| Effort to End Oil Regulators’ Conflicts The federal agency that regulates offshore drilling is taking steps to end a long history of conflicts of interest and excessive coziness with the companies it is charged with policing. feeds.nytimes.com |
A physicist, a chemist and a zoologist walk into a bar … Alice Bell looks at humour in science and finds it can sometimes be a bad thing. But mostly a good thingAlice is a lecturer in science communication and blogs at Through the looking glassHey, we just hired a molecular biologist! Man, is he small.Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.Somewhere along the line, science got funny. PhD comics are pinned to noticeboards and Facebook has groups dedicated to those who spend too long in the lab. Or, at least, it found some funny friends. Robin Ince co-presents a humorous Radio 4 show with Brian Cox, Josie Long's set includes gags about A-level maths and, as the Wellcome Trust blog points out, science had a noticeable presence at the Edinburgh Fringe this year.And, no, science isn't simply the butt of the jokes. Rather, it increasingly provides the material with which comedy is made. Perhaps you've heard how there's "nothing in" homeopathy, or read Hadley Freeman asking for someone to "pass the Evian".Philosophers, sociologists and psychologists of humour will tell you that jokes often stem from a sense of the ridiculous. We laugh when we see something that transgresses our idea of what is real or rational. Science defines what is real and rational for many people, so it is no surprise that comedians draw on science to build their jokes, or scientists find humour in ideas that contravene their careful construction of the world. Humour is also a way of expressing cleverness – again, no surprise it draws on science.Did you hear the one about the statistician? Probably.But wipe that grin off your face, because here's the serious bit. Humour isn't all smiles and shared giggles. It's also all about sniggers, laughs behind your back, sneers, showing off, one-upmanship, retorts and attacks. To "poke fun" might be fun, but it's still a bit of a poke. Comedy can be a powerful rhetorical weapon, and that means it can hurt too.There's been some debate recently among science fans over the relative worth of "being a dick" (see also some humorous advice on how to avoid being one); whether laughing at those you disagree with will do your case more harm than good. Defenders of this strategy argue that their humour-based campaigns are not actually targeted at those who end up as the butt of jokes, but third parties attracted by the joker's wit. I take this point. I really do. But don't they risk looking bad to their intended audience too?There was a protest last week outside the Department of Health awarding diplomas to practise "old wives' traditional medicine" to members of the public who could answer questions on traditional cures. Academic and agony aunt Petra Boynton, for one, didn't take the joke. She argued that to laugh at the medical advice of "old wives" was ahistorical, and the tones of ageism and sexism could easily put people's backs up. She was keen to emphasise that she was largely in support of their cause, but worried that they would come across as pompous and authoritarian. For what it's worth, I felt the same unease about this campaign, for the same reasons. Still, the event ran as planned and, I should note, without much further fuss.A few weeks ago Channel 4 news journalist Samira Ahmed tweeted a request for some maths help.Ben Goldacre, smelt bullshit and suggested his twitter followers "pre-mock" the story. They did. Then they realised it wasn't quite as smelly as it seemed (nb: Goldacre speedily apologised). Reading Ahmed's write up, it was worrying to hear that people "daren't risk" speaking publicly. There's been a lot of talk recently about the problem of "libel chill" on British science writing, that people self-censor for fear they'd be sued (as Simon Singh was by British Chiropractic Association). What about "mockery chill"?The sociologist of humour Giselinde Kuipers draws our attention to the ways in which jokes reflect communities of shared understanding. Just think how uncomfortable it feels when someone fails to get a joke, or worse, the silence when no one laughs. Making, sharing and laughing at jokes can be a way of bonding but, as with any form of community, you may inadvertently exclude.The trick is to be aware of the politics at play. To think about what your joke means (or doesn't mean) to the range of people who might hear it. To ask yourself: is looking clever worth making someone else look dim? The trick is not to be crass.Here's an oldie but a goodie to finish with (for chemists at least): If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.Bada-boom.I have to admit to some affection for geeky humour. When I don't understand the premise of a joke, it can be a spur to learn more about the world. In that vein, do feel free to share some of your cleverness in humour below. (As a heads-up, I'm especially rubbish when it comes to biology. You see, my physics-trained science teacher loved to joke about how biology wasn't a real science …)Alice Bell is a lecturer in science communication and blogs at Through the looking glassPeople in sciencePsychologyControversies in scienceAlice Bellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Starwatch: The October night sky Our October nights bring a rich procession of stellar interest that ranges from the Summer Triangle, high on the meridian at nightfall, to Orion and his blazing retinue of winter companions in the S before dawn. It is just a pity that most of the bright planets are poorly placed near the Sun's glare.The latter certainly affects Venus which, from our latitudes, sets only five minutes after the Sun tonight as it approaches inferior conjunction on the Sun's near side on the 29th. Mars, too, has been swallowed up by our evening twilight.Jupiter, though, reached one of its closest and brightest oppositions last week and continues