The Bad Astronomer pointed his readers in the direction to an awesome site today that helps us ordinary folk make contributions to science.
Scienceforcitizens.net contains loads of projects that you can do to help people play an active role in the science community, such as keeping records of bird species, entomological studies, and even building a laser harp.
It’s so important to get the public involved in science in an active way and this site is a really great place to start.
South Park creators Trey Park and Matt Stone have become the target of an extremist Muslim group, who have put a warning up on their website that the comedy duo should fear for their lives.
Revolution Muslim has taken offence to an episode of the show that portrays the prophet Muhammad as a guy dressed in a bear costume. Oh the horror.
On their site they wrote: “We have to warn [them] that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”
Van Gogh was a dutch filmmaker and an outspoken critic of Islam. Sadly he was killed in 2004 by a Muslim extremist for his film ‘Submission’, which criticised Islam. Disgustingly, a picture of his body was paraded on the website.
When are we going to say enough is enough? This is a vile religion where it is acceptable to kill others for mocking their god. Religion is poison and this can be seen quite clearly in Islam. When are people going to wake up and realise that religion is just ancient myth that doesn’t belong in the modern world?
Clip from CNN:
An education in science is fundamental and I encourage everyone young and old to study a subject in science that interests them. But sometimes it’s difficult to have a structured studying pattern, especially if you lead a busy life and are no longer in school where science is a compulsory part of the curriculum. Well fear not, good citizen, for the Open University offers many science modules for free, and in this economy who doesn’t like free?
OpenLearn was created by the Open University to provide structured material for self-study and most modules are really good. They range from 4 hour introductory sessions to 30 hour advanced classes and provide ideas for further reading too. You can rate modules, create a list of courses you want to work through and share ideas with other cyberstudents on the forums.
There are some really cool modules in the Science and Nature section, many of which I have completed, such as the Introduction to Active Galaxies and The Restless Universe. I urge you to go ahead and try it out, even if it’s just a short introductory course. Remember, it’s never too late to learn.
This week the Atlas detector in the Large Hadron Collider found W boson particles, much to the delight of scientists and science nuts around the world.
Now this is not a new discovery, W bosons have been found in other particle accelerators but Atlas’ detection is still incredibly important. From this finding we know that the LHC has the potential to uncover the fabled Higgs boson at higher energy outputs. Remember that the LHC is designed for 14 TeV, which is a whopping amount of energy, and Atlas is currently getting these results at half that amount. The potential for uncovering such evasive particles is really exciting.
Woo. Flummery. Flim-flam. These are all things that I despise. I am a skeptic, a humanist, an atheist, a freethinker. Science is my ally in my fight against religion and superstitious bunk. With this blog I want to reach out to people, to connect with others with like minds and educate those who have not yet discovered the faculties for critical thinking. I want to promote science as a tool to understand how overwhelmingly awesome our universe is. I want to spark imaginations and ignite new passions for the same things I am passionate about.
Sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
