All manner of human creativity on display
David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.
Benjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.
Trying to find your way around this place? Like most expositions, we offer a map: Map of The World's Fair
Need a car? Of course you do. Try this one:
August 7, 2008
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
From friend-of-The-World's-Fair WJG comes a link to The Grass Seed, a graphic story/comic strip by Claudia Davila at Ballyhoo Stories.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 12:00 PM • 1 Comments
Category: NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
See this:
This glorious piece of work is doing amazing things, amazing things!
Posted by David Ng at 10:16 AM • 8 Comments
August 6, 2008
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Aren't these kind of pretty?
Posted by David Ng at 12:33 PM • 11 Comments
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
According to Mussina (13-7, 3.56), the piece was entitled "Discarded Titles For Hunter S. Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas," and included such examples as "Dread And Abhorring In Las Vegas," "Trepidation And Disliking In Las Vegas," and, in what Mussina described as a "bit of a switch," "Fear And Loathing In St. Paul, Minnesota." Mussina said he submitted the piece--his seventh attempt overall--last Thursday, and received an e-mail reply Monday morning notifying him that it had not been selected.
Let's say I'm a fan of this piece, though I suspect it hits a smaller target audience than most of their stories. It's not only that the it combines the two worlds of McSweeney's and The Onion more gracefully than Captain and Tennille, but it does so through Mike Mussina, whom I've followed since he broke in with the now/still/again pathetic Orioles back in the early '90s. To up the ante (and by way of full disclosure) yet another reason this has worlds colliding is that I was until last year, as my most hallowed CV line, the lists editor at McSwny (in aid to the now Onion-famed John Warner). All I can say is the Onion writers have done their homework. Read up. And submit more lists.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:30 AM • 1 Comments
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
I came across this slide show by Christopher Benfey at Slate earlier this summer. It's a series of photographs by the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Apparently Bernd passed away last year, so I don't know (and Benfey didn't know) if there will be more. All of the Becher's pictures on display at a MoMA showing are black and white photos of industrial settings. Although they are images of a worked- and lived-in nature like those of Edward Burtynsky and other industrial landscape photographers, the ones recently displayed at MoMA are of places still at the center of those living worlds, not wastelands or polluted off-sites. "If one function of photography, as Susan Sontag argued long ago," and as Benfey writes, "is to uncover new kinds of beauty, the Bechers have found it in unusual places." Here's one:
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:00 AM • 0 Comments
August 5, 2008
Category: Video links (archive.org samples, for example; Youtube.com; others...)
Another score at TED talks. "Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes."
Posted by David Ng at 3:02 PM • 3 Comments
Category: The STS Compages
Yesterday, Ben threw out the following question:
What does a scientist actually think the history of science offers?
To be frank, I don't think it's necessarily a tough question to answer, but I do think that my answer, and other answers presented will be a challenge to enact in the real life workings of scientific research.
Posted by David Ng at 2:50 PM • 4 Comments
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
We once pondered aloud what Homer had in mind with his claim that Batman's a scientist. Since then, and I'm sure because of it, a new movie about Batman has been released. Now Jon Barnes at the Times Literary Supplement traces seven decades of evolution in the Batman character and persona.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 11:30 AM • 4 Comments
August 4, 2008
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Historians and some scientists argue that it is a relevant and important pursuit to understand more about the history of science. I agree; in part this is what my day job is. But why exactly does it matter? To whom is it important? In what way? What will they get from it? How do historians know those reading the history of science get what they (the historians) think they should get? These are generations-old questions, to be sure. (I suppose one would have to know the history, though, to know that they are generations-old questions.) It could be relevant for students in the sciences and humanities; for practicing scientists; for historians of other sub-fields; for general public readers; for non-historical scholars. It might not. But it might be.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 2:05 PM • 7 Comments
August 1, 2008
Category: About writing generally
The other day I was having a conversation with a number of scientist types, and specifically the topic of movies like Sizzle or Expelled came up. This, of course, led to the whole "framing" thing, which to be frank is a little confusing to me generally.
It was here, that one of my colleagues mentioned that an old creative non-fiction piece of mine, about science communication, might actually make a good narrative for a movie on big science issues. In particular, the ones that desperately need communicating and clarification to the public at large, but also those that are more meta in nature, such as the importance of literacy and engagement. This piece was my "Be Very Afraid" article that I wrote a few years back, primarily as a way to prepare for a keynote talk.
Anyway, I just reread it to see if it still works as a piece, and whilst some of the alternative energy bits may need a little less strongly worded text, I think it's still a good overview of some of the things you need to be wary of in the world of science.
In any event, I've reprinted it below for folks to take a gander. I actually think it would make an unwieldy film narrative (it's kind of all over the place), but then I'm not one to talk really when it comes to film.
