Dinner with science bloggers!

…and real scientists, in town for the American Society for Microbiology general meeting. I was honoured to be invited. Larry Moran and Tara Smith organized a dinner of science bloggers previously acquainted only over the Web. We met at the University of Toronto. The picture shows some of us sitting on the steps in front of the Medical Sciences Building: Larry Moran of Sandwalk, Jonathan Badger of T. Taxus, Andrew Staroscik of Mixotrophy, Tara Smith of Aetiology, and John Logsdon of Sex, Genes, and Evolution. Chris Condayan, the ASM public outreach manager, was off recording an interview with Eva Amsen of Easternblot. (He interviewed several people for a podcast on the ASM’s Web site.)

Eight of us walked down to Baldwin Street for Indian food and a long, chatty, interesting dinner together. The food at Matahari restaurant was both good and unfamiliar. I had a good time and I think everyone else did, too. Here’s

• Larry’s “Bloggers in Toronto”
• Tara’s “Science Bloggers storm Toronto!”
• Jonathan’s “Mini-blogger convention at ASM 2007″

Random chance or Wrathful Dispersion?

Q_pheevr has a delightful parody of Intelligent Design transported to the field of linguistics. “Wrathful Dispersion theory” echoes every argument of “Intelligent Design theory”—but is it just Babelism in disguise?

"Dinosaurs Make an Impression"

Speaking of Kevin Padian, as I just did in the “Macroevolution primer,” here’s a tidbit from the past.

The cover article for Nature (May, 1999) describes how StudioTools^TM computer modelling and design software from Alias|wavefront is used to analyze dinosaur tracks and to explain a mysterious, apparent “spur” mark in each track, sometimes supposed to be from a “reversed hallux” or backward-facing toe.

At that time I was at Alias|wavefront helping to document a new version of StudioTools^TM. I attended a talk by the author, Kevin Padian. He described how used the software was used to model a mud surface and a dinosaur’s foot, then trace its motion in three dimensions, discovering that the “spur” was an artifact of how the foot entered the mud. I’m pretty sure that our resident scientist, Bill Buxton, found the research opportunity and donated a copy of the software.

See also “How Dinosaurs Walked the Walk.”

Related book: It’s ten years old, but the Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, edited by Philip J. Currie* and Kevin Padian,** still looks very interesting.

*Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta
**Professor of Integrative Biology and Curator of Lower Vertebrates in the Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley

"Evolution" wall

Thanks to PZ Myers for pointing out this lovely series of graffiti–not scientifically acurate but nifty and thought-provoking.

Books about Science vs. Religion

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, David P. Barash briefly reviews eleven recent books about the gulf, or conflict, between science and religion.
Caution: in transcription to a Web page, some of the words in the review were mashed together: appealto, authoras, theirsto, etc.

The books reviewed are these:

• Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel C. Dennett (Viking Press, 2006)
• The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, by Edward O. Wilson (W.W. Norton, 2006)
• Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, by David Sloan Wilson (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
• Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist, by Joan Roughgarden (Island Press, 2006)
• Evolving God: A Provocative View of the Origins of Religion, by Barbara J. King (Doubleday, 2007)
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)
• The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, by Francis S. Collins (The Free Press, 2006)
• Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris (Knopf, 2006)
• Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, by Pascal Boyer (Basic Books, 2002)
• Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief, by Lewis Wolpert (W.W. Norton, 2007)
• The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, by Carl Sagan (The Penguin Press, 2006)

Hat tip to PZ Myers at Pharyngula for the book reviews. As he rightly points out, these reviews are too brief; but if any of the books sound interesting, you can look them up.

Update: ChemBob mentions another book: Victor J. Stenger’s “God, the Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist” (2007).

Lunar eclipse on Saturday night

Saturday night is the night of the full moon this month. And it brings the first total lunar eclipse in 2½ years. We in Ontario won’t see much of it if the weather is cloudy: the eclipse will be underway before the moon rises. You can see it best along the east coast of Canada and the United States, as well as South Africa, Europe and much of Asia.

The CBC’s science column says:

Lunar eclipses occur when a full moon, on its usual orbit around the Earth, slips into Earth’s shadow. The eclipsed moon may appear washed in a copper or brown colour as sunlight leaks through the Earth’s atmosphere.

I have seen that sullen brick-red quite a few times since I was a child. I didn’t realize that lunar eclipses were so rare.

“I’m a celebrity—get me the facts!”

An amusing article from spiked-online.com (a British somewhat contrarian Marxist-libertarian Web site—yes, that’s rather contradictory) about Sense about Science’s programme to aid celebrities before they endorse dubious causes or repeat dubious assertions.

