Bètablokker

Moving to wordpress

2006-04-11T07:00:00.000+02:00

Betablokker gaat vanaf vandaag, in navolging van Qulog, hier verder!

Dubbele punt

2006-03-19T11:24:00.000+01:00

Het is Boekenweek, dus tijd voor een ode aan een ondergewaardeerd leesteken:

Drs. P - De dubbele punt
De dubbele punt is een punt en een punt
En die punten staan boven elkaar
De ene punt lijkt op de andere punt
Dat is ontegenzeggelijk waar
En denk nu maar niet dat u alles al weet
Want ik ben nog niet helemaal klaar
Integendeel, ik heb nog veel informatie
En die maak ik nu openbaar

De dubbele punt is een punt en een punt
In totaal zijn er dat dan dus twee
We zouden het ook een tweevoudige punt kunnen noemen
Daar zit ik niet mee
We zouden wel tijd kunnen winnen
En afkorten tot de twee letters D.P.
Maar overal zeggen ze dubbele punt
Dus dat zeg ik dus ook maar gedwee

De dubbele punt is een punt en een punt
En wat u dient te weten is dit:
Dit leesteken is voor de hotemetoot
Evenzeer als de hittepetit
Het moet altijd tussen twee zinsdelen staan
Waarvan 't eerste het tweede bezit
Dit onderwerp heeft mij geheel in haar ban
En ik raak al een beetje verhit

De dubbele punt is een punt en een punt
En dan ben ik nog niet uitgepraat
Dit teken leidt in wat gezegd of gedacht
Of geschreven wordt, dus een citaat
Let wel: na 'let wel' of 'aldus' of iets dergelijks
Is 't eveneens adequaat
Men kan het ook interpreteren alsof er
"Te weten" of "namelijk" staat

De dubbele punt is een punt en een punt
En dan zeg ik beslist niet te veel
De ene beneden, de andere boven
Ze vormen een smaakvol geheel
Ze laten zich lezen in Buckingham Palace
Zowel als een rustig prieel
Bij 't heldere licht van een rijwiellantaarn
Maar ook in Tietjerksteradeel

Of u nu verkiest Dostoyevski te lezen
Of Emma en Lodewijk Brunt
Obscene gedichten of wiskundeboeken
Geen mens hier die u dat misgunt
U haalt ze misschien uit de bibliotheek
Of betaalt ze met klinkende munt
Maar wat u ook doet, u begrijpt dan tenminste
Na heden de dubbele punt

The beauty and the chick

2006-02-10T14:52:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I bought the hilarious paperback edition of the IG Nobel prizes 2, with lots of improbable research and interesting 30 second 'thank you' speeches. A must-read when you feel down about your research, and need something to do while procrastinating!

Doggy Style

2006-01-20T09:34:00.000+01:00

Click on the picture for a larger version. See also the 'dog blogging' post.

Self-references

2006-01-04T11:40:00.000+01:00

Investigator and colleague Marijn Meijer drew my attention to a research article by Professor Werner-Michael Kulicke. This eminent scholar, who has written over 180 scientific publications, manages to refer in this conference paper in 23 of 29 occasions to his own work. I think that someone has been reading E. Robert Schulman's 'How to write a scientific paper' very closely!

Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky

2005-12-20T07:26:00.000+01:00

Update: see also this post about the element song on Florine's Qulog!

Famous for his song about the elements, Tom Lehrer has written several songs about the scientific enterprise. Lobachevsky (click here for a recording) is one of my favorites. Esspecially the fourth strophe would make a nice motto for my thesis.

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".

According to the Lobachevsky page on Wikipedia, Lehrer selected him for this song not because Lobachevsky is particularly known for this misdemeanor, but because his name is reminiscent to the Danny Kay routine about a Russian director Stanislavsky.

Source: the Tom Lehrer page

Koele Glasheden

2005-12-13T10:41:00.000+01:00

Kenteringssonnet - Herman Gorter

Ik vlood vandaan de wereld achter deuren
en nu heb ik bloemrijke eenzaamheden,
maar toch zijn mij nog gapende en wreede
bersten als in gebarsten grond de scheuren.

De stemmen en de blankre ooge' en heure
koele glasheden zonder ééne bede,
pijnigden, daarom ben ik nu tevreden
en voed mijn hart en draag me met opbeuren.

Schoon is het me en om in mijne blanke
gedachten te gaan met de hooge armen
samen voorover als in lichte bosch.

Het kruipt rondom mijn boezem als de ranken
van wijngevende druiven en de warme
vrijheid voel ik. Ik ben gemakk'lijk los.

Mooi voorgelezen door Jan Decleir (had ik maar zo'n diepe stem!) (via Bieslog)

Lucht beïnvloedt leren?

2005-11-22T07:46:00.000+01:00

"Uit onderzoek op scholen in Denemarken en Zweden blijkt dat leerlingen minder goed presteren als de luchtkwaliteit niet deugt. Uit eerdere onderzoeken bleek dat acht van de tien scholen in Nederland een slechte tot zeer slechte luchtkwaliteit hebben." (bron: nos.nl)

"Wat, alweer een vijf voor scheikunde?"
"Ik kon er niks aan doen, alle ramen zaten dicht."

Zou deze correlatie ook geleden voor leerprestaties van universitaire medewerkers?

Voor een beknopt overzicht van onderzoek naar luchtkwaliteit op scholen, zie dit overzichtspaper gepresenteerd tijdens het jaarlijkse symposium van de Nederlandse vereniging voor arbeidshygiene.

Roald Hoffmann

2005-11-19T20:21:00.000+01:00

Recently, someone informed me about Roald Hoffmann, Nobel Prize Laureate in chemistry and poet. Checking his website was a pleasant surprise. It contains lots of poetry and articles on the beauty of science. Your special attention for this article, in which Hoffmann pleads for alternative ways of expressing scientific ideas other then the research article, and for the following poem:

Emancipatie van didactici?

2005-11-07T13:21:00.000+01:00

Eerder schreef ik over de toenemende populariteit van natuurweten-
schappen in de alternatieve rockscene. Vandaag ontdekte ik dat ook de didactiek zich een zekere mate van populariteit mag verheugen. Deze keer niet in de rock, maar in de nederlandstalige rap, ofwel nederhop. In 2002 bracht De Amersfoorste Cooperatie (DAC) een CD onder de titel "diDACtici" uit. Deze titel lijkt te verwijzen naar de retorische superioriteit van deze heren ten op zichte van hun collega rappers, en de educatieve functie die deze CD in het licht van deze superioriteit zou kunnen hebben. Ik vraag me echter af of DAC tijdens het kiezen van deze titel zich bewust waren van het geitewollensokkenimago van didactici in zowel het onderzoeks- als onderwijsveld. Waarschijnlijk niet. Maar wie weet. Misschien is deze cd een eerste stap naar emancipatie van didactici. Want wij laten niet met ons fokken!

En dat is drie.....

2005-10-28T08:53:00.000+02:00

Met de publicatie van hun discussiestuk volgt de commissie vernieuwing natuurkundeonderwijs Havo/Vwo haar chemische en biologische tegenhangers in de drang om het natuurwetenschappelijk middelbaar onderwijs te voorzien van 'inspirerende en uitdagende' contexten.

Peer Commentary

2005-10-20T13:22:00.000+02:00

When writing a research article it's quite common to receive feedback from direct colleagues. However, after your article is published, you usually hear nothing about it anymore, expect for the odd reference. Sometimes journals publish responses and replies to responses. However that occurs not very frequently. So much for academic discussion!

Because not everybody has got a peer feedback network like the late Edsger Dijkstra, there are other possibilities to receive peer commentary, especially when you are (cognitive) psychologist. Recently, I stumbled upon a journal which is very generous with peer commentaries. Most the articles in Behavioral and Brain Sciences are accompanied by at least a dozen commentaries. It occurred to me that researchers might be modest with their critique, compared to anonymous peer review. However, I read one research article and the accompanying strand of commentaries, and I have to admit that the commentaries were quite critical. Apparenlty, the public nature of their peer commentary requires researchers to write a thorough and sensible critique. In the end, I think this is a very good approach to stimulate academic discussion, which should be taken over by other research journals. Or am I being terribly naive?

Dog blogging

2005-10-17T07:46:00.000+02:00

Pet blogging is a common strategy to improve the cuteness of your blog. Within the pet blogging approach, cats are by far the most popular animal. In an attempt to counterbalance the terror of 'cute' cats, which are selfish and arrogant creatures, we at betablokker use dogs (see here and here) to increase our likeability. This picture is taken at the breitensport course from the dog-expert club 'Dordrecht e.o'. The woman is our mother, and the dog is her Dutch smousdog called Bella.

Flying Faeces

2005-10-14T15:09:00.000+02:00

Last week, next to the Nobel prizes, the IG Nobel prizes were awared. This years' most hilarious piece of research was on pressures produced when penguins pooh (following this link to the research paper). Pengiuns are known for their perculair way of defaecation (for example, see this movie, (thnx Bart). The investigators were intrigued by the distances covered by the flying faeces, and the decided to calculate the amount of internal pressure needed for this launch. Their calculations resulted in pressures ranging from 10 to 60 Kpa, pending on the viscosity of the faecal materials. The pressures are much higher compared then human pressures (which are somwhere between 1 and 8 kPa). The authors caution us though: 'Whether the birds deliberately chooses the direction into which it decides to expel its faeces or whether this depends on the direction from which the winds blows at the time of evalucation are questions need to be adressed on another expedition to Antartica'. Perhaps this is an interesting context for fluid dynamics education?