to rule our nights. Conspicuous at mag –2.9, brighter than any star, it climbs from low in the E at nightfall to pass some 30° to 35° high in the S about 80 minutes after our chart times, and then sinks to set in the W another six hours later. It lies to the S of the Square of Pegasus where it edges 3° west-south-westwards to cross from Pisces into Aquarius. Telescopically, Jupiter appears 48 arcsec across when close to the Moon on the 19th/20th.Mercury is nearing the end of its best morning apparition of 2010. Bright at mag –1.1, it stands 6° high in the E only 30 minutes before sunrise on the 1st, but drops out of sight over the following few days. Saturn emerges from our morning twilight at mid-month. By the 31st, it rises by 04:30 GMT and is obvious at mag 0.9 low down in Virgo in the ESE before dawn.There is a chance that Comet Hartley may become a diffuse naked eye object as it passes close to the Earth and sweeps from Cassiopeia to Gemini during October. More certain is that the red pulsating variable star Mira in Cetus is brightening to a maximum in mid-October when it may reach mag 3 or 4.October diary1st 02h Saturn in conjunction with Sun; 05h Last quarter7th 20h New moon10th 03h Moon 4Ëš S of Mars14th 22h First quarter16th Variable star Mira at peak brightness17th 02h Mercury in superior conjunction20th 12h Moon 7Ëš N of Jupiter23rd 03h Full moon29th 02h Venus in inferior conjunction30th 14h Last quarter 31st02h BST = 01h GMT End of British Summer Time * Times are BSTSatellitesAlan Pickupguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The number game Numerologists get a far better press than they deserve, but Matt Parker finds he has an unexpected empathy with themI like patterns. I only ever buy palindromic values of petrol because numbers such as £34.43 not only make me smile but are easy to spot on a bank statement. Humans have an innate love of patterns and our ability to exploit them has led to modern civilisation. People enjoy sudoku for the thrill of completing a puzzle and the same numerical patterns underpin modern information technology.So I was happy to talk to the Daily Mail about yesterday's date – 10/10/10. There is nothing inherently amazing about it; it's just a quirk of the fact that we divide the solar year into 12 months of which we're in the 10th (when we could have any number of months) and that the calendar we use was zeroed 2,010 years ago (which isn't the case in many other cultures). But there is still something satisfying about the time 10:10am and 10 seconds on 10/10/10. Just like I remember stopping at 1:23pm and 45 seconds on 6/7/89. And mark your calendar for later this month when the date will be 20/10/2010.Then I read the Daily Mail article last Friday and saw it also had comments from my nemeses: numerologists.If you want to irritate astronomers, call them astrologers. To see mathematicians get downright emotional, talk to them in earnest about numerology. According to numerologists, the satisfying 10/10/10 date is "not just a once in a 100 years quirk of the calendar", but rather, the numbers have deeper meaning. Just like how the numbers from the date you were born, the position of the letters of your name in the alphabet and even your house number, affect who you are and even predict the future. Which feels like a lot of meaning to attach to arbitrary numbers.As for what the number 10 actually means, the Mail asked Sonia Ducie, author of Numerology: Your Personal Guide For Life, who said: "Ten is the number for wisdom, because it contains the essence of all the numbers of one to nine within it."Firstly, one to nine are just the digits that we happen to use. They are the symbols we use to represent numbers. Any number, such as 36 for example, is the same number when it is written "normally" as 36 or in binary as 100100 or in base-five as 121. We happen to use base-10 numbers because we have 10 fingers to count on (also called digits); if humans had evolved with five fingers we'd probably write 36 as 121.Not only that, but I'm not sure exactly how 10 contains the essence of one to nine within it. It seems to be just because it is bigger than one to nine, which means that every number contains the essence of every number smaller than it. This is the kind of vacuous but sciencey-sounding effluent that gushes from purveyors of pseudoscience.As you can see, I'm now getting a bit emotional. Honestly though, I do have some empathy for numerologists because I'm driven by the same thirst for patterns and causality. As humans, we all are. Our craving for patterns and logic means that we tend to seek patterns where there are none; clutching at random straws. We selectively manipulate things to produce patterns. The date is a perfect example: we use "2010" sometimes and "10" at other times, depending on which looks nicer, we switch between 12- and 24-hour time to get the most aesthetic numbers. We remember the times when seven is lucky and ignore all the occasions when it isn't. It is science and mathematics that allow us to overcome this innate tendency to generalise and separate the spurious from the insightful; coincidence from causal.Our being wired to spot patterns and make connections allowed civilisation to develop, and our ability to rationally manipulate and exploit patterns has provided civilisation with all its life-changing technology. Everything from modern medicine to mobile phones and computers exists because we didn't just decide that 10 is the number for wisdom and call it a day. Without our species' passion for meaning and order being balanced by our capacity for logic we would have nothing. Not even a sudoku to pass the time.Matt Parker is based in the mathematics department at Queen Mary, University of London. His lucky number is 496.Matt blogs at Stand-up MathematicianMathematicsMatt Parkerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Study reveals why the leopard got its spots Rudyard Kipling was right: leopards and other big cats have had to change their spots in order to survive. abc.net.au |