- Former SCOTUS Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Is Saving the Future With Video Games | The Mary Sue • by Jamie Frevele
- …is disappointed and concerned that schools no longer put an emphasis on kids’ knowledge of how their own country works. So, she’s been working on an initiative to re-introduce civics in a way that will make kids want to learn it: by turning it into video games. …the next great iconic video game hero, Chuck Freepress, constitutional lawyer and warrior for the First Amendment! And this game is only part of O’Connor’s ongoing initiative to bring technology and education together.
…her non-profit organization iCivics aims to pique the interest of children using entertainment infused with trivia about the U.S. government. The site currently features 15 games, putting players in the role of Supreme Court justice, conscientious voter, and even the President of the United States. Each of them are specifically geared towards the basic tenets of our government — separation of powers, all three branches of government, citizenship, budgeting, and the Constitution.
- Greenwich Village Bans BPUI: Buying Puppies While Drunk | The Mary Sue • by Alanna Bennett
- In many West Village pet shops in New York City, it is now officially against policy to buy a puppy while drunk. Because this was a problem. This was something people were doing. I mean, can you blame them? LOOK AT THAT LITTLE FACE.
[Warning: article discusses animal harm.]
- Ash covered landscape | The Big Picture
- Puyehue volcano in southern Chile has spread volcanic ash far and wide since it erupted in early June. On Monday, Argentina’s president announced that economic relief would be provided to residents affected by the ash in the southwestern region of Patagonia. And as recent as July 1 ash in the atmosphere was disrupting flights at the Buenos Aires airport. These images show how the earth’s landscape has been affected. Here’s a link to view our original post on June 8. — Lloyd Young (32 photos total)
- 17.869 Political Science Scope and Methods | MIT OpenCourseWare: New Courses • by Berinsky, Adam
- This course is designed to provide an introduction to a variety of empirical research methods used by political scientists. The primary aims of the course are to make you a more sophisticated consumer of diverse empirical research and to allow you to conduct advanced independent work in your junior and senior years. This is not a course in data analysis. Rather, it is a course on how to approach political science research.
- Turnabout is fair play | Pharyngula
- Phil Senter has published the most deviously underhanded… What he did was to take [creationists] seriously…and treat their various publications…as if they actually were real science papers, and apply their methods consistently to an analysis of taxonomy. …
Awww. I guess I’m going to have to become a creationist, now that the evidence shows that dinosaurs are related by common descent…oh, hey, wait. Isn’t that what evolution says?
…these results…[confront] young earth creationists with the problem of a kind of frantically prolific speciation that is unimaginably rapid. If species are that fluid and can change that rapidly, their own claims of fixity of species are patently wrong.
- Brain cells made from skin could treat Parkinson’s
- A new technique that converts skin cells into neurons could combat Parkinson’s without the need for stem cells
[My bookmarks live at delicious.com/camryl. In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. Also, signal boosts are awesome! --L.]
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