Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally

On the next leg of our NSF Antarctic Artists & Writers project we flew to the Antarctic Dry Valleys from McMurdo. It is almost an hour helicopter ride across the ice shelf, and we hopped from site to site all day: landing at Lake Hoare for a moment to drop off someone and pick up Zach Sudman, a stream hydrologist who we spent most of the day with. We flew with Zach another 10 minutes to Lawson Stream – yes a flowing stream (from summer glacier melt) in the Taylor Valley. We video photographed Zach Sudman using surveying equipment to measure the height of the lake and the stream. Here is a…
Seriously, if there's a day to enjoy the outdoors, then that would have to be Earth Day. If, however, you find yourself stuck inside due to poor weather, volcanic ash plumes, or some other reason, then go check out the Phylo game (http://phylogame.org). It's been up for about a week and a bit, and is already gaining some steady traffic (it's creeping up on google and giving the Greek pastry a run for its money!). Normally, we only put up one new card per weekend, but because it's a special day, we're putting up 6 new cards, and with a variety of different art styles to boot. As if that…
Was it one of these (From wiki)? In any event, hopefully you picked the one about Henrietta Lacks. If you didn't: then you really need to get yourself a copy of this book, entitled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and written by Rebecca Sloot, to find out why you should have. I've just pre-ordered it, and am looking forward to reading it. The advance reviews are really good, and the story of Henrietta is really one that needs to be spread widely (this is speaking as someone who use to be pretty deep into the signal transduction field where use of HeLa cells is pretty much par for…
Hope everyone had a nice holiday, but I guess it's now back to the grind with a brand new year. For myself, I'm pretty stoked with a number of things coming up that will focus on this thing we call "Biodiversity." And why is this? Well, basically, 2010 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Biodiversity. I also think it's going to be an interesting year for me coming up, because of the following: 1. Yesterday, whilst driving home from work and going a good 50 or so clicks on the road, a squirrel ran out in front of me in such a way that it entered somehow in…
I recently attended the TEDxVancouver event, which was wonderfully done and also useful for being able to network with a lot of interesting people. There was, however, one thing that irked me - nothing to do with the conference logistics but rather a statement or two issued by one of the speakers, Patrick Moore. Just a little background on Patrick: he's one of the founders of Greenpeace, with a major role in the evolution of the organization in its earlier days. However, currently, he's a little more well known for his climate change skepticism views, and particularly his advocacy for…
Carl is currently in Vancouver, and he was gracious enough to come out for drinks with us last night. This was after a great talk he gave on the how scientists have been following the evolutionary tracks of the H1N1 flu, so that folks can get a sense of (1) what it is, (2) how it's been moving, and (3) where exactly it may have come from in the first place. The talk was apparently filmed, so I'll try and remember to pass on the link when it's up, but I thought it was worth reshowing a great little video from NPR that he highlighted. As well, I double checked my notes and noticed that I…
Realclimate.org has a great post today called "An Open Letter to Steven Levitt." In case, you haven't heard, this is the economist, and one of the noted authors of the Freakonomics, who recently published Superfreakonomics, a book that is fast gaining notoriety as being fraught with many errors on the issue of Global Warming. Essentially, the post does a great job in showing how some simple arithmetic could have easily demonstrated problems in one of the claims provided in the new book (on why utilizing Solar Energy would effectively be worse for Global Warming). It's a wonderful piece,…
Not specifically about science literacy, but more about just what inhabits a person's brain space at a given moment, and how that can lead to a sad degree of ignorance in world affairs. I was mulling over this, when watching a television program called the "Long Way Down" about two motorcyclists (Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman) touring from the northern tip of Scotland to the southern tip of South Africa. It's a great show, where a lot of the focus of the programming was on their experiences in the African countries they rode through. There was one segment in particular that was…
A review of Cocktail: A Play about the Life and HIV Drug Development Work of Dr. Krisana Kraisintu by Vince LiCata and Ping Chong Truth be told, I don't read plays very often, if at all. In fact, I'm ashamed to admit that I think the last one I read was back in high school long ago, and if I remember correctly had something to do with vampires - ironic in that vampires at the time were not so popular. But this play was about something I am interested in - medicine and social responsibility - and it was referred to by a friend, who also happened to be one of the authors. Coincidentally,…
Just saw the tally on the blog, and it seems that the last time I wrote here was well over two months ago. Well, most of that has to do with a trip to Ibadan, Nigeria, and an extended bout with jet lag, but I'm back into the blogging mood again. To start with, I thought I'd have a hand at a Harper's Index type post, detailing some of the things I saw and discovered at my trip. Also take a gander at some of photos I took below. - - - Some points to consider. Topic of workshop delivered by author of post (and his colleague Joanne Fox) - Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics; Number of…
