ahab_2001 - Slashdot User

False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself 513

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @09:05AM from the round-and-round-it-goes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia."

Submission + - Evolutionary Scientists Test-Drive "Spore"

Submitted by

ahab_2001

on Thursday October 23, 2008 @04:37PM

ahab_2001 writes: "The computer game Spore has been marketed partly as an experience that makes evolutionary biology come alive in a game setting. But does that claim hold water? To find out, John Bohannon, a correspondent for Science Magazine (writing as "The Gonzo Scientist"), sat four card-carrying scientists, ranging from evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge to JPL astrophysicist Miles Smith, down in front of a terminal to play the game. The upshot, says Bohannon: Spore flunks basic science, getting "most of biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong.""

Submission + - The Top Scientific Stories of 2007

Submitted by

ahab_2001

on Thursday December 20, 2007 @08:16PM

ahab_2001 writes: "The journal Science has put up its annual "Breakthrough of the Year" list of the top-ten scientific accomplishments for 2007. Leading the list are studies of human genetic variation, and a flood of new discoveries that point toward a future of genomic medicine and even "personal genomics" — with all of the potential issues of ethics and privacy that entails. Runners-up include advances in cellular and structural biology, astrophysics, physics, immunology, synthetic chemistry, neuroscience, and computer science. In addition to the articles from the journal, there's a video on human genetic variation and a podcast as well."

Submission + - Rising to the "Science Visualization Challenge

Submitted by

ahab_2001

on Thursday September 27, 2007 @04:46PM

ahab_2001 writes: "The NSF and the journal Science have announced the 2007 winners of the annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, mounted each year "to encourage cutting-edge efforts to visualize scientific data." There's a write-up of the winners in the journal, and also a slide presentation showcasing the winning images and videos."

Comment Re:drums. (Score 1) 169

by ahab_2001 on Saturday July 28, 2007 @11:37AM (#20023419) Attached to: Brian May, Rock Legend, Soon-To-Be Astrophysicist

I think perhaps "expletive" came to have its sense as particularly referring to profanity when the transcripts of the Nixon tapes were published in the 1970s, during the Watergate affair. "Expletive deleted," the all-purpose substitution used when the transcripts would have shown Nixon using a nasty word, became a slang watchword for any implied-but-not-stated profanity.

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