Writing tips?

2005-10-13T12:28:00.000+02:00

Three valuable suggestions for writing and publishing your scientific work:

How to write a scienctific paper: "Scientific papers (e.g. Schulman 1988; Schulman & Fomalont 1992; Schulman, Bregman, & Roberts 1994; Schulman & Bregman 1995; Schulman 1996) are an important, though poorly understood, method of publication. They are important because without them scientists cannot get money from the government or from universities..." [more]

A sample cover letter for journal manuscripts resubmissions: "Enclosed is our latest version of Ms # 85-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the goddamn running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy even you and your bloodthirsty reviewers." [more] (via)

And a useful template for writing scientific press releases: "Scientists today announced that they are the first to successfully demonstrate SCIENTIFIC FINDING. This has long been one of the holy grails of SCIENTIFIC FIELD. 'This finding radically alters our understanding of the field, to say the least,' says FIRST AUTHOR, a SCIENTIFIC FIELDologist from INSTITUTION who led the research." [more]

And if all these handy tips don't work for you, you can always turn to the folks from researchpaper.com.They write your dissertation in three days for just under $20 per page!

They're not dumb, they're different

2005-10-05T11:25:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I read an interesting and provocative study by Sheila Tobias. In 1989, she conducted an ethnographic research project at Cornell University, in which 6 liberal arts master students (philosophy, English literature etc.) and a college professor (a classicist) audit several freshman chemistry and physics courses. They were excellent science students in high school, but eventually they decided to major in liberal arts. By auditing freshman courses, Tobias tries to reveal how these students experience freshman science courses with their current liberal arts background, and tries to grasp why these students drifted away from science. Their experiences are very recognizable, for example, the students lack a meaningful purpose in these courses, and feel like that their input hardly matters at all. Moreover, they emphasized that most of the courses were focussed on problem-solving, the tiranny of technique, and hardly on conceptual development, which is a important part of liberal arts education.

Tobias states that it would be much more rewarding to focus science educational reform efforts on keeping these students interested in science in their freshman and sophomore years, and reduce the drop-off, instead of trying to reform secondary science education. She provides some staggering numbers. In 1977, from 4.00.000 high school sophomores, 750.000 students claimed to be intersted in science, and of these 750.00, only 590.000 students claimed to be interested in science during their senior high school year. Of these, only 340.000 are still comitted to science after their college freshman year, and only 206.000 would actually graduate in science and engineering. I wonder what causes this drop-off, esspecially between highschool and college. Is science education in US high schools so different from college science education? Unfortunately, Tobias does not elaborate very much on this point. To my best knowledge, science education in Dutch high schools is (despite several waves of reform) not that different from science education in Dutch colleges (which is generally quite similar to the courses described in this study), and most students decide in high school if they like or don't like science. Subsequently, if they don't like science, they are not very likely to pursue a career in it. Actually, it made me wonder how many good science high school students in the Netherlands decide to pursue a career in another direction, and why they decided to do so.

Tobias notices an lack of attention for college-based science reform compared to the sweeping changes on in the elementary and secondary levels. She explains this difference by emphasizing that 'Reformers - and insofar as they become educational reformers scientists are no exception- are most comfortable dealing with problems that have their origins (and hence their solutions) elsewhere. In the case of the science shortfall "elsewhere" is in the pedagogy and curriculum of the lower grades, in the anti-intellectualism of the nations home environments, in teacher-recruitment, and teacher training (which usually occurs in departments of education cut off from departments of science); even in the negative image of scientists as portrayed by popular culture' (p.8-9). Altough I do not doubt the good intentions of university-based curriculum reformers, I agree with Tobias. Most reforms I have studied in primary and secondary education were initiated by concerned (educational) scientists, and it is indeed much easier to try to convince somebody else to change than to change yourself.

SciAm's SciTech Web Awards

2005-10-05T08:13:00.000+02:00

Two days ago, Scientific American presented their annual Science & Technology Web Awards for this years best SciTech sites. There are regular websites like The Whole Brain Atlas with all sorts of magificent images of the brain, and several blogs like The Loom, Chris Mooney's The Intersection, Mindhacks, a popular blog about neuroscience, Panda's Thumb, a watchdog blog on evolution in the media, and the Real Climate, a objective blog about scientific development climatology. From what I have read so far on these blogs they are worth taking a look!

Stunning science pictures

2005-09-29T11:10:00.000+02:00

The annual 'Visions of Science' competition has presented their amazing 2005 collection of award-winning science photo's. And photographer Martin Waugh specialises in photographing dropping or splashing liquids, which results in some astonishing photo's.

Bust some school myths

2005-09-07T15:43:00.000+02:00

The infamous mythbusters present a funny quiz on some common (American) school myths. Two myths are science related. One is about a math student who entered statistics class late. He thought that the problems on the blackboard where homework, instead of well-known unsolvable math problems, and solved them. The other is about a high school student who discussed the dangers of DHMO with 50 of his fellow students. After the discussion, 43 of them considered DHMO a dangerous substance which should be banned. So test your myth knowledge, and try to bust these myths!

Evolution today

2005-08-29T10:09:00.000+02:00

See also Daniel Dennet's interesting but somewhat fundamentalist Op-Ed. about ID in the NY Times (via), and the fascinating interactive documentary "Becoming Human" (via).

Intelligent Falling

2005-08-18T09:45:00.000+02:00

The Onion reports from Kansas: As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling. [more]

Porn is here to stay

2005-08-17T13:20:00.000+02:00

Fabiano Ximenes likes to investigate the deterioration of wood and paper. Digging through two Sidney dumps, the scientist, 31, discovered that magazines and newspapers thrown away up to 46 years ago were in almost perfect condition, with pornography lasting the best of all. He displayed a 1979 copy of the men's magazine Playboy which was in near mint condition, and said its thick wax coating could be the reason for its longevity. "The best preserved was the pornography," Mr Ximenes said."It was a bit ironic." He presented his results during Fresh science, a national program showcasing young scientists' work. The best fresh scientist will win a trip to the UK to present their work to the Royal Institution. I am convinced that with these results Mr. Ximines will win the contest by a landslide. Read more (via)

A few unanswered questions remain:
- Which issue of the 1979 Playboy was found by Mr. Ximenes?
- What would archeologists in the future conclude abour our society with only pornography as source of information?
- To what extent will Dr. Reisman appreciate these results?

Hurray for Hanna!

2005-08-04T14:19:00.000+02:00

Today the dissertation of my colleague and office-mate Hanna was delivered from the printer! It is with 326 pages one of the more robust volumes in the CDBèta Series on Research in Science Education. Well-worth a thorough read! Hanna will be defending her dissertation on Wednesday the 21st of September, on 14.30h in the Academiegebouw in Utrecht. Be there!

Let's read!

2005-08-02T14:51:00.000+02:00

Chris Correa links to an interesting NY Times article about the current state of teacher education schools in the U.S., and Cosmic Variance dicusses a mind-boggling article in the Christian Science Monitor about the rapidly expanding Chinese Higer Education System. Some figures:

1,300 new private universities started in recent years
College enrollment has tripled since 1998, the country now outpaces leaders like the US, India, Russia, and Japan in numbers of students in colleges and universities.
China currently has about 20 million students pursuing higher education.
Chinese officials expect at least 20 percent of high school grads to be enrolled in some form of higher education by 2010 - rising to 50 percent by 2050.
The number of science and engineering Ph.D.s nearly doubled between 1996 and 2001, to just over 8,000.

Sounds from scientists?

2005-08-01T12:54:00.000+02:00

It seems that bands with science-related names are again (thnx, Florine) becoming popular in indie music land. See for example these two bands which I stumbled upon, on You Ain't No Picasso the maths and physics club and proton proton.

The maths and physics club is American Analog Set revisited, not bad at all, but a bit dull, while Proton Proton is more prog-rock oriented (math rock would be a more appropriate term here). I wonder if these guys really all have a science background. Their websites (click on the pictures) did not make me any wiser. Mp3's: Lock Piker (Proton Proton) and Movie Ending Romance (MPC).

Update: after reading this post on YANP about the new video of the We are scientists, I think I will rest my case. Science and indie music, they just love each other!

Professional development?

2005-07-27T14:41:00.000+02:00

Eduwonk posts a link too the Trenches where Mr ab. gives some free advice on what to do when developing an in-service teacher course....

"...no gimmicks, no games, no group work, and no, absolutely no, teacher-voice. If you could end that sentence with "Boys and girls," don't say it. Do not play chimes or a recorder to get my attention, do not make me sing, and do not make me sit on the floor."

A hilarious read, however, I do not agree with all his statements. For example, no group work does seem silly when you are learning to use group work in the classroom. There is something I'd like to add to mr. ab's list, which is groups of mostly male teachers behaving like students during a in-service course. Being an observer during several (male) teacher in-service courses I noticed that teachers sitting in a classroom setting, start to behave like more like adolescent students, exploring the behavioural borders and patience of the in-service trainer. When this kind of behaviour occurs it does not necessarily mean that teachers do not like the course, it is more a natural phase in the process of formation of a group. However, when it gets out of hand, trainers in general are very cautious in disciplining teachers, afraid as they are that there course, which is mostly based on input from teachers instead of input from the trainer, collapses. The trainer who lead the courses I was sitting in, was not afraid and easily disciplined the participating teachers, who were afterwards, well aware of the way the behaved. So, give some space for adolescent behaviour, but don't be afraid to intervene as a teacher, when the jokes are becoming too funny.

