The Physics of Finding Osama bin Laden (As Mis-Reported on NPR)

Over in Scientopia, Janet notes an interesting mis-statement from NPR, where Dina Temple-Raston said of the now-dead terrorist: [O]ne intelligence officials told us that nothing with an electron actually passed close to him, which in a way is one of the ways they actually caught him. As Janet notes, this would be quite a feat, […]

People Dancing

I’ve been watching the Al Jazeera English livestream off and on this week to keep up with events in Egypt. At some point, SteelyKid came in while I had it on, saw shots of the cheering crowds from Tuesday, and said “People dancing!” Sometime on Wednesday, she marched over to me, and demanded to watch […]

Solidarity in Egypt

A story to improve your opinion of humanity: Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held […]

(Belated) World Cup Contest

This was supposed to go up earlier, but it turns out that thinking you selected “Scheduled” in the MT back end is not, in fact, enough to schedule the post to appear. So this is showing up after games have already begun, but nothing of consequence has happened yet, so it’s no biggie. Anyway, the […]

Thank You, Switzerland

It’s always nice to be reminded that the US is not the only country in the world prone to acts of petty and childish xenophobia. The last eight years have been especially rough, but between the Obama administration acting like adults and now this silly minaret ban, we no longer look like the most infantile […]

Hey to Uganda

I mentioned a few times that one of our physics graduates from 2008 was spending a year in rural Uganda, working at a clinic and school there as part of a college-run fellowship program (with Engeye Health Clinic. Steve is back in the US now, and headed to graduate school in Seattle in Atmospheric Sciences. […]