Posted by David Ng at 12:39 PM • 9 Comments
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Chemical & Engineering news has a profile of Food Network guy Alton Brown. (Did you know the Food Network is about the only family-friendly station I can ever find? True story. Ergo, I've seen Alton Brown before.)
If you've not seen him, Brown's "presentation style [is] a combination of Julia Child, British comedy troupe Monty Python, and Mr. Wizard." He's influenced in part, he says, by James Burke's Connections and he uses a lot of multi-syllabic words. Like multi-syllabic.
Extended excerpt below the fold:
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Proof of "a threshold species between modern birds and their prehistoric dinosaur relatives" hanging out with Mephistopheles in Flight. Though don't take my use of the word "proof" too sincerely.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:00 AM • 0 Comments
July 31, 2008
Category: Books that are just good - literature in general
This is great.
And this is also an image that seems appropriate when choosing to speak about water as a resource generally - it might, for instance, be a good prelude to discussions like this.
Posted by David Ng at 2:30 PM • 0 Comments
July 30, 2008
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Would appreciate it if you could pass this on somehow?
Thoughts?
Posted by David Ng at 4:08 PM • 7 Comments
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
This got published a while back in the Walrus, but I just noticed that it's also now freely available online. 0.7%, in case, you're not aware is the hallmark figure suggested by Pearson as a target for foreign aid to developing nations.
Anyway, hope you enjoy. My favourite line, by the way, is:
You're Wilco playing to the High School Musical crowd.
Posted by David Ng at 4:03 PM • 0 Comments
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
The response for the "Things to avoid at all cost when speaking publicly" post was awesome, and so, I've tried to formalize the suggestions into a fairly definitive list. The ones that didn't make it tended to be more debatable, although admittedly, there are few in the list right now that sort of sit on the threshold of that parameter (I'm think about stuff like "winging it" or being "arrogant").
Anyway, the list can be viewed at the SCQ, but I'll reprint it here for your viewing pleasure.
Posted by David Ng at 3:56 PM • 1 Comments
July 29, 2008
Category: NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
Our lawn finally came in this year after three years in this house. We hadn't put much of an effort into it, I'll admit, though the original builder sought to. Our dirt is awful, just god awful. Ask my dad. He, the ardent gardener, is astonished by how poor the soil is. But this year the crabgrass grew in. And it looks good, real good. Plus it's helped prevent erosion from the occasional torrential downpours and for the most part it manages itself. So, yeah.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 2:30 PM • 1 Comments
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
The recent upswell in two-culture talk around Scienceblogs is driving me nuts (here's a good jumping in point -- oh wait, this one's better). One might question the so very many unquestioned assumptions in the current conversation about "what is science" and "what are the humanities" and "what does it mean to *know* science" and "what does it mean to *know* a poem," but instead I'll repost below something I contributed to The Education of Oronte Churm earlier this year. Call it the problem of the 13 culture divide.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:15 AM • 7 Comments
July 28, 2008
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
As plans for our student speaker conference are ramping up, we've been talking about ways to recruit excellent speakers to the project (this is where we're trying to host a university centric TED talks sort of thing). One idea, was to make some kind of video public service announcement that would direct people towards the application process as well as have a bit of web (as in hopefully viral) fun.
Anyway, I thought it might make an interesting slideshow to present things that you definitely should avoid at all costs when giving a talk. Some of these are obvious, some maybe not so much, but it would great to open this up and see if there are others out there worth highlighting.
So, without further ado - here is the beginnings of such a list.
Posted by David Ng at 5:00 PM • 42 Comments
July 24, 2008
Category: Links to interesting sites and discussion of them
...According to Ex-Marine Brad Collum.
And Kevin Fleming, his apparent interlocutor, as originally published here.
You thought we couldn't pull off three Apple product satires in a row? Not to mention the Dick Cheney one we didn't like as much so we didn't include in this reprint series. But it is timed-posts week after all, so there you are. Don't miss the iPod Zepto and iPod User's Guide, oh inconsistent reader. Then and only then check below the fold for a reprint from the iPod-as-a-deadly-weapon genre of literature.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 2 Comments
July 23, 2008
Category: Links to Other Conversations and Articles
This is one from the vault. Though not our vault. It was posted here in the original. But we offer a full reprint below the fold.
If you're a fidgety right-finger-on-that-mouse-scroller zooming-down-the-page reader (oh, did I nail it Mark?), don't miss chapter 18:
XVIII. Using the iPhone to learn whether superstring theory's positing of 10 dimensions (or 11 in M-theory) is viable in light of recent discoveries relating to dark matter
Enjoy.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Just a quick note. Although it's been a while, a few of us are meeting for drinks on Friday night (July 25th) at The Revel Room in Gastown, Vancouver (8pm on). It just so happens that it's about the 500th Day Anniversary of the Science Scouts.