Dillema's in porn research

2005-07-21T15:20:00.000+02:00

Judith Reisman, the uncrownded queen of porn research, is back in the news again. According to the Guardian she tries to raise $3m to conduct MRI scans on victims under the influence of porn and so prove her theories are correct. I wonder whether this is ethical, because, to determine the influence of porn you need to compare brain scans before and after watching porn, and since, according to Dr. Reisman, people who watch porn suffer from serious brain damage, it is not very likely that she will find appropriate guinea pigs for her experiment. However, there might be a simple solution to this ethical dillema. Why doesn't Dr. Reisman contacts the Dutch kings of MRI sex research for some data? Or is looking at brain scans of people having sex brain damaging as well?

New superior data transport tech

2005-07-19T13:55:00.000+02:00

How to avoid (educational) change?

2005-07-07T11:09:00.000+02:00

A checklist to be economical with time and creativity (from David W. Piper):

We already tried that.
We never did something like that.
I don't know anybody who tried something like that.
There is no funding.
We don't have the time.
We don't have qualified employees.
We would like to do that, but how would the outside world respond?
This might be suitable for a corporation, but we are a school.
In my school, things are different.
Everybody has got his own expertise otherwise they would not be working here.
It should fit with our educational views.
But we are only in the first year of the experiment.
But were are already in the final year of the experiment.
You are such an optimist.
I think you are right, but I will be retiring the next year.
I expect that this proposal will not recieve very much support.
Because of our limited staff, I can't simply increase their workload.
I guarantee you, this will not work in my school.

Etc.

Guerillas target Thai teachers

2005-07-04T14:05:00.000+02:00

Read the horrifying IHT article on the latest events in Thailand, where state-school teachers are being killed in the Muslim south of the country.

Let's read!

2005-06-30T13:04:00.000+02:00

Two interesting articles just appeared, one about Vygotsky in teacher education by Van Huizen, Van Oers & Wubbels, and another about the security of the milk food chain by Wein and Liu. The first one is interesting because it links Vygotsky with professional development of teachers, and because the word "orientation base" is used in a professional development context. The second one is interesting because its publication has been delayed by the US Department of Health and Human Services because it, according to the Scientist "specifically describe(s) how to poison the country's dairy supply", despite the fact that it survived review according to the guidelines from the Fink report.

Blog enquête

2005-06-27T11:26:00.000+02:00

Het Massachutsetts Institute of Technology houdt een enquête over blogs en bloggebruik. Het doel van de enquete is "to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other. Specifically we are interested in issues of demographics, communication behaviors, experience with weblogs and other technology, and the meaning of various types of social links within the blogosphere." Nogal algemeen, maar het is een sociologisch onderzoek, dus even niet zeuren. De PI is Cameron A. Marlow, Ph.D. student. Hij heeft overigens ook een aardig blog, waarin hij iedereen oproept zijn enquete in te vullen. Het ziet er allemaal erg strak en hip uit, dus help deze jongeman de zomer door en klik op het plaatje om naar de enquête te gaan.

Bètabarbaar

2005-06-22T12:38:00.000+02:00

Cultuurbarbaren. Wie kent ze niet? Trots op hun gebrek aan culturele bagage, etaleren ze hun onkunde aan wie het maar wil horen. Afgelopen maanden hebben verschillende mensen mij toevertrouwd cultuurbarbaren te zijn. Deze mensen hebben allemaal een bètastudie gevolgd, en hebben een baan in de natuurwetenschappen. Op basis van deze beperkte enquete durf ik te concluderen dat cultuurbarbaren bètaminnend zijn. Echter geldt dit ook de andere kant op? Zijn cultuurminners bètabarbaren? En hoe zien bètabarbaren er dan uit?

The female orgasm, a no-brainer

2005-06-21T10:00:00.000+02:00

New scientist reports:

For women, it seems, sex is a big turn-off, reveals a brain scanning study. It shows that many areas of the brain switch off during the female orgasm - including those involved with emotion.

"At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings," says Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
His team recruited 13 healthy heterosexual women and their partners. The women were asked to lie with their heads in a PET scanner while the team compared their brain activity in four states: simply resting, faking an orgasm, having their clitoris stimulated by their partner?s fingers, and clitoral stimulation to the point of orgasm. The results of the study are striking. As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain, called the primary somatosensory cortex, but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity fell in many more areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, compared with the resting state, Holstege told a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development in Copenhagen on Monday. (read more)

This is like Pek van Andel revisited! A candidate for an IG Nobel prize? Very likely!

Update: some follow-up research has already been published by dr. Nak de Weert (Dutch)

FISME

2005-06-20T11:00:00.000+02:00

Our centre needed a new name. Because it consist of a large mathemactics department, the Freudenthal institute, and a rather small science department, the Centre for Science Education, a group of wise men decided to change our name from "Centre for Science and Mathematics Education" to "Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education". Unfortunately, the abbreviation, FISME, has got a somewhat nasty aftertaste. ;)

Now that's mathematics!

2005-06-17T14:11:00.000+02:00

Exclusive video footage from the uncrowned king of science & mathematics songs, Tom Lehrer (via).

Significance?

2005-06-15T14:18:00.000+02:00

Andrew Gelman (via) points out an interesting element in interpreting different statistical results. It's possible to look at two different analyses, one with a significant result and one without a significant result, and try to interpret the differences even when the difference between the two results themselves is not statistically significant.

Let me explain. Consider two experiments, one giving an estimated effect of 25 (with a standard error of 10) and the other with an estimate of 10 (with a standard error of 10). The first is highly statistically significant (with a p-value of 1.2%) and the second is clearly not statistically significant (with an estimate that is no bigger than its s.e.).What about the difference? The difference is 15 (with a s.e. of sqrt(10^2+10^2)=14.1), which is clearly not statistically significant! (The z-score is only 1.1.). This is a surprisingly common mistake. The two effects seem sooooo different, that it is hard for people to even think that their difference might be explained purely by chance.

A simple point with, on first sight, big consequences, but I wonder wheter you simply are allowed to compare the results of two different studies this way. Don't these studies have to be exactly the same?

Gebarentaal

2005-06-13T17:37:00.000+02:00

Het woordenboek Vlaamse gebarentaal, met filmpkes!

Typ je mail, of je proefschrift, in gebarentaal (althans in het NTG handalfabet) met deze fonts.

Zon draait om aarde

2005-06-13T14:43:00.000+02:00

Na het lezen van het volgende berichtje op nu.nl (bijna eenderde Europeanen: zon draait om aarde) dacht ik eerst, er valt nog veel toe doen voor didactici en docenten, daaropvolgend dacht ik, als dit maar niet als bewijs voor falend onderwijs en onderzoek wordt gezien, en toen, in hoeverre valt dit resultaat docenten en didactici aan te rekenen? Suggesties iemand?

Voorzichtig omkatten

2005-06-10T16:08:00.000+02:00

Science Unlimited

2005-06-09T14:18:00.000+02:00

Zondagmiddag 19 juni. Het regent pijpenstelen. Je ligt op de bank. De kater van de vorige avond beukt nog na in je hoofd. Zuchtend graai je naar de krant van zaterdag. De katern economie, die je normaal gesproken overslaat, heb je nog niet gelezen. Je voelt je lamlendig. De nieuwe werkweek lijkt een welkome afwisseling van deze kwellende lethargie.

Maar!

Doorbreek deze landerigheid en kom naar NEMO in Amsterdam. Daar wordt van woensdag 15 juni tot zondag 19 juni in het kader van het World Year of Physics, een GRATIS toegankelijke multimediale happening gehouden getiteld "Science Unlimited". Bekijk de spectaculaire opstellingen en waag je leven bij gevaarlijke proeven. De ultieme gelegenheid tot "everything you always wanted to know about physics but were afraid to ask". Ik heb me, als eenvoudig chemicus, laten strikken om op zondag bij de opstellingen van de Universiteit Utrecht te gaan staan om vragen te beantwoorden en voorlichting te geven. Als dat maar goed gaat!

Dus!

Excuses zijn overbodig, en kom naar NEMO ! Voor meer info, zie deze link

Photos of philosohers

2005-06-09T11:42:00.000+02:00

Photographer Sijmen Hendriks build a beautiful webpage filled with photos of philosohers, live and dead ones.

Selectie in het onderwijs

2005-05-30T21:48:00.000+02:00

Een bezoek aan een school in Amsterdam met een tweejarige cijferloze onderbouw, deed mij denken aan het volgende citaat van Adriaan Dingemans de Groot:

"Aan de cijferschaal is te zien dat onvoldoendes in Nederland normale cijfers zijn. Dat is alleen mogelijk als de leraar zich niet hoeft aan te trekken dat zijn onderwijs bij een aantal leerlingen heeft gefaald. Dat hoeft hij niet omdat deze leerlingen best omgeschikt zouden kunnen zijn. Daardoor is een aantal onvoldoendes voor de leraar geen schande; en daardoor wordt de vraag naar geschikt onderwijs nooit scherp gesteld.

