Nate Silver, a sports statistician, made waves when he accurately projected the results of the presidential election in 2008. So a few days go when he predicted that President Obama was 75% likely to win when polls only showed the candidates were about even, it set atwitter those people who think statistical models of polls are meaningful. They were vindicated, the age of scientific...
read moreViviTouch is a kind of 'artificial muscle' that seeks to make video games feel more real. The technology behind it is electroactive polymers, developed by Bayer subsidiary Artificial Muscle of Sunnyvale, right up the road from me.It's basically a new sort of motor that converts electrical energy into movement, to go beyond the traditional haptic interface people expect by now. Motor?...
read moreWhat exactly should they do when a despised English monarch is found under a provincial car park?He wasn't buried under a car park, of course. He was buried in a monastery, which was disbanded by King Henry VIII when he created the Anglican Church so he could get a divorce. Richard's story came at the end of the War of the Roses, he was the last Plantagenet king, so the people of York...
read moreIn 2008, I was as excited as anyone about the chance to correct some public relations mistakes made by the Bush administration in the nascent years of blogging. Obviously some of the 'Republicans are anti-science' stuff was because when you are far left, even the middle looks like the right, but Republicans had done no favors to themselves by 'taking the bait' on topics like hESC research....
read moreIn a response to the truly awful Youtube video Science: It's a Girl Thing ! , the Science Grrl web site, associated with the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, is launching a calendar portraying real women doing science.As they point out, the cheesy video was supposed to promote a good web site by the European Commission on Research and Innovation, which...
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