. Too bad.
I'll keep posting some stuff here but follow on to my real blogs at A Man With A PhD, SpreadingScience or Path to Sustainable.
Technorati Tags: General 9:33:57 AM
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