Author Archives: Dan Gezelter

Molecular Modeling

Over at In the Pipeline, Derek has posted a great statement about The Hazards of Molecular Modeling: I’ve made this point before, but it needs to be made again: molecular modeling is not reality. Most models are not that good, … Continue reading

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The Jarzynski equality

So our latest little obsession in research-land is something called The Jarzynski Equality, which is a strong statement about equilibrium thermodynamical quantities being exactly derivable from irreversible (non-equilibrium) trajectories. Jarzynski has a brief commentary in PNAS that describes it, but … Continue reading

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Mind the Gaps – Slate’s take on ID

This quote is from Dahlia Lithwick’s article, Mind the Gaps – Intelligent design as an answer to all life’s great conundrums in Slate magazine: But the critics are missing the beauty of this new theory. Because the really great thing … Continue reading

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Kstars, Qmol, PrestoPlot

A new link today in our astronomy section. KStars is the desktop planetarium for KDE. Also, thanks to Jason Gans, we’ve fixed two links to software from the Shalloway group at Cornell. Qmol is a nice-looking program for viewing molecular … Continue reading

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Everything you always wanted to know about blimps

After seeing a Goodyear Blimp floating above a recent Notre Dame / Michigan State football game, our kids had one simple question: Dad, Is there a bathroom on the blimp? This question followed a long exposition on my part on … Continue reading

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c-jump, the computer programming board game

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Singing Science Records

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Snowflakes and Snow Crystals

Some absolutely beautiful pictures of snowlakes and ice crystals can be found at snowcrystals.com, a put together by Kenneth Libbrecht, Professor of physics at Caltech. I’m particularly enamored of his Snowflake primer as well as the movies of crystal growth.

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KStars

The Desktop Planetarium for KDE. It provides an accurate graphical simulation of the night sky, from any location on Earth, at any date and time. The display includes 130,000 stars, 13,000 deep-sky objects,all 8 planets, the Sun and Moon, and … Continue reading

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The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez

Found via the always wonderful BoingBoing is this set of photographs of The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez. Mobulas (Mobula mobular) and Mantas (Manta birostris) are related (a manta’s mouth is terminal, i.e. located at the front of … Continue reading

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