The taxonomist in me can’t help but notice that photographs of Hurricane Sandy, now bearing down on the Atlantic coast, fall into distinct categories. So I’ve made a helpful guide to 10 common storm images, complete with identification tips. 1. The Satellite Overview Diagnostic traits: white, swirly, often accompanied by a NOAA stamp. You wouldn’t [...]

When U.C. Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper-sprayed a line of student protesters last Friday, his actions were recorded in replicate. Dozens of cameras captured video and still images, and soon swarms of photographs seeped across the internet. If there was ever a more-recorded single event in history, I am not aware of it. [...]

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee has an excellent article in the most recent New York Times Magazine (published April 26, 2013) on disgraced Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel. Why is Stapel disgraced? At the last count at Retraction Watch, 54 53 of his scientific publications have been retracted, owing to the fact that the results reported in those [...]

At Error Statistics Philosophy, D. G. Mayo has an interesting discussion of changes that just went into effect to Transportation Security Administration rules about what air travelers can bring in their carry-on bags. Here’s how the TSA Blog describes the changes: TSA established a committee to review the prohibited items list based on an overall [...]

You may recall (as I and my offspring do) the controversy about six years ago around the demotion of Pluto. There seemed to me to be reasonable arguments on both sides, and indeed, my household included pro-Pluto partisans and partisans for a new, clear definition of “planet” that might end up leaving Pluto on the [...]

Why does it matter if one person decides to tell the world that she’s gotten a double mastectomy? Well, if that one person happens to be Angelina Jolie, it means that there will suddenly be a whole lot more people who now know about the harmful consequences of having a faulty BRCA1 gene, a genetic [...]

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are [...]

Something can’t actually be sexist if it’s really, really nice, right? I mean, if someone compliments me on my looks or my cooking, that’s not sexist. That’s awesome! I should be thrilled that I’m being noticed for something positive! Yet there are many comments that, while seemingly complimentary, somehow still feel wrong. These comments may [...]

As SCOTUS debates the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and DOMA this week, Facebook users all over the nation have become part of a burgeoning social media trend. Supporters of marriage equality have been changing their profile pictures to the icon on the left, a version of the Human Rights Campaign logo designed specifically to indicate [...]

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. – William Shakespeare, Hamlet According to a poll from the Pew Research Center that has come out just in time for this week’s historic decisions on marriage equality, we should all be concerned. As it turns out, there’s a tremendous amount of bias [...]

In honor of the big decisions occurring this week in SCOTUS regarding the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, I am re-posting a slightly edited version of this piece from the archives of my WordPress blog. This was originally posted in June 2011, shortly after New York legalized same-sex marriage. You [...]

Rob Portman, Republican senator from Ohio and one-time contender for Romney’s would-be VP slot, announced on Friday that he has reversed his very public stance against gay marriage. As the well-known conservative stated in an Op-Ed piece on Friday, he now believes that “if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love [...]