Wij zitten hier blijkbaar midden in het grootste euvel van ons onderwijssysteem: het feit dat wij voortdurende (mogen) doorgaan met selecteren. Bijna nergens wordt in ons onderwijs een punt bereikt, waarop een leraar zondermeer de opdracht heeft ervoor te zorgen dat hij een bepaalde groep leerlingen een bepaalde leerstof eenvoudig bijbrengt. De onderwijsverantwoordelijkheid ligt van de leraar is daardoor altijd onvolledig, zij is altijd vermengd met selectiemogelijkheden. In zekere zin blijft onderwijs geven daardoor altijd half werk. En wat de leerling betreft: het ligt altijd bijna aan hem als hij faalt; hij wordt nooit met zoveel woorden als geschikt aanvaard, alle voorselectie ten spijt. Hem of haar hangt in principe de mogelijkheid van falen door eigen ongeschiktheid op ieder moment als een zwaard van Damocles boven het hoofd, tot op de dag van zijn eindexamen, of doctoraalexamen.

Het bovenstaande is een tikje gedramatiseerd- toegegeven- en er is natuurlijk geen sprake van dat dit alles 'logisch' zou volgen uit de structuur van onze cijferschaal. Maar het is wel zo, dat een cijfersysteem, dat evenveel onvoldoende als voldoende graden kent, zich alleen kan handhaven in een cultuur, waarin praktische alle onderwijs aan één stuk door met selectie vermengd is als de onze. Het systeem weerspiegelt onze cultuur."

Uit: A.D. de Groot. Vijven en Zessen. 8e druk, 1974. H.D. Tjeenk Willink, Groningen, p.43-44

Een waarheid als een koe dunkt me.

Eureka prijs 2005

2005-05-25T09:50:00.000+02:00

De Eureka prijs voor het beste populair wetenschappelijke boek van 2004 is gewonnen door Mineke Schipper met haar boek "Alleen de vrouw als moeder wordt de hemel in geprezen". Schipper verzamelde en analyseerde 15.000 spreekwoorden over vrouwen uit allerlei verschillende landen en culturen. Opvallend is dat geen enkel bètaboek de top drie haalde, tweede werd het ontstaan van het ABN van Nicoline van der Sijs en derde Psychologische Zaken van Gerrit Breeuwsma. Zie voor meer informatie de site van Intermediar.

What is this?

2005-05-18T13:49:00.000+02:00

No result is a result too (2)

2005-05-12T12:51:00.000+02:00

Last august I wrote about two extraordinary journals which report negative (the journal of negative results in ecology and evolutionairy biology) or statistically non-significant results (the journal in support of the null hypothesis). When I recently performed a google search on the term "Negative results" two other journals popped up, the journal of negative results in biomedicine (since 2002), and the journal of negative results in speech and audio sciences (since 2004). The website of the latter refers to an interesting set of philosophical articles about negative results. Worth take a look.

Natuurwetenschap in het nieuws

2005-05-10T09:20:00.000+02:00

De 23e editie van het ANW-krantje 'Natuurwetenschap in het Nieuws' is uit, met aandacht voor het Marburgvirus, exoplaneten, donkere energie, stamcellen en gentherapie. Het krantje wordt gemaakt door Kees Hooyman van het St Bonifatius uit Urecht en bevat ingekorte natuurwetenschappelijke artikelen uit kranten en van websites. Een mooi initiatief, en zeer bruikbaar in de lessen ANW. Er is ook een archief met alle volledige artikelen van de afgelopen 3 jaar.

Bron: ANW mailinglist van de NVON.

Popular science writing prizes

2005-05-04T13:43:00.000+02:00

On the 12th of May the winner of the annual Aventis prize, the most prestigeous prize for popular science writing, will be announced. Next to well-known science writing dinosaurs like Richard Dawkins, is a Dutchman! Douwe Draaisma is nominated for his wel-written book "Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older". Five judges decide which book will win, so thumbs up for Douwe!

update (13-5): the Aventis Prize was won by Phillp Ball for his book "Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another" about human behaviour and descision-making.

More democratic is the annual Dutch Eureka prize for best popular science writing, which will be awarded on the 24th of May. The rather long shortlist contains not only science books but also books about linguistics, philosophy and social sciences. You are able to vote for your favorite book, favorite science media production, and best female achievement in science. From the Eureka shortlist, I only read the entertaining "Diesels droom en Donders' bril. Hoe wetenschap werkt" (Diesels' dream and Donders' glasses. How science works). It gives an interesting view how scienctific achievements are accomplished (coincidentally, like Flemings' penicilline), and of the difficulties scienctists encounter in turning their discovery into commercially interesting applications (like Diesels' engine). Very suitable for general science education!

A wonderful chemical poem

2005-04-25T07:31:00.000+02:00

Without Chemicals Life Itself Would Be Impossible
- By Christopher Wagner

The rain in Spain is bound to contain
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane,
And wafting discreetly through highland passes
Are colorless, odorless, perilous gases.
Our slops are so modern, so slyly hidden
Nobody minds that the world is a midden,
O blest be this waste without taste or hue!
How quaint it all was to yell "gardyloo!"

Source: improblog.

Yosemite bears

2005-04-24T16:00:00.000+02:00

I got bitten by a bear in Yosemite and guess what happened?

NARST 2005

2005-03-29T15:54:00.000+02:00

It's getting nearer and nearer. My first international conference abroad. Next Friday, I am leaving for the annual meeting of the NARST which is held from 4 to 7 April in Dallas (TX). At first, the conference was just a foggy happening somewhere the distant future. But ever since I finished my poster and accompaying paper and started to make plans for a short vacation afterwards, I am becoming more and more excited! Now I am really looking forward to it!! After the conference I will be travelling in the U.S. for three weeks, and visit College Station (TX), San Francisco, Orange County (CA) and New York. I won't be writing during the conference or on holiday, so in the mean time you can fill my comments with spam. See you later !

Hitchhiker's guide trailer

2005-03-11T14:15:00.000+01:00

Check out the hilarious trailer for upcoming Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy film. It's both a trailer and a lecture about trailers ('yet intelligent and provocative, meaning lots of things blowing up') from Stephen Fry!

Source: l-rs

Carnivals in all sizes

2005-03-10T11:28:00.000+01:00

The recent carnival eruption in the blogosphere, urged Science and Politics to organize a meta carnival (the second one already!). And don't forget to check his edutaining penile carnival.

Constructivism deconstructed?

2005-03-05T12:22:00.000+01:00

Recently, Geertje van der Werf (RUG) held an oration, entitled 'learning in the studyhouse, consuming, constructing, or engaging' ('leren in het studiehuis, consumeren construeren of engageren'). Herein she takes a critical stance against the constructivist movement in education. See for example the following quote (the oration is in Dutch, so this is my translation),

"Summarizing, it turned out that the assumptions of social constructivism, in relation to learning, and designing learning situations, are not based on empirical research: direct-, teacher-centred instruction is often essential for a effective learning, abstract knowledge can generalise to specific contexts and learning individually is not less effective than learning socially." (p.25)

Although, I am not sure what she means with "abstract knowledge can generalise to specific contexts" (abstract knowledge can transfer to specific contexts would make more sense to me), I wholeheartedly agree with her. The majority of her critique on socio-constructivism is based on an article from Anderson, Reder and Simon (2000), about the misuse of cognitive psychology in mathematics education. Constructivism is frequently criticized in the field of science education research, see for example, Matthews (2002) or Lijnse (2002). In the end, I am glad to notice that the holy grail of constructivism is becoming, even in the Dutch educational research community, a little less holy.

..zegt sorry

2005-02-27T21:10:00.000+01:00

'Kan je voor mij ook even wat pinnen?' vroeg de elegante J. 'Tuurlijk' zegt ik. 'Hoeveel heb je nodig?' 'Doe maar 20 euro.' Het was donker en het vroor. We stonden op zaterdagavond buiten café de V. Helemaal klaar om een leuk avondje af te sluiten in de kroeg. Alleen nog even pinnen om de hoek. Terwijl ik naar de automaat loop komt een blonde jongen me tegemoet. Hij loopt een beetje te zwalken en draait met z'n ogen als hij me aankijkt. Ik passeer hem en open de deur van de automaatruimte met mijn pas. Even later sta ik weer buiten. Opeens merk ik dat er iemand vlak naast me staat. Het is dezelfde jongen. Hij houdt een miniatuur hamer in de lucht en eist, zonder veel overtuigingskracht, dat-ie mijn geld wil hebben. Als mijn zintuigen springen op scherp. De adrenaline pompt door mijn lijf. Ik bekijk mijn belager eens goed, en voel geen enkele angst. Ik die knul is geen bedreiging. Twee koppen kleiner, staat-ie zenuwachtig van de ene voet op de andere te wippen. Zijn handen trillen. 'Dat zou ik niet doen' is mijn eerste reactie. 'Geef me je geld, anders sla ik je hiermee' roept hij nog een keer. 'Dat zou ik toch echt niet doen' herhaal ik. Hij krijgt in de gaten dat zijn bedreigingen geen effect sorteren, en grijpt in zijn rechter jaszak. 'En als ik je nu eens hiermee steek?' Hij houdt een klein zakmes vast. Ik kan een glimlach niet onderdrukken, en zeg 'Nee, dat zou ik ook niet doen. Loop nu maar gewoon weg'. Hij kijkt me doordringend aan, en ik zie de raderen in zijn hoofd draaien. Dan draait hij zich plotseling om en mompelt al weglopend een zacht excuus.