Science Scout twitter feed Recently, I heard of a new documentary called "Act of God" by Jennifer Baichwal, that involved looking at individuals struck by lightning. I haven't had a chance to check out this new film, but it did remind me of a previous movie that she had done called "Manufactured Landscapes," which highlighted the remarkable photography of Edward Burtynsky. And whilst thinking about this, I've stumbled across Edward's great website which has some of the most striking imagery I've seen in a long time (Click on the images to get to a larger version and title on Edward's…
Science Scout twitter feed I'm thinking of highlighting a few of the silly things I write every Wednesday on this blog. And so this particular piece, which was written about 2 years ago, seems as good a place as any to start. At the time I was thinking "environment" and "Chewbacca" - how can I bring those two together? Yeah, I know - wierd. HAN SOLO: Well, so far, it seems like it's a pretty good thing. Me, I'm not too up on the technology, but Chewie is pretty good at that stuff. Right Chewie? CHEWBACCA: Uuuhhhggg. Rrrrggghhh. Hhhgg-aaa. Rrrrn. HAN SOLO: Yeah, that's a good point.…
Science Scout twitter feed This is reprinted posting, but a few friends have ben asking me about traveling to Disneyland in light of the swine flu happenings. In any event, these discussions have reminded me of my own ponderings when my family visited the magic kingdom last year. Specifically, the above was a question that continually haunted my consciousness. Disneyland was remarkably pristine in that cookie cutter, artificial, yet aesthetically pleasing way, but it must be a major sink in terms of waste, energy consumption, carbon emissions, etc. Or is it? Maybe in terms of…
Sad and scary in a pretty sort of way. Just a few images pulled courtesy of the Flickr community. (lyza) If you just sit back and absorb the sentiment of these pictures, it's a little overwhelming just how removed we can be from our food. (colodio) (metroblossom) This last picture I find especially intriguing. It seems more than capable of evoking a feeling of "hard times" which I guess is analogous to how farmers might feel in the event of a poor harvest.
Science Scout twitter feed So how come I've never seen this before? The infamous Kirk Cameron Banana YouTube clip? From what I can figure out, this is actually meant to be a serious attempt at describing creationist perfection. It's just that the video is so full of unintended (intended?) innuendo that it turns out to be one of the silliest things I've seen in a long time. As well, I'd like to make a case that the banana is not so perfect afterall. Here's a quick list of why it sucks to be a banana: 1. As the twitter statement says, the banana shown in the video is parthenocarpic. This…
Or something like that. This is a little unbelievable, but there you have it - politics is nothing if not diverse... Choice quote: "The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood." Anyway, so here's the choice question: is this really a big deal? "Yes, because ohmygoodness this joker is an elected government representative," or "No, because "who's gonna take him seriously anyway?" Maybe the woman in the background can best answer this, and we can all hope that it is the latter. Afterall, after…
I was just reading a short article today in the economist which listed the amount of water needed to produce a few common beverages. The stats are actually something else. In particular, a single cup litre of coffee requires 1120 litres of water (this is the same volume of water as a 104cm x 104cm x 104cm cube). Although the chart is kind of neat at the economist, I figured it might be more interesting if there was a way to translate that 1120 litres into a more curious image. Anyway, above is a work in progress, using a great tilt-shift image by Flickr user "crotaphytus" and then a…
(Earlier the video had server issues, so just reposting - this video is really worth checking out) If you haven't heard of the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (or UAEM), then put it on your to do list right now. Better yet, sit yourself down and watch Mike Gretes in this video for 20 minutes. Making medicines for people, not for profit: Mike Gretes from terrytalks on Vimeo.- - - Basically, this is one of many great student talks, I've got going up on our Terry talks site, but this one in particular I think is particularly relevant for those within the ScienceBlog readership,…
Or can I just call it BFAC2008? Anyway, for those of you who have an annual tradition of putting together a gingerbread house, why not do it this year with a sustainability twist? That's right! Bake for a Change is a contest where you, as the submission details say, apply sustainable building design practices to a gingerbread house. Anyway, those details in full are presented here, and you can see last year's entries by checking through this Flickr group. If you do check the flickr page out (and this highly recommended since it's really cool), then you'll note that we're happy to see all…
Recently, we had an opportunity to host a variety of great talks for science teachers. One of the talks was by Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi, with an entertaining take on the value of integrating disciplines, or rather simply getting away from being so discipline focused. Anyway, here is the link that will lead you to a 25 minute talk he gave (apologies for the buzzy sound feed). It's a great talk, with some choice quotes, in particular a reference to a certain Nobel Laureate as a grandstanding asshole.