ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 522
April 2, 2016
Should We 3D Print A New Palmyra?
Photo credit:
A depiction of the destruction. Humam Alsalim and Rami Bakhos
The destruction at the ancient city of Palmyra symbolises the suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of the terrorist group known as Islamic State (IS). Palmyra was a largely Roman city located at a desert oasis on a vital crossroad, and “one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world”. Its remarkable preservation highlighted an intermingling of cultures that today, as then, came to stand for the tolerance and multiculturalism that pre-conflict Syria was renowned for -– tolerance that IS seeks to eradicate.
Why Finding A Real Alternative To Sugar Is So Difficult
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Sweets for my sweets … Kozlenko
So much for the decades in which fats and oils were public enemy number one on our dinner plates. There is more and more evidence that sugar – or more precisely, carbohydrate – is behind our increasing rates of obesity and heart disease.
Five Foods That Used To Be Bad For You …But Now Aren’t
Photo credit:
Make up your mind. www.shutterstock.com
Nutritional guidelines and recommendations are constantly changing in the light of new research. It can be difficult to keep up with which foods are healthy and which aren’t. Here we look at five foods that have gone through the cycle of being the villains of nutritional science but are now, based on some old and some new science, apparently okay to eat again.
Eggs
How Robot Explorers Are Making The Finds Of The Future
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Much of the U.S. was built around the automobile, with greater distances to be covered than in places like Europe, making Americans' daily lifestyles higher in energy than elsewhere. johnkay/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND
Every morning I awake torn between a desire to save the world and an inclination to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day.
This thought, by author E.B. White, captures the tension that every advocate for action on climate change should feel. This is especially true for those of us who do research and who are most knowledgeable about the problem and the role our lifestyles play in creating it.
What Do Child Prodigies Have In Common With Kids With Autism?
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‘Benidorm, Spain’ drawn in 1979 by Richard Wawro. MIke Wawro, CC BY
As a toddler growing up in the 1950s, Richard Wawro threw violent tantrums. Often, he would tap the same piano key for long stretches of time.
When he was three, his parents took him for testing at a nearby hospital. They were told that he was moderately to severely retarded. His family, however, never believed that his IQ was as low as the experts claimed.
A special education teacher began working with Richard when he was six. She introduced him to drawing with crayons, which he took to quickly.
April 1, 2016
What We’re Reading
Image copyright Colin Purrington, used with permission.
A bunch of NCSE's staff spent the week reading the National Science Teachers Association conference program, since we'll be exhibiting and presenting at the national conference through the weekend. But that didn't put a crimp in our weekly reading.
“Science Education Is Woefully Uncreative: That Has To Change” Rhett Allain, Wired 3/30/2016
Rhett Allain argues that science classes do too little to highlight the creative parts of science, rather than the rote. He describes the textbook for his physics class for elementary education majors students. In one chapter, students "try to create a model to explain what happens when you rub a nail with a magnet (it makes the nail act like a magnet). They then look at new experiments to refine their model. Students often hate this chapter. They hate that there are no clear answers or a rigid set of procedures (there are procedures, just not for making the initial model). Although the students might not be happy, this is what happens in science—you have to create stuff."
Seeing Spirituality in Chimpanzees Barbara J. King, The Atlantic, March 29, 2016
Barbara J. King digs into what, if anything, observed ritualistic behavior means for chimpanzees. Is spirituality the next distinction between us and our closest living relatives to crumble?
All Those New Dinosaurs May Not Be New—Or Dinosaurs, Maggie Koerth-Baker, FiveThirtyEight, March 25, 2016
Maggie Koerth-Baker investigates the error rate in dinosaur species investigation on the popular statistics-heavy website. It makes a change from following the
primaries and the polls!
How Scientists Can Win the War on Science, Aaron Huertas, Undark, March 15, 2016
Huertas, formerly the communications director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, reviews the debate over whether there's really a war on science, and offers suggestions for how scientists can win the war.
A day in the life of a young black male engineering student, Rodney Sampson, Storify, March 28, 2016
Sampson, who runs a coding academy, describes how a student in the 13-month program was nearly arrested for simply trying to cash the stipend check that the program gave him. It's a look at the barriers to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education that students can face, barriers often ignored or hidden from view, but which hold back our communities and our nation.
Textbook evolution sticker hurts children's understanding of science but also their faith, Amanda Glaze, AL.com (Birmingham News/Huntsville Times/Mobile Press Register), March 31, 2016
Amanda Glaze, an educator in Alabama, argues that the decision to retain the state's warning label stickers on textbooks harms students. She argues, "the disclaimer is a failure from the scientific point of view, a failure from the educational point of view, and—on the testimony of a distinguished biologist with a deep Christian faith—a failure from the religious point of view."
Earth’s Magnetic Field May Not Have Existed Without The Moon
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Our silent guardian, our watchful protector. Gregory H. Revera/Wikimedia Commons;CC BY-SA 3.0
Earth’s magnetic field is our greatest vanguard: It protects us against dangerous incoming solar radiation that, left unchecked, would make the existence of life on our world all but impossible.
Why Do We See Optical Illusions?
Photo credit:
Don't believe everything you see. Marjan Apostolovic/Shutterstock
The human visual system is a remarkably complicated thing, although in spite of – or perhaps because of – its complexity, it is capable of making some pretty major mistakes. This fallibility is playfully exposed by optical illusions, which are often very simple in design yet completely deceptive to our brains, causing us to see things that aren’t there.
This Guy Has Created A DIY Thermite-Launching Cannon
Photo credit:
colinfurze/YouTube
Thermite is conventionally used for heavy industrial processes like welding together train tracks. This guy, however, used it to create a homemade, super hot, metal-launching cannon.
This Octopus GIF Features A Very Unexpected Twist
Photo credit:
exxocet/Reddit/Imgur
As far as stealthy hunters go, octopuses seem to have it all. They can change color to camouflage themselves, they’re super intelligent and can spray their attackers with a haze of ink, if worst comes to worst. But, even the “masters of disguise” are outsmarted occasionally.
This GIF of an octopus did the rounds on Reddit earlier this week along with the caption: "This is for those of you who thought the octopus was a master of disguise."
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