Stereotypical science

2005-02-23T13:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, a newspaper article on research about influencing stereotypical images caught my eye. Elsbeth Steenland investigated the influence of non-consistent information on stereotypes. Stereotypes consist of characteristic properties which are attributed to certain groups of people, like a same age-group or professional group. For example, chemists are seen as eccentric and dull. Chemists who are not dull, is an example of non-consistent information. When Steenland showed a film in which young vibrant and interesting chemists were interviewed, to her research objects (university students), their initial negative stereotype about chemists changed into a more positive direction. This effect lasted for about four months. With an overtly negative stereotype about skinheads, Steenland made clear that inconsistent information distributed over a few group members had more effect on the stereotype (strongly inconsistent), than showing inconsistent information distributed over a larger number of group-members (moderately inconsistent).

This research could have serious consequences for science education. This 'eccentric and dull' stereotype is also common among primary and high school students and is not only limited to chemists. It is very likely that this stereotype influences students' attitudes towards science at school. So, instead of desperately trying to make science education more interesting and meaningful for students, by implementing all sorts of inquiry-based, context-based, problem-based and practice-based initiatives one could also consider making science education as dull and traditional as possible. First, by using only real textbooks, without figures, pictures and colours, and second, by appointing only old, grey and smelly male teachers, who teach only by monotonously reading the textbook aloud. When students' stereotypes about science and science teachers are sufficiently confirmed, confronting them with a new exciting and challenging module, taught by a young vivid, preferably female, science teacher, would be far more effective in altering their stereotypical images. It is a pity that science education has more goals than only changing stereotypes!

For further reading about children's images of science, see for example:
- M. Meade & R. Metraux (1957). Image of the scientist among high school students. A pilot study. Science, 126, 384-390.
- J.E. McAdam (1990). The persistent stereotype, children's images about scientists. Physics Education, 25 (2), 102-105.
- J. Osborne, S. Simon, & S. Collins (2003). Attitudes towards science: a review of literature and its implications. International Journal of Science Education, 25 (9) 1049-1079.

Some egotrippin'

2005-02-16T13:58:00.000+01:00

On of my favorite weblogs is the weblog from the Annals of Improbable Research. It reports about rarities in science and scientific research in a way I can only dream of.

In the last few months I have been sending some suggestions to the editor, with without much success. But today, one of my suggestions was posted, with my full name, adress and link to my personal homepage! I wonder how many people visit the AIR blog on a daily basis. Because of the link to my personal homepage in the post, I am going to monitor my stats closely!

Carnivals

2005-02-14T08:54:00.000+01:00

Recently I noticed a new phenomenon in the blogosphere called the carnival. It has nothing to with the (originally Catholic) carnival parades in Brazil or in the Netherlands, no it's weekly/monthly selection of weblog-articles selected by weblog visitors related to a common theme, like education, philosphy or biology. Altough these carnivals are moslty limited to certain "innercircles" of weblogs, and contain inside jokes or references, I think it is a good idea to promote quality blogs and blogwriting. So, what about a chemistry and physics carnival?

Ernst Mayr (1904-2005)

2005-02-10T14:22:00.000+01:00

Orbituaries from the NY Times and the London Times, and an eulogy from the weblog about philosophy of biology.

Why do chicken prefer beautiful humans?

2005-02-06T09:27:00.000+01:00

Concerned scientists

2005-02-02T09:21:00.000+01:00

An 'exchange' in the latest edition of the New York Review of Books brought an interesting report from the union of concerned scientists to my attention. This organisation claims that the Bush administration uses scienctific results for their own political purposes, and appoints only scientists in gouvernemental advisory boards who are supportive of the adminstration's policies. Altough some of the examples are disturbing and outright manipulative, I agree with the remark of Richard Lewontin that the scientific communitiy does not posses the literal truth about nature as an inviolable standard. Scientists, just as politicians, are humans with very human qualities like greediness and selfishness.

Hard of toch zacht?

2005-01-27T15:19:00.000+01:00

Op internet circuleert een filmpje waarin een scholier zijn leraar hardhandig uit de klas verwijdert. Schokkend beeldmateriaal wat bij de kijker harde maatregelen tegen dit soort leerlingen oproept.

Afgelopen zondag was er een interessante uitzending van VPRO's Tegenlicht waarin een VMBO-leraar aan het woord komt. Deze leraar, Kees Beekmans, die onlangs zijn ervaringen als docent op een zwarte school publiceerde in het boek 'Eén hand kan niet klapt en andere verhalen uit de zwarte klas', legt uit dat in zulke bedreigende situaties juist een stap terug doen op de lange termijn succesvoller kan zijn. Een pleidooi voor de zachte hand in Tegenlicht, doorspoelen tot 20 min.

Bronnen: Sargasso & Geen Stijl

Bubble trouble

2005-01-25T13:46:00.000+01:00

According to most Dutch secondary school chemistry textbooks apolair substances only dissolve in apolair solvents. For example, grease can only be removed from a shirt by using apolair detergents (soap). However, Australian researchers claim that water will also do your cleaning job. They have developed a procedure where oil and grease can be washed away with nothing but pure water.

Oily dirt does not normally dissolve in water. But Richard Pashley and colleagues at the Australian National University in Canberra have shown that water is much better at dispersing oily substances if any air dissolved in it is removed. Pashley and his team tested normal distilled water and degassed water by filling oily test tubes with water and shaking them for several seconds. The tubes of degassed water became much more turbid, the team reports in the Journal of Pysical Chemistry B. This shows that the oil was dispersed throughout the water as tiny droplets, and suggests that degassed water could lift oily stains off clothing.

Normal water contains tiny nitrogen and oxygen bubbles. These accumulate on the surface of water-repellent, or hydrophobic, materials that are in contact with the water. This layer of gas molecules causes larger bubbles to form between hydrophobic surfaces. And the surface tension of any bubble bridging two surfaces pulls the particles together. In effect, air bubbles act like a glue that prevents oily substances from breaking up. This makes it harder for an oil droplet to detach from a greasy stain and become dispersed in water. But if the tiny bubbles are removed, that happens more easily. Conventional detergents surround grease droplets with a layer of detergent molecules, giving them a water-soluble coating. According to the researchers, distilled water is easliy degassed by pumping it through a hydrophobic menbrane and, and when used in a washing machine it could reduce the amount of detergent considerably.

Source: news@nature.com

Ma Céline à moi

2005-01-18T11:12:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I saw a beautiful documantairy, called ma Céline à moi. The program follows the daily life of Céline , a 17 year old girl, who is studying for housepainter at a techincal secondary school in one of the suburbs in Paris. The documentary paints a beautiful picture of Celine's life, her struggles and her hopes. As the only girl in a class with most French -Algerian boys, she has to deal with the constant attention of her classmates, which she does masterfully. Céline has also difficulties with calculus and reading, and is afriad that she might flunk her exams. This documentary makes a strong call for empathy among the same age group, and is a must for both teachers and students !

Children's curiosity

2005-01-17T14:09:00.000+01:00

If we want kids to study science, we need to engage their imaginations, says Alok Jha in an interesting article in the Guardian. Jha describes his changing view of science during his secondary school years. It changed from science being a boring dull back-box like subject to a fascinating discovery where his genuine questions are being addressed and answered.

In his article Jha pleads to grabs the curious students and to get them to come into lessons with their questions and use the syllabus to answer those questions. To make them feel the stuff they are learning is not a closed book. Get their hands dirty and make them understand what science really is: a storybook of human imagination, for which they can help write the next chapter.

This kind of pleas for raising children?s curiosity is not uncommon in current science education literature. Although I support the notion that science needs address to children's curiosity, I think that addressing their curiosity alone will not engage them in studying science for two to four years at secondary school. From my own research, I learned that raising children's curiosity, and generating genuine questions is not very difficult to accomplish. The problem is that most of these questions are not related to chemistry subject matter, like corpuscular theories, or chemical reactions. And what is the value of raising children?s' curiosity when subsequently the teacher neglects their questions and turns to the boring subject matter?

In my department several researchers are working on this problem. A common theme in their research is the so-called "problem posing approach". This approach acknowledges that curiosity, or general motivation, alone is important to start a learning process, but it is not sufficient for children to become engaged in a multiple-lesson learning process about a specific topic, like mechanics, or corpuscular models. Core of this approach is the notion of a content-related motive for learning. This means that if children know what and why they are learning what they are learning in light of what they have learned and what they are going to learn, they will become aware of the necessity of their learning process. This does not mean that children should like what they are learning, or enjoy their learning process. No, they are able, to explain why and what they are learning with content-related arguments. Designing teaching/learning materials, in which these content-related motives are constructed and elaborated to students from time to time during their learning processes, is notoriously difficult.

See for additional reading about the problem posing approach, the dissertation of Kees Klaassen, or a paper by Hanna Westbroek.

Happy new year !

2005-01-03T11:06:00.001+01:00

After all the horrific images and stories from the tsunami-struck countries, here is an almost-to-good-to-be-true story about how a little girl's scientific knowledge saved her and her family for the incoming tsunami. What if all the tourists and inhabitants had the same knowledge as this girl? It might have save a lot of people's lives...

source: Sargasso

What's in a name?

2004-12-28T10:46:00.000+01:00

A new year, a new name. After writing for more then a year on this blog, and after having tried out several names, I thought it was time for a change.

It all started in november 2003 with "Verbal's blog", after Verbal Kint from the film the Usual suspects. Then, after an exciting Christmas holiday in Austria, it became "M&M blog". In the Summer of 2004, after the other M hadn't made any contributions for more than two months, I decided that my blog should have the same name as the URL, and renamed it to "Stolkblog".

