In case you didn't see it the first time it was posted, you can click here to see the prize announcement which has all the details.
If you'd like to check out the final list of nominees (with links to the posts) for the prize, click here.
When you are ready to vote, click here. Remember, voting ends at midnight on June 8, 2009.
NEW ORLEANS -- A group doubting the existence of God is spreading its message through a new billboard placed along Interstate 10 west of downtown New Orleans.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.The federal government claims that the National Day of Prayer has a 'secular purpose' and that it dates to the founding of our country, but congress did not actually enact a law requiring the president to issue an annual prayer proclamation until 1952 (at the behest of Reverend Billy Graham). Then, in 1988 the law was amended and signed by President Reagan, and the National Day of Prayer was set to the first Thursday in May. Many people mistakenly claim in the legislative record that the founders prayed during the Constitutional Convention that adopted the secular Constitution and use this as support for the National Day of Prayer. However, Benjamin Franklin suggested prayer, but in his own notes recorded that the convention, “except for three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.” His suggestion to pray was met politely but with some embarrassment and delegates quickly adjourned.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled this week the case brought by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation can move forward with discovery.
A federal law sets the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.
Crabb says the nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics faces a heavy burden in proving the tradition violates the separation of church and state. But she says it should have an opportunity to do so.
The Obama administration and National Day of Prayer Task Force filed motions to dismiss the case, but Crabb rejected them as premature.
'The White House has launched several new Web sites as part of its "Open Government Initiative." The Obama administration calls it a groundbreaking expansion of citizen access to the data and process of government.'
The idea of the Open Government Initiative is to give citizens access to government data and a role in the government process. Data.gov is a product of this initiative, and it promises to be a gold mine for anyone looking for information. Here is a little from their about page:'As a priority Open Government Initiative for President Obama's administration, Data.gov increases the ability of the public to easily find, download, and use datasets that are generated and held by the Federal Government. Data.gov provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datasets. The data catalogs will continue to grow as datasets are added. Federal, Executive Branch data are included in the first version of Data.gov.'Census data, weather statistics, flu virus trends, military data, student achievement scores... imagine the mountains of data that once were available to the government exclusively. Oh the possibilities. As always, the government is slow getting the information out there and the information isn't coming as fast as some would like, but at least they are taking steps in the right direction. Free access to information for everyone. Because lets be honest, we pay for all of this research with our taxes anyway.
'A primary goal of Data.gov is to improve access to Federal data and expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (e.g., web applications). Data.gov strives to make government more transparent and is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. The openness derived from Data.gov will strengthen our Nation's democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.'
Federal Hurricane Response Widget
Provides information on available assistance and response activities for major hurricanes.
FDA Peanut-Containing Product Recall (As Heard on NPR)
The FDA Peanut-Containing Product Recall widget allows you to browse the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) database of peanut butter and peanut-containing products subje...
DataFerret
The DataFerret tool is used to search American Community Survey Public Use Microdata, Current Population Survey(CPS), CPS supplemental surveys, Survey of Income and Prog...
VitalStats
Interactive online tool for creating and manipulating tables based on birth and perinatal (fetal and infant death) data files. Tabulated data can be graphed or mapped wi...
National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS)
A survey of student financing of postsecondary education in the United States. Undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at all types of postsecondary institutions in ...
Dear Readers (and Writers!),
I have some exciting news to give you: in the interest of encouraging and rewarding good writing in the blogosphere, we have decided to start awarding four prizes every year in the respective areas of Science, Arts & Literature, Politics, and Philosophy for the best blog post in those fields. Here's how it's going to work:
Starting next month, the prizes will be awarded every year on the two solstices and the two equinoxes. So, we will announce the winner of the science prize on June 21, the arts and literature prize on September 22, the politics prize on December 21, and the philosophy prize on March 20, 2010.
About a month before the prize is to be announced we will solicit nominations of blog entries from our readers. The nominating period will last approximately one to two weeks. At the end of this time, we will open up the process to voting by our readers. After this period, we will take the top twenty voted-for nominees, and the four main daily editors of 3 Quarks Daily (Abbas Raza, Robin Varghese, Morgan Meis, and Azra Raza) will select six finalists from these, plus they may also add a wildcard entry of their choosing. And finally, a well-known intellectual from the field will pick the winner, runner up, and third place finisher from these, and will write some short comments on the winning entries.
Just for fun, the first place award will be called the "Top Quark," and will include a cash prize of one thousand dollars; the second place prize, the "Charm Quark," will include a cash prize of three hundred dollars; and the third place winner will get the honor of winning the "Strange Quark," along with two hundred dollars.
At least they allowed the almost 18,000 marriages performed before the ban to remain valid, as if that is good enough. As CNN reports:'In a dissenting opinion, Justice Carlos Moreno -- the court's only Democratic appointee -- wrote that the decision "is not just a defeat for same-sex couples, but for any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution."'
As anyone who reads anything about science already knows, this past week a paper describing a 47 million year old fossilized primate was published in the open access journal PLoS One. The fossil, dubbed Darwinius masillae, is known to the popular media as 'Ida', the 'Missing Link', or the (rather more concise) 'Link'. The fossil has a rather interesting history in that it was actually unearthed in 1983 by private collectors who split and eventually sold the two parts of the skeleton on separate plates."The lesser part (herein plate B) was restored and in the process partly fabricated to make it look more complete. This was eventually purchased for a private museum in Wyoming, and then described by one of us who recognized the fabrication. The more complete part (plate A) has just come to light, and it now belongs to the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo (Norway). When made available for study, plate A was immediately recognizable as the complete complementary and unaltered counterpart of plate B."
"The new fossil is remarkably complete and well-preserved, although the media glossed over these facts in favour of the creature's ability to cure swine flu. Ida was hailed as a "missing link" in human evolution, beautifully illustrating our transition from leaping about in trees to rampant mass-media sensationalism. "Matthew Nisbet at Framing Science was interviewed by The Scientist magazine concerning the unprecedented "going broad" media strategy used to present Darwinius masillae to the public. One of his answers expresses, in my mind, the main problem with the media campaign used:
"This type of "going broad" strategy might be more appropriately applied to a scientific subject generally or to a body of research rather than a single study. No single study is the "slam dunk" or the so-called "missing link," as this particular study has been defined."The media is not holding back the hyperbole when selling these fossils to the public, but the find is already amazing enough to stand on its own (without the whole 'missing link' hype). Anyone who hasn't bought into the media hype yet can still learn the truth. All it takes is reading the paper for yourself (which everyone can do seeing as PLoS is open access):
"We do not interpret Darwinius as anthropoid, but the adapoid primates it represents deserve more careful comparison with higher primates than they have received in the past.But I guess it is pretty hard for some journalists to make it to the very end of an article.
"Darwinius masillae is important in being exceptionally well preserved and providing a much more complete understanding of the paleobiology of an Eocene primate than was available in the past."
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"This article is part of Nature's premium content.
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is a graduate from LSU with a Bachelor's Degree in Biology. Right now he is probably testing video games. He would love to go back to school, but it is too expensive right now, so he only gets to blog about (rather than do) Science. Why not?
is studying Anthropology at LSU. Danger is actually her middle name.
