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I'm Travis. I'm interested in cities, politics, technology, media, music, and more. Visit my "real" website at travisestell.com and follow me on Twitter and Flickr.

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When we have a theory in science, it’s the greatest thing you can have. Relativity is a theory, and people test it every which way. They test it and test it and test it. Gravity is a theory. People have landed spacecraft on the moon within a few feet of accuracy because we understand gravity so well. People make flu vaccinations that stop people from getting sick. Farmers raise crops with science; they hybridize them and make them better with every generation. That’s all evolution. Evolution is a theory, and it’s a theory that you can test.
Bill Nye on America’s “horrible” science education

Try as you might, you can’t walk in a straight line without a visible guide point, like the Sun or a star. You might think you’re walking straight, but as NPR’s Robert Krulwich reports, a map of your route would reveal you are doomed to walk in circles.

Bill Nye Boo'd In Texas For Saying The Moon Reflects The Sun

Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.

As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.

A sad reflection on our nation’s grasp of basic scientific knowledge.

The expression ‘both sides’ is an important clue that the question itself is improperly framed. The notion that there are exactly two sides to every story is a byproduct of politics, not the search for knowledge.
Joshua Engel responds to the Quora question, “Is the climate change debate being effectively argued? Are we hearing equally from both sides?”

Men suffering from stress prefer curvier women, study shows

The British researchers corralled a group of college-guy guinea pigs and put half of them through stressful tasks that increased their cortisol, a hormone that indicates pressure.

After they were shown images of women of different shapes and sizes, the stressed out dudes preferred ladies who happened to have bigger behinds. According to the paper:

Men experiencing stress not only perceive a heavier female body size as maximally attractive, but also more positively perceive heavier female body sizes and have a wider range of body sizes considered physically attractive.

I am not a scientist myself, but my best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences.
Mitt Romney on global warming