Recently, I came to the conclusion that having a blog with part of my name in it is perhaps a bit narcissistic. When I discovered the option to change a blog's URL, I decided to change both the URL and the name to "Science4all". Although, I am aware that this name suggests that I provide rescources for teaching science in primary schools, as the site science4all.com does, I have chosen this name because I merely want to show different aspects and oddities of science and science education, which I think are interesting for a general audience.

Worst jobs in science

2004-12-23T14:50:00.000+01:00

Popular Science magazine made a list with the worst jobs in science. Next to the anal wart researcher, the worm parasitologist, and the Iraqi archeologist, there he/she is at the 13th (oh, how unlucky) place. The Public School Science Teacher. In the accompanying text, a hideous image is being painted of the state of science education in public schools. "No budget, no equipment, and no textbooks. The result? Rampant science illiteracy". Not very uplifting, although, I wonder whether the majority of public school science teachers experience these problems. And if so, where is the research to confirm this? I will come back on this post!

Bad Science Awards 2004

2004-12-21T11:57:00.000+01:00

To communicate science to a wider audience, science awards and quizzes are very popular nowadays. Unique in Europe is the Dutch Nationale Wetenschapsquiz (The National Science Quiz). It consists of sixteen science related questions which have to be answered correctly. The questions are published in several national newspapers, and everybody can join the quiz. On Christmas Eve, the quiz is being broadcasted on national television.

Another noble initiative in the pursuit of scientific literacy for all, are the Guardian's annual Bad Science Awards. In the category "least possible cosmetics claim" this years winner is the firm Bio Ionic, with their hair-straightening treatment called Ionic Hair Retexturizing. They claim that "Water molecules are broken down to a fraction of their previous size ... diminutive enough to penetrate through the cuticle, and eventually into the core of each hair".

The category "Bad Science Product" was won by the Space Tomato Number One, part of the Chinese government's space breeding project, where radiation in space is used to create comic book mutations and giant space plants, including tomatoes weighing almost a kilogram. It was never made entirely clear why the mutations would be beneficial, or why you needed to be in space to get irradiated. The Chinese news agency Xinhua stated that, "in China the radiation effect is always positive, leading to bigger and better vegetables that will revolutionise agriculture." Luckily, the Chinese do have some experience with revolutions, but do they with these tomatoes? We all know that they can attack!

Source: the Guardian's Bad Science page

NARST 2005 conference

2004-12-08T13:28:00.000+01:00

Last week, the draft program from the NARST conference was published. Because my proposal to the NARST got accepted a month ago, I am very interested in this progam. The annual American NARST conference is together with the bi-annual European ESERA conference the top-of-the-bill conference in science education research.

Although I apllied for a 20-min stand alone presentation, I was put in a interactive poster session. According to the draft program, "presenters at the 90 minute interactive poster sessions will be assigned a presentation area within a large room and provided a cluster of about a dozen chairs for their audience. The session will be chaired by a presider who will give each interactive poster session presenter or team of presenters 2-3 minutes to introduce themselves and give a brief description of their paper."

At first I was dissapointed, because a poster sesion was less than what I had aimed for. But when I explained the design of the interactive poster session to my colleague Florine, I began to realize its possibilities. She pointed out that this session actually might lead to meaningful scientific discussions, instead of the obligatory 5-minute post presentation questions. When I mentioned this to my promotor, he told me that poster sessions are becoming more and more popular at conferences, and because of its informal setting, it can lead to very fruitful discussions. So, I'm looking on the bright side now! For now I have to find a way to summarize four years of research into one poster and a 2 minute presentation!

PS: A quick scan of the draft program revealed that I am the only Dutch contributor at this conference!

PISA 2003

2004-12-07T10:50:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, the OECD presented the results of last year's PISA study. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) investigated the mathematical, scientific and reading literacy and problem-solving abilities of more than 250,000 15-year-old students in 41 countries.

These international comparative studies always cause a lot of fuzz, because they compare countries in terms of students' results. For example in scientific literacy, Finland is the number 1, and the USA only 22nd.

It is interesting to look a bit closer to this scientific literacy. According to the OECD website scientific literacy is "the capacity to use scientific knowledge, to identify questions and to draw evidence-based conclusions in order to understand and help make decisions about the natural world and the changes made to it through human activity." This definition is "elaborated" in three processes (see p. 137 in the above linked report):

process 1: describing, explaining, and predicting scientific phenomena.
process 2: understanding scientific investigation.
process 3: interpreting scientific evidence and conclusions.

The following question which assesses process 2 is a question about immunisation. First, students are asked to read the following text: "As early in the 11th century, Chinese doctors were manipulating the immune system. By blowing pulverised scabs from a smallpox victim into their patients' nostrils, they could often induce a mild case of the disease that prevented a more severe onslaught later on. In the 1700's people rubbed their skins with dried scabs to protect themselves from the disease. These primitive practises were introduced in England and the American colonies. In 1771 and 1772, during a smallpox epidemic, a Boston doctor, named Zabdiel Boylston tested an idea that he had. He scratched the skin of his six-year old son and 285 other people and rubbed pus from smallpox scabs into the wounds. All but six of his patients survived."

Second, students have to answer the following question: What idea might Zabdiel Boylston has been testing? According to the report, an answer with reference to the following points provides full credit: the idea that infecting someone with small pox might provide some immunity, and, the idea that breaking the skin, the smallpox was introduced into the bloodstream.

Although this is only a very small part of an extensive test, I think that this kind of questions does not really measure scientific literacy. My experience as a General Science teacher is that students tend to look at these scientific examples as isolated events. Even a series of examples of immunisation studies does not make the general knowledge about 'the' scientific investigation visible for students.

Despite their methodological weaknesses, I support this kind of international comparative studies because they create the necessary political support in under-achieving first world countries for funding science education research ("We want to be nr 1"). For further reading, see the 471-page report or the more user-friendly 44-page executive summary.

Contextualizing school science curricula (4)

2004-11-30T13:37:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I mentioned the scarcity of large-scale evaluative studies about the effects of context-based science curriculum innovations. Recently I stumbled on an interesting report called "A systematic review of the effects of context-based and Science-Technology-Society (STS) approaches in the teaching of secondary science" written by researcher from the Centre for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in Education. The central research question of this review is:

What evidence is there from controlled evaluation studies that context-based courses improve understanding of science ideas and the attitudes to science of 11 to 18-year-old pupils, and what are the implications of the evidence for initial teacher training courses?

First, the researchers selected sixty-six reports which complied with their criteria. Second, from these sixty-six, they selected the five best reports for in-depth study. The selected reports are four peer-reviewed articles and, surprisingly, one Master thesis. These reports describe the evaluation of three context-based curriculum innovations, the British Salters' Advanced Chemistry (Barber, 2000) and GSCE science innovations (Ramsden, 1997), the PLON physics innovation in the Netherlands (Wierstra et al., 1984; 1994), and the Scope, Sequence and Coordination (SS&C) project in Iowa (Yager, et al., 1999).

It is interesting to put some of the conclusions of these evaluative studies together:

Barber, 2000:
-NEAB students (NEAB is a traditional chemistry course) appear to cope better with questions designed to assess basic understanding than do Salters students of similar ability. (p.89)
-There is little difference between NEAB and Salters A-level results in terms of added value performance indicators.? (p 89)
-Salters students seem to find it harder to adapt to the A-level course, and show an initial lack of confidence in their ability to be successful. However, once settled, they appear to maintain their interest and enjoyment of the subject longer than the NEAB students. (p 89)

Ramsden, 1997:
-This study suggests that there is little difference in promoting understanding of key chemical ideas between a context-based approach and a more traditional approach. (p 710)
-In terms of pupils' more general responses to science, their comment indicate that a context-based approach appears to be enjoyed by those following such a course and makes them more interested in what they are studying. None-the-less, it remains a concern that further study of chemistry beyond the compulsory period is not seen as a worthwhile route to take by the majority of pupils, irrespective of the course they follow, where choices are clearly made on the basis of career aspirations. (p 710)

Wierstra, 1984:
-In spite of the more positive attitudes of PLON pupils to physics and in spite of the positive correlations between attitude and achievement, there was no evidence for a better achievement by PLON pupils. (p 280)
-We found large and significant differences between PLON classes and control classes with regard to the amount of inquiry-learning as measured by the perceptions of pupils. However there were also large differences amongst PLON classes in the amount of inquiry-learning. This is because of the PLON philosophy of giving teachers a great deal of freedom to create their own class environment. (p 280)
-Nevertheless, this study shows that the more inquiry based the classroom environment, the more favourable the pupils? attitude to physics (in both groups). (p 280)

Yager, 1999:
-Students in IOWA-SS&C classrooms grow in concept and process skill mastery, applications of both in new situations, creativity skills (questioning, identifying causes, predicting consequences). Low ability and female students are especially well served in SS&C classrooms. (pp 185-186)
-Students in IOWA-SS&C classrooms grow in improved attitudes to science study, classes, teachers and careers. Low ability and female students were especially well served in SS&C classrooms. (pp 185-186)
-Students of both sexes following the SS&C course showed a significantly increased positive attitude to science as a career compared to non-SS&C students

These conclusions impel the reviewers to formulate the following answer to the research question:

The in-depth review has demonstrated that there is strong evidence to support the claim that context-based approaches motivate pupils in their science lessons. The in-depth review has further demonstrated that there is evidence to suggest such approaches also foster more positive attitudes to science more generally. Finally, the in-depth review provides (a) evidence to suggest that context- approaches do not adversely affect pupils? understanding of scientific ideas and (b) more limited evidence to suggest they can improve understanding." (p. 44)

Although this answer is not very surprising, I think this review provides us with additional knowledge to what we already have learned from the PLON experience about the effects on students of context-based science curricula.