What's this? Well, it's this. Think: science plus badges plus raising a pint in celebration and you're getting close.
If you happen to be in the area feel free to drop by - better yet, let us know by replying to the facebook page.
Posted by David Ng at 7:58 AM • 0 Comments
July 22, 2008
Category: Links to Other Conversations and Articles
Apple, Inc. joke week continues here during an all star World's-Fair-Scheduled-Posts-While-We're-Away Link Week. This one was originally published here, back in 2005, and remains one of my favorites of technology satire. (Oh, you have one too? What's yours? Is it Vonnegut's Player Piano? Cat's Cradle? No? I'm not even close? It isn't Vonnegut at all? Then what's your point, hombre? What the hell's your point?)
Your sample:
Q: I hate having to recharge my iPod Zepto every 12 minutes. Is there any way to extend the battery life?
A: Yes, if you keep your iPod Zepto's power button in the off position, the battery will last significantly longer.
The rest in full below the fold.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted by David Ng at 7:32 AM • 0 Comments
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
I recently had a chance to catch the movie WALL-E, and I must say, it's very good. Still, I couldn't quite shake the irony of a show with (I thought) a fairly implicit environmental message that also happens to have logos and pics emblazon on all sorts of wasteful possibly disposable ware (like on toys, presumably various product tie-ins, fast food?, etc).
In fact, there's an interesting bit on this very thought courtesy of an interview with one of the movie's directors (at the Globe and Mail - although note: I actually found this at a salon.com's review).
Posted by David Ng at 7:04 AM • 1 Comments
July 21, 2008
Category: About writing generally
This post was written by World's Fair guest Rachel Carr.^
I am the village idiot.
It's not obvious, mind you, when the locals first meet me. I approach them -- the 30-some nuclear physicists at Michigan State University's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, where I've miraculously landed a science writing internship -- like I approached crepe vendors on the streets of Paris. I whip out the full reserves of my introductory college physics, or high school French, as the situation dictates, and start off sprinting. Ah! Bien sur, les neutrons volent aux les incroyablement grandes vitesses et puis ils frappent les... Pause. Ils frappent les... les... how you say...uh, those scintillation things?
And suddenly my interlocutors know: I'm not from here. I'm a little... slow.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 5 Comments
Category: The Book Building
It's been a while since I've enjoyed a book this much. That's all.
Posted by David Ng at 8:18 AM • 0 Comments
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
As of 2007, residents of Vancouver, on average used 295 litres of water per day (Per capita water consumption number is 542 litres per day factoring in non-residential water use).
(link)
After reading the above article, I did a bit of number crunching. The contrast in water consumption, say. between a place like Vancouver and a place like Bhopal, India is pretty striking.
Posted by David Ng at 7:30 AM • 5 Comments
July 18, 2008
Category: The Book Building
The SCQ children's book contest is back again.
Posted by David Ng at 12:37 PM • 1 Comments
July 17, 2008
Category: Podcastia
New Zealand and Canada both "received a significant number of settlers from Scotland and Ireland. Did these groups bring a particular set of land management techniques with them that had a particular impact on the landscape and environment? Did a particular conservation ethic develop among Scottish and Irish settlers?"
Find out in this new environmental history podcast. (Listen here)
What's more, read a review of the podcast here.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
July 16, 2008
Category: Podcastia
At "The Missing Link." In three parts. By historian Elizabeth Green Musselman.
Part I (her episode 8): The Ghost in the Machine. Or, the deep history of scientific method, and how the rules evolved to the point where intelligent design cannot follow them.
Part II: Evolution, Communism and Other "Dirty" Words. Or, How did the Civil War and the Cold War affect the acceptance of evolution in the United States?
Part III: People of the Book. Or, how people in some of the world's other religious traditions - particularly Jews, Catholics, and Muslims - have positioned themselves in the evolution-intelligent design debate.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 3 Comments
July 15, 2008
Category: Podcastia
Not just floating around the northern Pacific Ocean, it's now on podcast too.
To the likes of the New York Times Magazine "Sea of trash" and Harper's "Moby Duck", please welcome Jody Roberts' voice to the bibliography of garbage swirling around the sea. It's all here in this Distillation's podcast, "Cleaning Up", from the Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
Category: The Film Building
A few days ago, I had a chance (with other ScienceBloggers) to check out Randy Olson's new flick, Sizzle. Now let me first start by saying that I'm hardly a movie aficionado - my favourite movie is still Star Wars, and to be honest the last few movies I saw before this one were Camp Rock, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Kung Fu Panda - can you guess we have kids at my household?). Still, I think I do have a decent handle on the ins and outs of communicating science, which ultimately this movie has as a central device.
