Posted 20 Feb 2014 / 0
Air Transport Action Group “Facts & Figures” I recognize that these statistics are being presented by an industry advocacy group, so they should be taken with some skepticism (I don’t have the time to fact-check them). But they are interesting, and damning enough of air transport (while also accenting our very strong dependence on this Read More
A Minor Post, Climate Change, Economic sustainability, Information Design, Pollution, Quantitative Analysis, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Transportation, Web
Posted 15 Jan 2014 / 0
I almost fell out of my seat when I found this video while searching for a concise source explaining why we don’t have an international climate change agreement. This short television piece is basically trying to explain the dynamics of climate change agreement as depicted by Milinski and colleagues (2008) in their PNAS paper “The collective-risk Read More
A Minor Post, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Film, Television, & Video, Game Theory, Sustainability, Web
Posted 07 Jan 2014 / 0
KQED The Lowdown “Rot and Rubbish: The Rancid Truth About How Much Food We Waste“
A Minor Post, Composting, Ethics, Food, Information Design, Political Science, Pollution, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, Web
Posted 11 Oct 2013 / 0
WMAC Northeast Public Radio “Academic Minute: Dr. Alicia Melis, University of Warwick – Cooperation and Chimpanzees” Chimps’ ability to take the perspective of others has been questioned, but this set of experiments seems to show that chimps can mentally put themselves in the place of a comrade, imagining what that comrade should do and then Read More
A Minor Post, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Human Uniqueness, Primates, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Web
Posted 10 Oct 2013 / 0
Wired “On the Microbial Frontier, Cheaters Rarely Prosper” This is fascinating, particularly because it attempts to connect the ability of bacteria to sustain cooperation through range expansion with the unique range expansion undertaken by humans in the last 30,000 years. I am not sure this will be a fruitful comparison, but you have to give it Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Microbial Ecology, Web
Posted 07 Oct 2013 / 0
The Economist “Science’s Sokal Moment” Science “Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?” The correct term for the kinds of journals that publish open-access work that is poorly reviewed is “predatory”. Like unaccredited “universities”, they prey on scientists whose work is not high enough in quality or significance to publish in the larger, mainstream journals by offering Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Economics, Ethics, Periodicals, Publication, Scientific Fraud, Web
Posted 04 Oct 2013 / 0
Dynamic Ecology “Follow the money – what really matters when choosing a journal” There are so many great ideas to be found in this post. Here are some of my favorites: There is no “innovation” or “risk” being taken by investors in academic publishing: those with money are simply extracting value from both the producers Read More
A Major Post, Ecology, Economics, Ethics, Evolution, Grants & Funding, Periodicals, Professional Societies, Public Policy, Publication, Web
Posted 19 Sep 2013 / 0
Inhabitat “The Biomimicry Manual: What Can Sloths Teach Us About Energy Efficiency?“
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Coevolution, Green Design, Mutualism, Tropical Forest, Web
Posted 19 Sep 2013 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “‘Farm to Brain’: Locavore Education vs. MOOCs” What I really appreciate about this piece (full disclosure: it was written by my current Dean) is that it makes clear that the MOOC model is simply the extensification of the big research university model of education. It is no wonder that these educational Read More
A Minor Post, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Teaching, Web
Posted 03 Sep 2013 / 0
There has been additional coverage of the paper showing that “zero determinant” strategies in the Prisoner’s Dilemma are not evolutionarily robust: Phys.org “Generosity leads to evolutionary success, biologists show” Popular Science “Evolution Punishes Selfish People, Game Theory Study Says” Here’s the original paper: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA “From extortion to generosity, evolution Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, Game Theory, Modeling (General), System Stability, Web