So what can we learn from these results for the current chemistry curriculum innovation in the Netherlands? That will be subject of my next post. For the interested reader, the full review can be downloaded here.

Disclaim the disclaimers

2004-11-27T14:53:00.000+01:00

Almost half of the Americans believe that God created man some 10000 years ago. So, in some counties in the USA the teaching of evolution has to compete with teaching of creationism. School boards in these counties use every means to make sure that children don't attribute too much value to the evolutionary theory. Like the Cobb county school board in Georgia. They created the evolutionary disclaimer for science textbooks. This disclaimer inspired the evolutionary biologist Colin Purrington to design a variety of hilarious disclaimers. For more reading about the judicial history of evolutionary disclaimers, see the website of the National Center for Science Education.

Vrijheid van meningsuiting

2004-11-24T09:24:00.000+01:00

De hele discussie over de vrijheid van meningsuiting impliceert dat je wel een mening moet hebben. Wie durft hedentendage nog te zeggen dat-ie geen mening heeft? Hoeveel mensen menen dingen uit de losse pols, alleen maar om gebruik te maken van dat recht? Het wordt hoog tijd voor een kwaliteitskeurmerk, want "All opinions are equal, but some opinions are more equal than others". Ik pleit voor de oprichting van de keuringsdienst van meningen of het instellen van, net als in de visserij, een europees quotum op meningen. En als dat allemaal niet helpt, kan je altijd nog gewoon je mond houden.

If I could find words....

2004-11-18T13:53:00.000+01:00

As a non-native English speaker writing a thesis, I mostly use formal British English or American English words. However, I am always on the lookout for more informal language to lighten up my in my thesis. And sometimes you stumble upon a word which I must use in my thesis, simply because it is so beautiful.

In high school I fell in love with the word 'flabbergasted' which means, according to the Merriam-Webster on-line, to overwhelm with shock, surprise, or wonder. Today, I discovered a word which has more or less the same meaning, the word is 'gobsmacked'. It is not in the M-W, but according to the Free Dictionairy, it means 'utterly astounded'. I wonder where gobsmacked originates from. I think gobsmacked expresses a stronger feeling than flabbergasted, and all I need now is suitable sentence for my thesis....

Sing along Science

2004-11-12T10:54:00.000+01:00

A post on Qulog about sing along chemistry inspired me to search in Google on the term "sing along science". It made clear that there are two kinds of science songs sites. One with original composed mp3's of science songs, and one with original composed song texts, based on a well known (midi) tune, which plays as background music when you load the songtext. Here are some examples of both categories:

(1) The science groove. An extensive site about science songs, with a lot of original professional mp3's on different science subjects, like "Hooray For NMR Spectroscopy!" and the classic "Oxidative Phosphorylation". The site of the Science Song Writers association (SSA) is also hosted here.

(2) Greg Crowther has got an extensive site with all sorts of science songs, science song sheet music and with a lot of links to other sites about science songs.

(3) The science karaoke site on scientainment.com, full with info about how to make your own science karaoke song, and some examples of physics karaoke songs about quarks and maxwell's equations.

(4) Sing along science at St Edwards School in Dorset, England. Songs about Vanderwaals forces and blood sugar, with accompanying music. My favorite: Wanna be my buffer? on the famous Spice girls tune. So turn on your speakers!

I wonder whether science teachers use this kind of songs frequently in primary and secondary schools, and what the learning effects are when these songs are used instead of or next to regular textbooks. No doubt that if sing along science becomes a compulsory part of the science curriculum, it will have serious consequences for the science teacher profession and science teacher education!

One for the guys

2004-11-12T09:49:00.001+01:00

Dr Judith A Reisman wants you to avoid looking at dirty pictures. Reisman wants you to look at her explanation of the horrible things dirty pictures can do to your brain, your nervous system and your civil rights. To make it easy for you to know what she is talking about, the good doctor has included some nice dirty pictures in her report. To make it easy for you to read the report, she has put it on her website. You and your children can partake of it at www.drjudithreisman.com/brain.pdf

Source: Improblog

What is a name?

2004-10-21T17:50:00.001+02:00

"Feminist Ethics Must Inform Practice: Interventions With Perinatal Substance Users", by Lenora Marcellus, Lenora Marcellus, Lenora Marcellus, Health Care for Women International, vol. 25, no. 8, September 2004, pp. 730-42.

Source: Improblog

Coffee & A.C (easily)

2004-10-21T17:44:00.000+02:00

On the newssite of the Royal Society of Chemistry, two headlines caught my eye. The first one, Two coffee is too much, was about drinking coffee which increases chances on a heart attack. The second one was Anti-conception pills prevents heart attacks. Time to replace the good old sugar!

The coffee study found that, in a sample of 3000 fasting persons (half men, half women), men who drank more than 200ml of coffee a day had 30% higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and 3% higher white blood cell counts - both indicators of cardiovascular inflammation. In the pill study researchers found that in a sample of 160.000 women the overall risk of developing heart disease was about 10% lower in women who have taken the pill for at least a year, than in women who have taken the pills shorter then a year.

I think that the number of factors influencing the probability for a heart attack or disease is overwhelming. Investigating individual factors results in interesting and easy publishable research, but researchers need to be very cautious when it comes to transferring their results to daily life situations. Perhaps these scientists have made these precautions in their publications, and that they were left out during the process of popularization.

Flood of words

2004-10-19T13:40:00.000+02:00

"The purpose of language is to provide information and not to impress people" (Nico van Kampen, Waanwetenschap)

When, in the eighties and early nineties, constructivism replaced behaviorism as the dominant view on teaching and learing, it was accompanied by the introduction of a plethoria of new terms describing the teaching-learning process. However, new does not always mean more clear.

A typical example of impressive language, from an important article on constructivsm in science education, is : The discursive practices in science classrooms differ substantially from the practices of scientific argument and enquiry that take place within various communities of professional scientists. In plain language it means that student research differs from scientific research. Who could disagree with that?

For more examples of impressive language in science education research, see Michael Matthews' hilarious polemic: Constructivism and science education: a futher apprasial, Journal of Science Education and Technology, 11 (2), pp 121-134.

Prizes (3)

2004-10-19T13:31:00.000+02:00

When Bruce Rotan's SpaceShipOne flew above 100km to space and back twice inside two weeks, it earned him the 10 million dollar Ansari X-Prize. Since then, the World Technology Network, and the X-Prize Foundation are planning similar prizes for new technological and scientific holy grails like artificial intelligence, teleportation, nanotechnology, cold fusion, or a cure for cancer. Suggestions can be made through a form on the Internet.

I am considering to suggest one of the holy grails in science education research: how to evoke by students a meaningful content-related motive for studying corpuscular (moleculair and atomic) theory starting from their own observations of macroscopic phenomena. Solutions, anyone?

Prizes (2)

2004-10-14T10:44:00.000+02:00

Every year, "hard core" science is in the centre of attention when the (IG) Nobel Prizes are handed out. But what about prizes in science education research?

The Nobel comittee has no special Prize for achievements in educational research, so that leaves us with the IG version, which was awared twice. In 1998, Dolores Krieger, Professor Emerita of New York University, received a Prize for demonstrating the merits of therapeutic touch, a method by which nurses manipulate the energy fields of ailing patients by carefully avoiding physical contact with those patients. The subsequent year, the Prize was awarded to the Kansas and the Colorado Boards of Education for mandating that children should not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution any more than they believe in Newton's theory of gravitation, Faraday's and Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, or Pasteur's theory that germs cause disease.

One prize for a misty researcher and another for a reactionary board of education, that is a mearge result. Time for a change !

Prizes (1)

2004-10-05T13:25:00.000+02:00

The annual Nobel prizes are handed out this week. Yesterday, Richard Axel and Linda Buck received, for their contributions in unravelling the human olfactory system, the Nobel prize in "physiology or medicine". Today, the Nobel prize in physics has been awarded to three theoretical physicists for the discovery of "asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction".

There is a remarkable eighteen-year difference between publications of the discoveries of the aforementioned laureates. Buck and Axel published their breakthrough article in 1991, whereas the three physicists, Gross, Politzer and Wilczek, published their main work in 1973/1974.

I wonder what kind of procedure the Swedish academy of sciences follows in selecting candidates for their prizes. Is there a backlog in physics Nobel prizes, or does it take more time to value a discovery in physics than in medicine?

Let's read !

2004-10-05T10:18:00.000+02:00

For my thirtieth birthday, last wednesday, I recieved some very nice pop-sci books:

Bas Haring - Kaas en de Evolutietheorie (Cheese and the Evolutionary theory). Beautifully written!

Bill Bryson - A little history of nearly everything

Douwe Draaisma - Why life speeds up as you get older, how memory shapes our past.

Britain's brightest vandal

2004-09-17T09:38:00.000+02:00

Police and academics in Cambridge (UK) are trying to find a graffiti artist who spray-painted the road in front of the Cavendish laboratory with the correct molecuar structure of guanine.

