Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Monday, November 26, 2012

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Manhunt

GMO Science-Science Journalism Collusion

Carl Zimmer calls it out:
On Wednesday, French scientists had a press conference to announce the publication of a study that they claimed showed that genetically modified food causes massive levels of cancer in rats.
The paper appeared in a peer-reviewed journal. That being said, outside experts quickly pointed out how flimsy it was, especially in its experimental design and its statistics. Scicurious has a good roundup of the problems at Discover’s The Crux.
But those outside experts were slow to comment in part because reporters who got to see the paper in advance of the embargo had to sign a confidentiality agreement to get their hands on it. They weren’t allowed to show it to other experts.
[T]he strategy was clear: prevent science writers from getting informed outside opinions, so that you can bask in the badly-reported media spotlight. Sure, the real story may emerge later, but if you get that first burst of attention, you can lock in people’s first impressions. The documentary about the primate fossil got the audience its producers were hoping for. The French scientists got the attention of the French government, and thus reinforcing opposition to genetically modified foods, although the study itself fails to make that case. Mission accomplished.
Here he is on "On the Media"

Four Tet- "Pinnacles"

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Discoverer- Tunnels LP [NEW]

New at Digitalis

Cold Pumas- Peristent Malaise LP [NEW]

New at Faux Discx

Saturday, November 3, 2012

An Interview with Maurice Sendak

Emma Brockes at the Believer interviewed the late author:
THE BELIEVER: Do you miss the city, living out here?
MAURICE SENDAK: I really don’t like the city anymore. You get pushed and harassed and people grope you. It’s too tumultuous. It’s too crazy. I’m afraid of falling over in New York. People are all insane and talking on machines and twittering and twottering. All that. I’m here looking for peace and quiet. A yummy death.
BLVR: A yummy death?
MS: I’m just reading a book about Samuel Palmer and the ancients in England in the 1820s. You were so lucky to have William Blake. He’s lying in bed, he’s dying, and all the young men come—the famous engravers and painters—and he’s lying and dying, and suddenly he jumps up and begins to sing! “Angels, angels!” I don’t know what the song was. And he died a happy death. It can be done. [Lifts his eyebrows to two peaks] If you’re William Blake and totally crazy.
H/T: 3quarksdaily

Friday, November 2, 2012

The Cosmic Distance Ladder

2006 Fields Medal winner and UCLA Math prof, Terence Tao gives the 2010 Einstein Lecture on measuring the Universe. Check it out.