Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
worldsfair | November 22, 2007
This is for all you folks in Vancouver who happen to have some time to kill tomorrow (Friday) at lunch.
The UBC Terry Project is having James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith give a talk. These are the authors of "The 100-Mile Diet," a bestseller and buzz worthy book that uses a social experiment (can we subsist on only eating things produced within a 100 mile radius?) to look into the world of food politics, economics, and culture. Extra bonus is that James and Alisa also happen to be Vancouverites, so their story has this wonderful local angle to it.The talk, entitled "The 100-Mile Diet" will…
worldsfair | November 20, 2007This post over at the Terry website is nice, and poses an interesting question.
Tonight, as I walked home past the hospital and the lights and the young teenage couple standing under the walkway and the older couple sitting on the bench, I thought to myself, "I wonder how much energy is required to light these every season? How much carbon is being used up just to light this display?"
I stopped in stride. "How could I ask myself such a ridiculous questions - who cares, its beautiful!" I thought, "Look how many people are enjoying it, this symbol of bliss and happiness that has marked a dozen…
The 100-Mile Diet. Could you eat only food grown and produced within a 100 mile radius of your home?
worldsfair | October 29, 2007It looks like a lot, but really it's not (hey, that rhymes)
Clearly, food is a hot topic these days. You see it constantly in the cultural dominance of things like the Food Channel, Martha Stewart, or The Iron Chef. But more fittingly, thankfully even, you also see a boon of discussions that look closely (we're talking maybe even academically) at our relationship to the food we eat. And a lot of this dialogue has been spurred on by the existence of well written and engaging books by respected writers such as Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable…
worldsfair | October 12, 2007IPCC figures rock!
And there's a lot of discussion taking place around the blogosphere that concerns the merit behind this particular choice (here's a good overview at the NYT), ranging from the errors in his movie, as well as the debate over whether activism in the climate change arena constitutes a major contribution to issue of "peace" itself.
What do people think around here?
In any event, the IPCC being a co-winner, I think, is a no brainer. This is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a large (like 2000 or so!) UN group of academics from a variety of disciplines (many from…
worldsfair | October 9, 2007Shop fronts on the streets of Harbin
Well, I've been home for a week now from my trip to Harbin, still with a cold, and my mind whirring trying to compartmentalize all that I was lucky enough to see in the latter parts of my stay. During those days, I was fortunate enough to take in a few sights, particularly in the neighbouring city of ChangChun - a city most famous for its role in the Japanese invasion of NorthEast China, and its subsequent set up of the puppet nation of "Manchuria."
This includes the story of Puyi, or the last Chinese emperor, who was caught in the middle of everything,…
worldsfair | October 4, 2007Here is one of two cranes outside the Michael Smith Laboratories right now.
Apparently, there is a lot of jumping in the "Bionic Woman" television show. Anyway, they're also shooting in my lab right now, but I promised not to show pictures until the episode airs (in apparently 2 to 3 weeks).
But get this - each episode costs around $5 million dollars! Wow, talk about inequity. How many here can talk about being funded by even a science grant of that stature, and nevermind the math you can do with regards to the Millennium Development Goals.
Crazy. Just crazy.
worldsfair | September 28, 2007O.K. I have a few minutes to scribble some stuff here, so here goes.
I've had a chance to tour Harbin a little more the last little while, and the one thing I can state is that it is a seriously big city. I guess you get use to hearing about Shanghai and Beijing being the "big" cities, but Harbin is no walk over. According to my Lonely Planet guide, the population is about 3 million, but my guide is at least two years old, and the locals here have been telling me that its probably closer to 10 million.
This, I'll have to check when I get back to Canada, but 10 million! Holy shit - no…
bcohen | September 28, 2007Our local paper reported the sad, sad news that famed anti-global warming enthusiast and industry hack Patrick Michaels "quietly left his position over the summer" as the Virginia state climatologist. (With apologies for formatting -- the Sb folks haven't yet invented the mock font yet, so you can't tell the "sad, sad" was actually composed in that secret mock font.)
It isn't clear if the newspaper itself was using the mock font and I just couldn't tell, since of course Michaels was never actually Virginia's "state climatologist" so there was no such position from which to step down.
But…
worldsfair | September 21, 2007Well, I'm off to north China next week, although unlike Nigeria, it sounds like I'll be wired in and still able to contribute to the blog. Specifically, I'm heading to the Northeast Forestry University in Harbin to give a few talks on molecular genomics, particularly in terms of how it can be used as a tool in plant studies. This is actually quite timely in the blog fashion in that Ben recently took note of an article published by the Post on rural farming in China.
I have a couple colleagues at the Michael Smith Labs who are using such methodologies to see what type of plant defenses are…
worldsfair | September 13, 2007Lately, I've been thinking a lot about good old 0.7%. This is the hallmark figure suggested by Pearson as a target for foreign aid to developing nations. In other words, the main idea is that wealthy nations do something nice and set aside about 0.7% of the gross domestic product, so that the sorts of things that the UN Millennium Development Goals are focused on, can be proactively tackled.
