Remember the Flame Challenge? Alan Alda’s quest to find someone who can explain at an elementary-school level what a flame is? Well, an American quantum optics student studying in Europe has won with a charming short video (that ends with a metal ballad):

What is a Flame from Ben Ames on Vimeo.

Ben writes: “I [...]

New Scientist discusses the future of the academy, in which teachers have been replaced by essay-grading robots:

Grading software from nine manufacturers, which together cover 97 per cent of the US market, was used in the test. To calibrate the systems, each looked for correlations between factors associated with good essays, such as strong vocabulary and good grammar, and [...]

Alan Alda asks exactly the right question in exactly the right way:

As a curious 11-year-old, Alan Alda asked his teacher, “What is a flame?” She replied: “It’s oxidation.” Alda went on to win fame as an actor and writer, became an advocate for clear communication of science, and helped found the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. [...]

Popular Mechanics recently investigated the forensics of the zombie head shot:

Dr. Steven Schlozman, has written extensively about the brain function of undead zombies (as opposed to voodoo victim zombies). He’s co-director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and, much more importantly, on the advisory board of the Zombie Research Society.

His self-appointed mission is [...]

We need more science jobs. Over at ScienceBlogs, they crunch the numbers:

Like many other things in life, you get what you pay for (if you’re lucky). As long as financial ‘engineering’ is more lucrative than actual engineering (and other disciplines)–both in terms of pre- and post-tax salary–and has better job security, many students, particularly when too many graduate with [...]

Discover’s Bad Astronomy blog celebrates a new effort to teach more science:

I was particularly excited to hear Obama announce an annual science fair to be held at the White House! As he said, it’s time that people who have made extraordinary achievements in science stand beside athletes and others honored at the White House.

And as if he were [...]

Oh, my.

I may have to cover this. You get the picture.

via Kung Fu Grippe.

As if we needed someone to tell us about it, Science Daily informs us Americans that we’re failing at basic scientific literacy:

Despite its importance to economic growth, environmental protection, and global health and energy issues, scientific literacy is currently low among American adults. According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:

Only 53% of adults know [...]

New Scientist thrills me with a new push to get the entertainment industry to understand science:

The new effort, called the Science and Entertainment Exchange, is a project of the US National Academy of Sciences, and will be run by science writer Jennifer Ouellette, author of The Physics of the Buffyverse.

…

The project is “vitally important”, said Seth MacFarlane, [...]