From Azimuth:
Global warming has been causing the "bleaching" of coral reefs. A bleached coral reef has lost its photosynthesizing symbiotic organisms, called zooxanthellae. It may look white as a ghost — as in the picture above — but it is not yet dead. If the zooxanthellae come back, the reef can recover.
With this year’s record high temperatures, many coral reefs are actually dying:
• Dan Charles, Massive coral die-off reported in Indonesia, Morning Edition, August 17, 2010.
Thursday evening I went a great class on sharpening hand saws at the Metro Woodcraft store. Continue reading
From a note at the end of _+3=5+7=_: it depends what ‘equals’ equals (An interesting post generally, BTW):
….a scary chain: Female first and second grade teachers who are anxious about math pass that anxiety along to their female students. More female students are likely to agree with the suggestion that boys are better than girls at math after being exposed to this anxiety, and the female students who did agree with this stereotype performed worse in math as the year went on. Great article and PNAS makes the full text publicly available.
From the abstract of that article:
We show that when the math-anxious individuals are female elementary school teachers, their math anxiety carries negative consequences for the math achievement of their female students. Early elementary school teachers in the United States are almost exclusively female (>90%), and we provide evidence that these female teachers’ anxieties relate to girls’ math achievement via girls’ beliefs about who is good at math.
The Economist looks at the troubles of the bookstore chain.
Continue reading
Irish Class, August 9. 2010
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
<!–
–>
| cóip | copy | f2 pl cóipeanna |
| le seachtain amháin | for one week | |
| inis | island | f2 |
| inis | tell | vn insint |
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal via Skepchick.
At Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog. Pictures definitely NSFW.
Gulf states order Blackberry users to cover their phones in a tiny burqa
Some businessmen believe that making their phone wear a burqa can be very liberating. “It’s great,” said one, “with the veil in place I am free to walk about with my Blackberry in public without the feeling that people are staring lustily at my multi-media application. It also covers my shame for not owning an iPhone.”
The Saudi government have promised that anyone who refuses to dress their Blackberry in a burqa will face harsh punishment. “I am not saying exactly what we will do,” said their Minister for Justice, “but suffice to say that it isn’t so easy to text with your toes.”
Via BoingBoing
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 