worldsfair

Entitled: "The iPhone: A User Guide" and courtesy of Darren Cahr (via McSweeney's). Includes: IX. Using the iPhone to solve disputes between Moqtada al-Sadr and certain Sunni elements within Iraq without causing an escalation of hostilities, or the development of closer ties between Iran and Shiite…

A couple weeks ago, the SCQ published a piece called "What's the Scoop? A Quantitative Analysis of Kellogg's Raisin Bran," which aimed to take a proper look at the nomenclature behind the descriptor of "two scoops." Anyway, it was a great research orientated piece, fitting for the SCQ given its…

This is great. And there are two more here. Reminds me also of the ones here at the SCQ.

I'm not sure if it's kosher to discuss article queries before they are even entertained. I'm not even sure if I spelt kosher correctly, but in any event, not being a career writer, I'll take my chances because I think the query and the question I'd like to tackle would also make for an intriguing…

Live blogging here. Presumably, the big showing off later on here. (and with a formal collaboration with google and yahoo to boot - this puppy is going to a very big deal)

Alright, it's 2007, and already I'm feeling the soft squeeze of all the different things that need tending to. In fact, there are two comics at the Science Creative Quarterly today that, perhaps to greater extremes, emulate my current mood (i.e. this is what it feels like when you've effectively…

MOVING DAY THELMA AND LOUISE THE PEACH TREE A couple of photos have really caught my eye lately. You know, the sort that would seem a bit surreal, or perhaps the word "unlikely" in this day and age of progress is better. Anyway, they reminded me a lot of a great book I have called "The…

"How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" (Plato's Meno, to Socrates) (Click here for a larger version of the schematic clue) Let us begin. * * * As for setting the Puzzle into its blog-historical context, this is the second in a series. The…

Since we were on the topic of tenure: here is a list... Proposed using bioinformatics (computational biology) as a tool to measure the potential performance of folks in American politics (link) Read a lot of Haiku's (link) Escorted dignitaries such as UN Envoys, National Geographic Explorers in…

Normally, these are either songs that recieved a lot of airplay in our household, or sometimes are even songs with a certain amount of biographical significance. As well, each year end mix will usually be coupled with a few phrases denoting the coming and goings of each member of my family.…

I don't suspect there will be much going on here for the remainder of the year, so here are two poems I find lovely and notable. CHRISTMAS 1924 By Thomas Hardy 'Peace upon earth!' was said. We sing it And pay a million priests to bring it. After two thousand years of mass We've got as far as poison…

(By Paul Clarkson and reprinted from the Science Creative Quarterly) Being a scientific investigation of a cultural conundrum Soon it will be Christmas Eve, and once more children will be divided into distinct factions. Here, Cyr [1] described younger children (<7 years) who believe in Santa…

Check out this picture, and the blurb below: A 79-year-old man with mitral valve prolapse of both leaflets and consecutive severe symptomatic mitral regurgitation underwent central double-orifice repair, the so-called "Alfieri stitch" operation. With this technique, a double-orifice mitral valve…

Happy to announce and promote a new science web-magazine - the ever so funky INKLING. Courtesy of fellow Vancouver-based dudettes, Anne and Anna (of Inkycircus fame). It's got a really great tone to it, much needed really, different from the stuff out there, and with good pieces and a nice layout…

So basically things aren't looking too good for Spongebob Squarepants and his buddies. The reason being that, all of this carbon dioxide we're pumping into the air is doing some serious shit to the oceans. However in this case, it's less to do with the usual greenhouse effects, but more to do…

Image from "Scared of Santa Gallery" One of the surreal joys of editing a thing such as the Science Creative Quarterly, is all the good stuff that comes our way. Even though the stats for the SCQ are actually pretty decent (average of 6000 to 8000 visitors per day), it still a bit of a shock to…

Man, right now, I'm squelched under the chaos of the "end of the year," which includes the two fold attacks from academia (research, courses, marking, etc) and life in general (Hey, it's Xmas time folks). Anyway, the only readable writing I've done of late is my family's annual Christmas Card…

Today the SCQ has a great humour piece, entitled "Bill Hick, the Science Prick, Houses on Fools" which of course is a direct play on words with the truly great science communicator, Bill Nye, the Science Guy. When I recieved the piece, it was initially submitted using Bill's real name, but having…

Since there was a lot of interest in Faith's and Peter's "Hungry Planet" book, it's only fitting to share the beauty of their first bestseller, "Material World" which is a book that focused on visually representing the total possessions of "average" family households from different countries (again…

O.K. Here goes: First up. Most likely the easiest to read piece on LOC technology (Lab on a Chip). Who knew that microfluidics and lithography techniques were so cool? After reading this, you will too. ("Living la Vida Loc(A): A brief insight into the world of "lab on a chip" and microfluidics")…

I see that Sandra, RPM, Joan and Coturnix have weighed in on the overuse of "ome" in today's system's favoured biology, so I thought it was a good time to represent a piece that was previously published at the SCQ. This one is called: "Like 'Omic God" and includes the great: d'oh-ome: every…

The folks from the Skeleton Project reminded me that it's Ninja Day today. And since I feel guilty that currently, there are no Ninjas nominated for our advisory board, then I thought it pertinent to present their one and only science-y episodes.

So like Vancouver had a major dump of snow last week, which is just not west coast at all. Predictably, all hell broke loose, and UBC even experienced a campus wide power outage at one point. Anyway, whilst looking for some things for the FILTER, I came across a really cool website that looked at…

So, I'm prepping for a talk that looks at some of the scientific elements behind music, stuff that builds upon some of the stuff I've looked into in the past. Anyway, seeing that I like to place elements of pop culture in my talks, I thought it would be interesting to do a little "google image"…

Faith D'Aluisio and Peter Menzel have a newish book out which is just wonderful from a food perspective. Essentially, they've traveled the world to meet "average" families and report on their dietary habits. Apart from being thematically intriguing from a journalistic point of view, it's also…

Continuing on with our half year evaluation of the World's Fair, we are pleased to have a few phrases of note that are represented by Google as a number one hit. These include from myself, the following: "Tatooine is already too fucking hot" "Scooby Doo is truly magical" "eliticism in mountain…

So, next week will be the World's Fair's half year mark, so it's basically time to access how we're doing. First up, is to check our traffic stats, which are nicely graphed out as follows: Hmmm... Interesting... Note that if you consider that we technically started around the first week of June,…

(You know what the feather is, but do you know what that thing on the right is? - answer is below the fold) Recently I gave a bit of an unusual talk to welcome UBC's new Dean of Science (Dr. Simon Peacock). And since I'm not on the up and up with his specialty, plate tectonics, I thought it would…

"We can recognize a thousand, two thousand corporate logos, it is said, but typically fewer than 10 plants and animals native to our region..." (David Orr, January 13th, 2006, University of British Columbia.) Or for that matter, not only is there a gap in ecological literacy, but also in scientific…

Nominee #1: Karl Iagnemma Nominee #2: Chris Ware Well, it was great to finally meet Ben (and Janet, John, John, and Steve) a couple weeks ago, when there was a PSA/HSS/4S conference in Vancouver. Ben and I had a chance to talk about science, writing, academia, the election, life, unicorns, the…