How the Universe Works | Bad Astronomy

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A new science show premiered on The Discovery Channel last week called "How The Universe Works". I just watched the first episode, and it’s pretty good!

howtheuniverseworks

The first show was about the Big Bang, and hits all the right notes. The graphics are pretty good — that’s de rigeur for modern TV shows — but the music is nice, too. The writing is engaging, and Mike Rowe is a terrific narrator. All in all, I recommend it… tonight’s (Sunday) episode is about black holes. I have word that a certain Bad Astronomer is interviewed for that one… and I did a bunch of other topics for them as well, so I assume you’ll be seeing more of me on the show in later episodes, too!


Barefoot Revolt?

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Is Puma setting a new trend by using the science of saving resources rather than eco-hype with its new packaging? Their new shoe bag/box touts savings in resources across the board as well as reductions in carbon emissions. The packaging is made of recycled PET and is itself recyclable. Do you think

Chemical Safety Act: Boon or Bane?

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The proposed Chemical Safety Act creates some significant changes in the way that chemical companies would be required to provide safety information. While the legislation may have a positive affect on consumer safety, it could mean significant changes for the chemicals industry. What changes do you

ismc weight

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hi this is mahesh raja. i have the question for how to calculate the weight for the ismc 100 and i need the formula for calculating the weightage....it's very urgent pls help me in this.

People of class drink alcohol | Gene Expression

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don-draperOn his twitter feed one Conor Friedersdorf made a comment about how beer unites people across the ideological spectrum. I raised my eyebrows at this, because I know that a substantial number of Southern white Protestants do not drink alcohol. With a name like Friedersdorf I suspect that Conor probably didn’t consider this because of the normative nature of beer consumption in his social circles. I’ve always meant to look into the differences in alcohol consumption by demographic because I’m sure you’ve seen all the medical “studies” which claim that drinking in moderation has benefits toward your health. The main concern I have is that a lot of these seem to be correlational studies (though not all), and there are also often conflicts of interest with the funding (the alcoholic beverage industry is naturally happy to front the cash to pursue research so as to make the correlation firmer in the public mind). Now, I have nothing against alcohol personally, I like dark beers and white wines. But I’m a little skeptical when people promote health benefits of a class of product with which a non-trivial minority of the population have substance abuse issues.

To sate my curiosity, I decided to look at the GSS. So you can replicate, here are my variables:

Row: Drink

Column: Year Race Sex Region God(r:1-3″Non-theist”;4-5″Believe, But Doubts”;6″Know God Exists”) Relig Polviews Degree Wordsum

Some of the variables are obvious, but in regards to the somewhat garbled gibberishy looking section I “recoded” it so as to combine classes with very small N’s and such. Since you have the variable names you can follow up and see what I did if you’re curious.

Here are some results….

Not too much change over the years.

drinkyear

Now, some demographic variables of interest. Not too surprising. I knew that blacks were more likely to be teetotalers, and expected that women would be as well. Note the big difference by religion.

drinkdemcat

As I said, people in the South are less likely to drink. This partly tracks religion, but I’ve poked around these particular data and in New England both Catholics and Protestants drink a fair amount, so it is a regional Protestant subculture which is fostering teetotaling (here are the labels geographically by the way).

drinkregion

Some more variables, though note the spectrum. The conservative tendency toward teetotaling probably has something to do with the correlates of extreme conservatism (higher religiosity, tendency to live in the South, be Protestant, etc.). Keep an eye on the education though….

drinkideology

This chart pretty much floored me.

drinkwordsum

I was expecting it. That is, that the more intelligent, who scored high on a vocabulary test, would drink more than the dumb, who scored low. Look at the other correlates above. But I’ve rarely seen such a stark near-monotonic trend with Wordsum.

You can try to control for variables. Race doesn’t matter much for what it’s worth, the trends stay pretty much the same if you constrain to whites. I decided to check the “Bible” variable, which measures literal interpretation. As expected controlling for fundamentalism eliminates much of the Protestant vs. non-Protestant difference, as well as exacerbates the sex difference (fundamentalist women are much more teetotaling than men), but it really didn’t effect the rank relation on many categories. The regional and Wordsum difference remains even among those who are fundamentalists or irreligious. I think this points to the social aspect of drinking. Even if you like to drink, if you’re circle of acquaintances tends not to, you won’t get a chance to drink as much. Conversely, if drinking is expected, there’s more pressure to bend your norms to please your friends.

Anyway, just be careful of studies extolling the virtues of alcohol unless they control for confounds. It’s just a fact that stupid people tend to die earlier, because they often make life decisions in keeping with their nature.

Image Credit: AMC

Heating Under Suspended Wooden Floors

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I am considering underfloor heating in the uk.

The floors are suspended wood on wood joists.

I have been advised that this is a bad idea. However, as the temperature envisaged is around 30 to 35 C, and I intend to use rockwool insulation under the heat transfer system stuffed into the

Access Italy

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Join Mario Scalzi as he explains the inner workings of Italy and how to traverse the country – be it food, transportation or the perfect un caffè ristretto. Access Italy contains a wealth of information, personal insight and a touch of humor. A “must read” for for anyone planning to visit or even just thinking about it.

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Into India… Delhi Agra.

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Having flown from Kathmandu arriving in Delhi with Lawrence was a bit confusing we were told on the plane that it was 45 degrees celcius yet it didn't feel too hot a dry nonhumid climate makes all the difference. We were told that arriving in India can be a shocking and overwhelming experience but the airport was huge pristine airconditioned efficient and easy with the exception of

48 Hour Fun Festival

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Jo and I have managed to survive our first week away from home so I thought it best thanks to urging from several others to update the travel blogAfter a farewell embrace with the parents and a few tears from Jo not me too staunch we set out. Only minutes later Jo was already in awe of my absentmindedness as I managed to leave our laptop at the first xray we came across and the org

I Really Don’t Want to Call This ‘London Calling’

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I'll admit that neither Jo nor I were expecting a lot from London. We both had an image of Coroesque houses lining toonarrow lanes the pavements packed with pedestrians in heavy coats huffing steam. We were both pleasantly surprised when we stepped out of the underground right into the heart of regent street its elegant white walled shops curving towards the heart of the city and some of the

Today We Are Shoppers

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I Vanda like being a tourist but I like being a shopper even better We arrived back at the hotel from Pearl Harbor around 200 p.m. and headed straight to the Hilton Hawaiian Village just next door. We went there intending to find a restaurant at which to make reservations for dinner for Saturday evening after the wedding. We were absolutely amazed to find a wealth of shops and restaurants

Ballyvaughan to Malahide

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Canrsquot believe that this is my last entry I am so excited to be writing it since it means that we shall be with our loved ones soon. All this travelling is great fun but a piece of my heart is with my darlings back home.We had prepared ourselves for a fairly lsquobogstandardrsquo thanks Suse trip to Malahide Intended setting Siobhanherself to take us straight there via the highw

NiceAmsterdam

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Hi Everyone Sorry for not being better with the updates it is sometimes hard to find an hour to sit at the computer and do this...Nice and the whole Cote d'Azur region in France is beautiful. I was so sad to leave the sunshine the coast and the food While in Nice I took another French language class which I thought was much better than the one in Paris. For the first week in Nice I had also

Something Old Something New

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Something old something new Something borrowed something blue And a silver sixpence in her shoe.I'm getting married today ...Here's a photo of my five things for good luck. Tradition has it if I carry all of these items on my wedding day our marriage will be happy.My something old the pearl purse links me with my mother and my grandmother. Mom's name was Pearl and the purse belonged to