Guanine is one of the four bases which make up DNA. The Cavendish Laboratory is the spot were the double helix structure of DNA was discovered fifty years ago by Watson and Crick. Above the structure the word 'Phospholipase', a much studied enzym, was written. Professor Alan Dawson, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, said: "It is a really nice bit of standard first or second-year biochemistry".

Source: BBC News Online

School's PR department too studiously

2004-09-14T09:34:00.000+02:00

Last weeks mathematical news created a lot of fuzz in math and science land. But when the smog finally vanished it became clear that Uytdewilligen has become the victim of a too ambitious PR department.

In his paper he describes a very general method for solving nth-root polynomial equations. Experts indicate that his work is neither new nor original, but they consider it a real achievement for a higher professional education science student. See here for a closer explanation in Dutch.

Why the press release? It can be understand in light of the implementation of the bachelor-master model in higher education. Higher professional education institutions, like Fontys, are only allowed to offer bachelor education, whereas universities are allowed to offer studies on the master level. HPEI's would also like to provide master education. Therefore they would not miss an opportunity to obtain positive media attention focussing on the excellence of their bachelor-students.

Yesterday Fontys has released a new press release, where they regret their intial enthusiasm.

Scoop or spoof?

2004-09-10T09:12:00.000+02:00

'Dutch science student solves antique mathematical problem' heads nu.nl, a Dutch newssite. According to this site, Geert Jan Uytdewilligen has determined a method for solving the roots of any polynomal equation. This reports made me suspicious, first, because nu.nl has a reputation for presenting news which is no news at all and, second, looking at the original paper, Uytdewilligen has used mathematical tools I have been taught as a chemistry student (which does not imply that I think that I would be able to solve this problem myself). A small google-search reveals that the news has been published only on two Dutch newssites, and that his paper is published in Arxiv. I brought the matter to the attention of one of my mathematics colleagues, she was interested and is investigating it further.

Bunsen burns bogus know-it-alls

2004-09-06T15:52:00.000+02:00

Bunsen Honeydew, the infamous head of muppet labs, has won a polularity poll by a landslide. According to the BBC, who staged the election, Honeydew vaporised his opponents. He recieved astonishing 33% of the votes, while the second in line, Mr Spock, only obtained a mearge 15%. While Honeydew and his assitent Beaker enjoy their flawless victory, experts wonder whether winning this contest might be the first step to international recognition for their path-breaking work.

"This land"

2004-08-27T11:28:00.000+02:00

The shockwave video skit of Bush and Kerry battling it out to the tune of Woody Guthrie's "This Land" is simply too good to miss. Bush is constantly called a "right-wing nutjob" and Kerry refers in almost every scentence that he "won three purple hearts". Watch out for Howard Dean's infamous scream!

Cause and effect

2004-08-26T16:49:00.000+02:00

Last week, my university opened, with a lot of media attention (see this fragment from the 8 o'clock national TV journal ), a special department for high school students interested in science and math. The department, called the Junior College Utrecht, offers 25 fifth-grade secondary school students a two-year program, where they will race through the standard school science curriculum in one year, and use the remaining time for freshman university science. Beside the official main goal (to offer talented and motivated fifth graders a challenging science program in an extraordinary learning environment), another important goal is to attract more and more high-potential students to study science at the UU.

I have serious doubts about this college. An elite school, filled with excellent students, will only widen the gap between 'excellence' (JCU students) and 'average' (the rest). To my opinion, it is also a signal towards high school teachers that they cannot teach high-potentials properly. It might even be the first step towards the extermination of regular pre-university education.

Two days ago, the number of freshman students for each study and each university were published, and what do you think? The number of students who intend to study science in the upcoming academic year has increased tremendously compared to last year. For example, the number of students in the faculty of chemistry at the UU, raised by 70 % (from 27 to 63). Although the JCU is not the cause of this increase, these figures make the college a bit superfluous, don't they?

Hilarious !

2004-08-24T12:41:00.000+02:00

(click on the picture for a readable version)

Design

2004-08-21T22:56:00.000+02:00

At last, a new (although taken from the Blogger templates) design. Readers, and beside a colleague-blogger, I know that some of you actually read my blog on a regular basis, I'm curious, what do you think it?

No result is a result too

2004-08-18T13:16:00.000+02:00

Tired of all the positive research stories in scientific literature? I am, and, therefore, I am excited that Improblog reports about two extraordinary open access journals, the Journal of Negative Results, and the Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis (lenghty title).

The JASNH says: "We seek to change that by offering an outlet for experiments that do not reach the traditional significance levels (p < .05)." and the JNR intends to "publish work which will include studies that 1) test novel or established hypotheses/theories that yield negative or dissenting results, or 2) replicate work published previously (in either cognate or different systems)."

We want more !

Annals of Improbable Research

2004-08-16T11:43:00.000+02:00

The infamous journal "Annals of Improbable Research" has got a weblog ! If your a fan of research that matters, check them out ! And don't forget to subscribe to their newsletter.

Choose your favorite fictional scientist

2004-08-09T13:46:00.000+02:00

The BBC organizes a competition to determine who is the most popular fictional scientist. You can vote, among others, for Spock, Frankenstein, Dana Scully, dr. Who, dr. Strangelove and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. Votes close at 20 august, and the winners will be announced at the annual UK's BA festival of science. Worldchanging puts the scientists in hilarious categories like "Campy Villains", and "the Icy Researcher Devoted to Pure Knowledge at the Expense of Human Emotion".

Although the choices are fun, the mad scienstists are a bit underrepresented. For example, where is Dr. Hyde? Maybe it's time for their society, or their network to put some pressure on the BBC? I'm sure they will find the suitable means to get what they want. For your enjoyment here is an article about mad scientists in film history.

Stichting Weten

2004-07-22T11:31:00.000+02:00

Met het stopzetten van de subsidie aan de stichting 'Weten', heeft het ministerie van OCW heeft besloten dat de noodzaak tot weten in Nederland is komen te vervallen. Ondanks miljoenenverslindende campagnes ('weet wat je eet' en 'meten is weten') is de Nederlandse bevolking nauwelijks tot meer weten te drijven, aldus een woordvoerder. Daarnaast is de maatschappelijke status van 'weetjes', ernstig afgebrokkeld, er wordt tegenwoordig weer driftig met onwetendheid gekoketteerd. De minister overweegt aan te sluiten bij deze nieuwe trend door, in overleg met het ministerie van Vreemdelingenzaken, 26.000 betweters uit te wijzen.

Summer Physics

2004-07-19T09:28:00.000+02:00

Papers become thinner, TV journals become shorter...yep it's summer again. Every year the popular media wants us to believe that there is nothing to report in a season where almost everybody is on holiday. Almost everybody ? At least some theoretical and experimental physicists are not on holiday yet.

On the 21st of July Stephen Hawking is going to present his solution to the 'black hole information paradox' at the GR17, the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, in Dublin. According to New Scientist: "After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, Stephen Hawking is saying he was wrong. It seems that black holes may after all allow information within them to escape."

And some beautiful high speed movies (movie 1 & movie 2) of granular eruptions caused by the collison of a steel ball with a sandy surface. An accompanying research article can be found here (source: Sargasso).

Dissertation databases

2004-07-14T13:17:00.000+02:00

Researchers usually obtain their information from books, journal articles, and conference papers. Antoher relatively new source of information are dissertation databases. These databases contain information about Ph.D.work in progress, or contain finsihed disserations.

Ph.D.Data is a non-commercial database-under-construction aiming to provide information about dissertarions in progress. It is founded and maintained by Ph.D students from U.S.A., Argentina and Israel, who felt the need for one site that would concentrate all existing information on doctoral researches around the world.

The UMI ProQuest Digital Dissertation Service is a commercial disseration database, and is mainly focussed on U.S. disserations. It includes citations for materials ranging from the first U.S. dissertation, accepted in 1861, to those accepted as recently as last semester; those published from 1980 forward also include 350- word abstracts, written by the author. UMI offers over 1.7 million dissertations in full text.

So, if you are a Ph.D.student, why don't you support the Ph.D.data initiative and register your research!

Contextualizing school science curricula (3)

2004-07-05T13:01:00.000+02:00

Qulog pointed towards an interesting discussion on a popular adolescent site about an engine working soley on permanent magnets without external energy input. Based on the number of reactions (167) and the depth of the discussion, this context appears to be interesting and motivating. In support of this hypothesis, this site and its accompanying forum host several discussions about new and/or unlimited energy sources:
- nuclear fusion, 81 reactions
- an unknown electrochemical energy source, 103 reactions
- the free energy engine discussion is continued in the forum, 82 reactions so far.

Publish or perish?

2004-07-01T15:13:00.000+02:00

Over the last few years, there has been increasing resistance from researchers towards the dominance of the academic publishers. These researchers want their results being available for their peers free of price barriers (subscription, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions). This movement is called Open Access Movement. A noble initiative, and slowly, albeit reluctantly, some academic publishers are opening their gates.

A glimpse of life without academic publishers was given by Edsger Dijkstra, a professor in computer science. Dijkstra, famous for his shortest path algorithm, could withstand the pressure to publish. He used a unique system in spreading his ideas and receiving feedback on them. By simply photocopying and mailing mostly handwritten manuscripts to his colleagues around the world, who usually would mail Dijkstra's manuscripts further to their colleagues, he was able to reach a tremendous network of researchers, and was provided with enormous feedback. Sometimes Dijkstra received one of his documents back, after it was mailed on by chain of eight individual researchers around the world.