Book Reviews
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Monday, November 6, 2006
![[Item Permalink]](http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/images/ur_bullet.gif){kind=small} Crackpotting string theory -- Comment()
String Theory and the Crackpot Index: "Recently two books, by Peter Woit and by Lee Smolin, have been published questioning whether the enormous theoretical effort applied to the problems of string theory has been fruitful. [...] One response was published several days ago by Briane Greene on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times (also here). A famously grouchy observer called the editorial a long, wistful plea for patience. But what struck me most as I read it was its similarity to the crackpot index maintained by John Baez. So, for fun, I scored it." [kuro5hin.org]
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-- Comment()
Scientists Discover Bacterial 'Switch Gene' That Regulates Oceans' Sulfur Emissions: "...a bacterial "switch gene" [...] helps determine whether certain marine bacterioplankton convert a sulfur compound to one that rises into the atmosphere and affects the earth's temperature or remains climatically inactive in the seas."
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-- Comment()
If only gay sex caused global warming: "...we worry more about anthrax (with an annual death toll of roughly zero) than influenza (with an annual death toll of a quarter-million to a half-million people). Influenza is a natural accident, anthrax is an intentional action, and the smallest action captures our attention in a way that the largest accident doesn't. If two airplanes had been hit by lightning and crashed into a New York skyscraper, few of us would be able to name the date on which it happened."
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