Posted by David Ng at 5:00 AM • 0 Comments
July 14, 2008
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
A cropped excerpt below from the full strip called "Faith," at Cat and Girl (do go see the whole thing):
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
July 13, 2008
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Memoir
Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.
The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.
If I wrote that story now--
radioactive to the end of time--
people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn't peel
the gloves fast enough
from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.
Your poor hands. Your poor eyes
to see me weeping in my room
or boring the tall blonde to death.
Once I accused the innocent.
Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.
I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.
And one October afternoon, under a locust tree
whose blackened pods were falling and making
illuminating patterns on the pathway,
I was seized by joy,
and someone saw me there,
and that was the worst of all,
lacerating and unforgettable.
By Vijay Seshadri
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 12:00 PM • 1 Comments
July 10, 2008
Category: Industrial Agriculture
Keep up with the matter at Recall.gov.
While not a fun sport, it is an active one. They list product recalls in seven categories:
1. Consumer Products (in general).
2. Motor vehicles.
3. Boats.
4. Food.
5. Medicine.
6. Cosmetics.
7. Environmental products.
Oh boy. Go grab a burger with a slice of tomato, put your Swiftlik safety raft on, take a swig of that Nestle Purified Water, keep a bottle of your oldest antipsychotic drugs on hand, send an HP fax to your friend to tell them all about it, and call it a day well recalled.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 0 Comments
July 9, 2008
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Isn't this picture great?
Posted by David Ng at 12:30 PM • 6 Comments
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted by David Ng at 10:25 AM • 0 Comments
July 8, 2008
Category: The Film Building
I doodle a bit, and sometimes, it has this Breakfast of Champions look to it - which to be frank is deliberate, since I think it's a great visual style, especially for the purpose of teaching.
Anyway, since, I'm playing around with my relatively new flickr account (mainly set up so that I can start to organize my slides properly on my popperfont site), here's a video of a few goofy slides that highlights a variety of biological "modifications" that can occur. Full narrative below the fold by the way.
Posted by David Ng at 11:00 AM • 0 Comments
Category: Links to Other Conversations and Articles
Oronte Churm asks: Are you happy? An interesting entry.
To get to that, he works from Virginia Postrel's article "Inconspicuous Consumption" in The Atlantic, on his way to Bill Watterson speaking to Kenyon College many years ago on happiness. In my experience, any time you get stuff from the Calvin & Hobbes guy, it's solid. So I leave this minor post with the happiness question and the following passage. Quoth Watterson:
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential--as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.
To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 1 Comments
July 7, 2008
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Alphametics, viseopoetics, I don't even know if I'm typing this right.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 0 Comments
July 2, 2008
Category: Nature, as in parts, bits, molecular and stuff
This is silly is so many ways. Hat tip to the filter.
Posted by David Ng at 3:11 PM • 1 Comments
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
To offset flights out of North America in 2007, you'd need to plant a forest the size of Oregon.
In this summer's issue of the Walrus, there's a great piece by UBC'er, David Beers, called "Grounded" which imagines circumstances leading to a world where flying is essentially ground to a halt. It's a good read, but in this case, I also had a little fun with the accompanying graphic.
Posted by David Ng at 12:59 PM • 2 Comments
June 30, 2008
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
This cracks me up every time, and will be sure to somehow make an appearance in my talks on science literacy. I'm thinking this would make a great graphic to segue into discussions on the public perceptions of technologies, etc.
Posted by David Ng at 3:28 PM • 5 Comments
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Posted by David Ng at 1:15 PM • 0 Comments
June 27, 2008
Category: Video links (archive.org samples, for example; Youtube.com; others...)
This is actually very nicely done - a commencement speech by JK Rowling at Harvard a few weeks ago. I've embedded the movie file below the fold for convenience, but full details (as well as the transcript of the speech) can be found here
Posted by David Ng at 10:39 AM • 2 Comments
Category: Industrial Agriculture
Resolved: a host of academic, journalistic, and community-based work has increased its focus in recent years on the matter of local food. In no way could I summarize the breadth of that work. But I am frequently surprised to find the same conversations going on, over and over again. For example, just this week there was yet another article asking if fewer food miles are really better. I was astounded that the author wrote the story--in which he assumed that carbon emissions were the measure of a food system's environmental value--and that the Salon editors gave it the go-ahead, because it repeats much of what has already been written about the subject. Many times. Are we spinning our wheels?
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:00 AM • 0 Comments
June 26, 2008
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
When I read pieces like this one (at McSweeney's), it makes me want to make the World's Fair the place to go to at ScienceBlogs when you want to catch up on unicorn stuff.
Anyway, here's the first paragraph:
The unicorn starts out by laying out its plan to counter the North Korean nuclear threat. It says, "Create a giant rainbow over the entire country that lasts 100 years and then flood the DMZ with thousands of puppies--er, kittens. Because nothing