Books read in 2006

I read more than a hundred books in 2006, almost none of them edifying. Favourites and books about science and nature are in bold:

1. The Seashell on the Mountaintop: …a New History of the Earth by Alan Cutler (science, history of science)
2. The Walls of Air by Barbara Hambly (re-read)
3. The Ice Finders by Edmund Blair Bolles (science, history of science)
4. Bonecrack by Dick Francis
5. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
6. Wittgenstein and the Goshawk by Patrick Watson
7. The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
8. The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman
9. Chasing Science: Science as a Spectator Sport by Frederik Pohl (popular science)
10. “The Armies of Daylight by Barbara Hambly
11. The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman
12. The Mouse Hunter by Lucile Hasley
13. Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert
14. The School for Cats by Esther Averill
15. The Boys’ Book of the Sea edited by Nicholas Monsarrat (nonfiction, history)
16. Asimov’s Science Fiction: Kin/Under the Graying Sea/Unbending Eye
17. Jack Miner and the Birds by Jack Miner (outdoors & nature)
18. Proof by Dick Francis
19. Newton’s Tyranny: The Suppressed Scientific Discoveries of Stephen Gray and John Flamsteed by David & Stephen Clark (history of science)
20. What If the Moon Didn’t Exist? by Neil F. Comins (popular science)
21. The Eternal Frontier by James H. Schmitz
22. The Hua Shan Hospital Murders by David Rotenberg
23. Catwitch by Uma Woodruff, Lisa Tuttle
24. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
25. King Solomon’s Ring by Konrad Lorenz (outdoors & nature)
26. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
27. Sarah’s Unicorn by Bruce & Katharine Coville
28. Catwings by Ursula K. Le Guin
29. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
30. Everything Your Kids Ever Wanted to Know About Dinosaurs… by Teri Degler (popular science)
31. The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs, Edward Gorey
32. The Cats History of Western Art by Susan Herbert
33. Bolt by Dick Francis
34. Odds Against by Dick Francis
35. Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (anthology)
36. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
37. Straight by Dick Francis
38. No Highway by Nevil Shute
39. Longshot by Dick Francis
40. The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey
41. Nerve by Dick Francis
42. Young Witches and Warlocks edited by Isaac Asimov et al. (anthology)
43. The Evening and the Morning and the Night by Octavia E. Butler
44. Great Tales of Fantasy and Science Fiction (anthology)
45. Hot Money by Dick Francis
46. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (humor, parody)
47. Journey to the Centre by Brian Stableford
48. Never Pick Up Hitch-hikers! by Ellis Peters (mystery) (re-read)
49. The King Must Die by Mary Renault (historical fiction)
50. Storm Ahead by Monica Edwards
51. Inherit the Earth by Brian Stableford
52. You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down by Alice Walker
53. Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly (re-read)
54. The John McPhee Reader by John McPhee, edited by William L. Howarth (outdoors & nature and other topics)
55. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers (re-read)
56. Big Cat Dreaming (children’s book)
57. A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright
58. Red Wolves and Black Bears by Edward Hoagland (outdoors & nature)
59. Half Magic (children’s book) by Edward Eager
60. The Forge of Heaven (Gene Wars 2) by C. J. Cherryh
61. Wildflowers, Golden Guide to by Herbert S. Zim (outdoors & nature)
62. Murder Most Feline (anthology)
63. Why We Run by Bernd Heinrich (popular science, human physiology & evolutionary history)
64. The Littles (children’s book)
65. A Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
66. One Step from Earth by Harry Harrison
67. Cat in a Midnight Choir by Carole Nelson Douglas (re-read)
68. Gargoyles and Port by Mary Selby
69. The New Hugo Winners 3 edited by Connie Willis et al. (re-read)
70. The Wizard of Karres by Mercedes Lackey et al.
71. Power Lines by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Anne Scarborough
72. Terry Carr’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #16 (anthology)
73. Cat in the Mirror by Mary Stolz
74. Tesseracts 4 (anthology)
75. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
76. My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian by Brian O’Donaghue
77. Fred’s Garden (children’s book)
78. A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond
79. Destroyer (First Contact 7) by C. J. Cherryh
80. The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins (science)
81. The Power of Generosity by Dave Toycen
82. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days by Michelle Alexander, Jeannie Long
83. Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
84. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
85. Tentacles (children’s book)
86. Nerve by Dick Francis (re-read)
87. Odds Against by Dick Francis (re-read)
88. The Danger by Dick Francis
89. The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt
90. The Tainted Relic by ‘Medieval Murderers’
91. Tales from the Arabian Nights edited by E. O. Lorimer, translated by E. W. Lane, illustrated by Brian Wildsmith
92. Underground to Canada (children’s book) by Barbara Smucker
93. The Wolf Worlds by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch
94. Horse Under Water by Len Deighton
95. Rumpole and the Angel of Death (stories) by John Mortimer
96. Valor’s Choice by Tanya Huff (re-read)
97. A Stroke of Midnight by Laurell K. Hamilton
98. Old Testament, “Genesis” to “Judges” (religious literature)

See also Books read in 2007.