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Education

How Did Bill Nye Become the Science Guy? 220

An anonymous reader writes "Whether he's debating creationists, taking selfies with President Obama, or 'Dancing with the Stars,' Bill Nye the Science Guy is no stranger to the spotlight. But what about the man behind the public persona? How did Bill Nye become the Science Guy?(video) Bill Nye has made his debut on the PBS series, The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers, to reveal the story of how he rose from being a young comedian from Seattle to becoming a science icon. In his profile, Bill Nye talks about his early days impersonating Steve Martin, why bow-ties are important in the lab (and with the ladies), and how Carl Sagan's advice helped to shape his hit television show."

Comment My experience (Score 1) 3

I embarked on a small project to read a rather short untranslated medieval Latin text. I was not aware of Distributed Proofreaders, and they may not want to take on my test in any case. I've been able to glean a lot of meaning by using Google Translate, Blitz Latin, and William Whitaker's Words. I was able to use these because the text I was trying to read was fairly short, about 25 pages. Doing it yourself may not be an option for a much longer text, but think of it as a possibility should the need arise.

Best wishes on your continued endeavor!

Comment Same effect without radiation... (Score 1) 167

A similar observation was made at the Palmerton, PA superfund site. The nearby Blue Mountain was the recipient of toxic fumes spewed from a nearby tin processing plant for almost a century. The resultant depositions killed almost all the vegetation on the mountainside, which furthermore, did not decay because of the dearth of micro organism capable of living there.

"...concentrations of cadmium, lead, and zinc in the soil were so high as to prevent regeneration. In fact, metals levels stopped all microbial activity, creating a biological desert where trees that had been dead for 20 or more years could not decompose. "

http://www.mabiosolids.org/upl...

Comment Talk Normal excerpt (Score 1) 533

While it has never been more important to be passionate, there's not so much to be passionate about.
From [a study on UK supermarkets] on 'The realities of leadership': 'Almost every aspect of work for every kind of employee,
from shopfloor worker to the general store manager, was set out, standardised and occasionally scripted by the experts at head office.' ...fewer of us have much influence over how to do our daily tasks than before...even though we're regularly told by our employers, our business magazines and our television software adverts that work is a place of exploration and fulfillment.

So, what is left for managers to manage? Primarily the answer is 'people management': motivating, beginning with 'getting the day started' meetings they concentrate on meeting targets by, as one manager put it, 'ensuring they (staff) are motivated, trained, they're quick to do the job, and hyped up, and they're going to go out there and deliver'.

Excerpted from the book "Talk Normal: Stop the Business Speak, Jargon and Waffle" by Tim Phillips

Comment Not an original idea (Score 2) 170

I'm pretty sure that at least one plant was previously identified as American , and that would be the sunflower. These botanists have taken the idea a lot further though. Their paper is well researched, but I will leave it to the peer review process to ultimately determine its veracity. The identification of Nahuatl words in the script seems a bit of a stretch IMHO.

Submission + - Electrical engineering lost 35,000 jobs last year (computerworld.com)

dcblogs writes: Despite an expanding use of electronics in products, the number of people working as electrical engineers in U.S. declined by 10.4% last year. The decline amounted to a loss of 35,000 jobs and increased the unemployment rate for electrical engineers from 3.4% in 2012 to 4.8% last year, an unusually high rate of job losses for this occupation. There are 300,000 people working as electrical engineers, according to U.S. Labor Department data analyzed by the IEEE-USA. In 2002, there were 385,000 electrical engineers in the U.S. Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, called the electrical engineering employment trend "truly disturbing," and said, "just like America's manufacturing has been hollowed out by offshoring and globalization, it appears that electrical and electronics engineering is heading that way."

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