Problem is, that not many countries actually do this, and this is why you have people like Bono and Bob Geldof all in an uproar, etc, etc, etc. For example, the United States puts aside approximately 0…
worldsfair | September 5, 2007Isn't this pretty?
O.K. so lately, I've been immersed in revamping a website for a pretty high profile interdisciplinary project at my institution. It's essentially related to all of those lectures I was playing around with (here, here, and here). In any event, all of this tweaking has led to (lo and behold) the website becoming what is essentially a blog...One of the things we found out, is that in the student circles (at least it would appear at UBC), we ultimately got the impression that very few students were into this blogging thing. This, I found pretty surprising - I mean, it was…
worldsfair | September 4, 2007So... the SCQ is back from its summer hiatus, and needs to get rid of a 30G 5th generation video iPod. Sort of like this one:
And it actually couldn't be easier to win. Here are the details:
After a much need hiatus over the summer, the SCQ is back for it's third volume. We thought we would begin by making a few announcements, tantamount to the giving away of free stuff. First on the agenda is a oh-so-pretty white 30G video iPod we still have in our possession. Essentially, when Mike won our last contest, he elected to choose the Amazon gift card option, leaving us with this fine piece of…
bcohen | August 27, 2007Part 1 | 2 | 3
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World's Fair note: This new author-meets-blogger series of posts was written by guest blogger and new father Jody Roberts, author of previous posts on endocrine disruption and organic farming research.
On behalf of The World's Fair, Roberts recently sat down with Elizabeth (Lizzie) Grossman, independent journalist, to talk about her book High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins, and Human Health.
High Tech Trash has been well reviewed and well received. All the while, as we were making reference to it in a post on "What We Waste," Grossman was contributing to…
worldsfair | August 15, 2007Part 1 | 2 | 3- - -A: University College hospital,Ibadan, B: Entrance to College of MedicineMonday morning, the first day of the workshop, and the adrenaline was already pumping. Today, we would have the opportunity to check out the facilities we had to work with, as well as meet our students for the first time. All of this, would be held within the College of Medicine, a teaching outcrop of the University of Ibadan, nestled within the grounds of the University College Hospital.
The hospital itself was an overwhelming structure, apparently one of the largest (though not the largest) on the…
worldsfair | August 8, 2007Part 1 | 2 | 3- - -From left to right: Nash, Michelle, David P., and meSad goodbyes notwithstanding, the trip first concerned itself with a 12,700km journey, from Vancouver to London, London to Lagos, and then from Lagos to Ibadan, our final destination. During this time (and we had about 20 hours of it), the traveling would be made easier with the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with each other - each other being the three members of the teaching team: myself, Michelle Brazas, and David Peterson.
Michelle, I knew already. She was a colleague from the British Columbia Institute of…
worldsfair | August 7, 2007So having just returned from a two week stint in Nigeria, I'm going to spend the next little while writing about the experience itself (I had planned to do this whilst there, but internet access was, at best, sporadic, and its speed could only be classed as heartbreaking . In any event, this series of posts will hopefully be (i) an eye opener, (ii) an invitation to be grateful for the way science is done around developed settings, and (iii) an information session for recruiting others who may be interested in such things. Hope you enjoy.- - -Part 1 | 2 | 3Pretty sure, scientific research is…
worldsfair | July 12, 2007
As mentioned earlier, I'll be heading off to Africa soon to do some experiments and teach a workshop. One of the more interesting challenges, we face from the get go, is how to deliver the reagents in a manner so that we can ensure their arrival, and also worry less about things like stability of the reagents themselves (i.e. can we keep the stuff cold, and how long will it take to get there).
It's funny, but most people who do this sort of thing simply tell me that the best way is to take it as one of your carry on luggage, and (I quote) "hope for the best." The reasons for this are…
worldsfair | July 11, 2007Continuing on from our previous lecture notes (the last being about historical awareness of "global" - i.e. characterization of the Earth from both a physical and place context), we have planned that Immediately after that lecture, Allen would next go over a "State of the World" type summary. A bit of a "we're all going to die" type of thing, which would nicely prelude 20 minutes of me talking about why we've kind of been there before.
In other words, there have been many instances in the past, where events (often tied into the amalgamation of the humanities and sciences) have essentially…
worldsfair | July 10, 2007
Just to say that in about two weeks, I'll be heading off to Ibadan in Nigeria to hold a genetics laboratory workshop. I've done this sort of thing before, and have been involved in some form or manner with the program for the last couple years. It's a good way to shake the psyche up a bit. Certainly makes me stop whining about things here in the "luxurious" parts of the world.
Anyway, if posting is spotty over the next four weeks, this is why. Setting this kind of thing up is problematic at the best of times, so things are always a little antsy leading to the workshop. I will be…
worldsfair | July 6, 2007Ooh. Another slide show. And one that tracks instances in history where humanity notices, "You know, the "stuff" all around, and the "where" we happen to be."
As set up by this previous post, and produced by the grace of Apple's Keynote software. Would love to get some feedback.
(Note this file is about 3M in size. Getting past the first Pythagoras slide may take a while, whilst an animated gif is being loaded up)There was lots I could have put into this part of the lecture, and I found a new book called "The Illustrated Timeline of Science" especially helpful here. In any event, here…