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:
June 30, 2006
Category: About writing generally
O.K. it looks like I'm going to use this site as a repository of my various science writings. In truth, I still consider myself a bit of a neophyte in this matter, but nevertheless, I've been lucky enough to publish...
Posted by David Ng at 8:34 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 29, 2006
Category: The Book Building
Since thursday is no longer must see TV, here is a round up of some interesting pieces that relate (although sometimes weakly) to the sciences....
Posted by David Ng at 10:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
A few days ago, Ben put up an interesting article about Natalie Jeremijenko, regarding artistry as it relates to various scientific nuances - an essay that showed one of many many cracks in the "Two Culture" ideals that sprang...
Posted by David Ng at 8:40 AM • 3 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
June 28, 2006
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
Yesterday, Ghana, the last remaining African team in contention, was eliminated from the World Cup. This was after a entertaining match against the heavy favourites Brazil, that ended predictably where Brazil powered over with a 3-0 victory. This followed the...
Posted by David Ng at 8:47 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 27, 2006
Category: About writing generally
(Actually posted this a little earlier, but we're learning the ins and outs of blogging, choosing categories etc). This is in regards to the Nude Mouse piece, shown earlier today......
Posted by David Ng at 10:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
Janet, as seems to be the norm, has another interesting thread going on at Adventures in Science and Ethics, about searching for biological bases for homosexuality. I did an interview for The Believer recently with a historian and philosopher of...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:01 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
This is a tell-all from one of the mice in the trenches. It in fact stands as a historical document, the first published piece co-written by Ng and Cohen (back in the Spring). And it's a pin-up, for your own...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 12:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 26, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Our unpaid interns have alerted us of our less than enthusiastic showing at the Scienceblogger's DonorsChoose challenge. For those, who missed the first announcement, we had offer guaranteed publication of a Haiku of your writing at the Science Creative Quarterly,...
Posted by David Ng at 9:53 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Previously... (Image via Jay Pinkerton) "My question to the audience: what kind of scientist is Batman?" (Ben Cohen) Scienceblogger responses below:...
Posted by David Ng at 8:49 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 24, 2006
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
Maybe this will also help with this week's "Ask a Sciencebloggers question." Most institutions will likely ask for a teaching philosophy, especially when an academic is up for tenure promotion. Although mine was written in 2003, and my interests have...
Posted by David Ng at 11:29 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
People often ask me what it is exactly I do, and in technical terms, I have a somewhat unque Faculty position at the University of British Columbia, with no clear Department that I can call my home. This means that...
Posted by David Ng at 8:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 23, 2006
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
I posted a reply to a reply over at Janet's Adventures in Ethics and Science, but it had typos and I guess I'm supposed to traffic these things back to the home base here anyway. So, here's the non-typoed version...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 4:03 PM • 0 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
If ever there was an art-science piece on the web, this would be it: environmental angle, artistic production, scientific context, you get it all. This is, courtesy of our friend Cletus, a piece at Salon about "Activist, environmentalist and former...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 11:29 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
Posted by David Ng at 9:18 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 22, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Last Friday, I had a photo shoot in my lab, where a firm called Corbis spent the day taking a variety of stock "sciency" photos. It was quite the machine in place, with a crew of about half a dozen,...
Posted by David Ng at 8:59 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 21, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Obviously any course that addresses issues of science, technology, and society uses the 4th Season Simpsons masterpiece, Marge v. the Monorail (unfortunately, this episode capsule doesn't have the full transcript). It is hallowed as a pitch perfect take on the...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 7:00 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 20, 2006
Category: Nature, as in parts, bits, molecular and stuff
In one of my talks, I sometimes put up an ad which suggests that one day, there will be the astrological-type divination of fate via genetics - instead of a horoscope, a geneticscope if you will. The ad reads: But...
Posted by David Ng at 8:14 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 19, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Re: Blogging is for Chumps, first off. This is a call for outstanding candidates to apply for two intern positions within the context of producing relevant material for The World's Fair. The successful applicant is expected to work in areas...
Posted by David Ng at 2:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 18, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
We don't deign to actually do it. We're all about Unpaid Interns. They just looked up "deign" for us, in case you were wondering. The system works. This, we say, because Sciencebloggers have been asked: How is it that all...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:20 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 16, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
As a Director of a science teaching facility, who sees maybe close to 2000 high schoolers in my lab each year, I'm hoping we can have a good showing in this great DonorsChoose challenge that Janet set up. There's certainly...
Posted by David Ng at 1:56 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: About writing generally
(This is an old slide I used for one of my genetics classes - the general idea about what Grimace is exactly was pilfered from a graphic design school advertisement I saw where several presumably student's works were showcased....
Posted by David Ng at 10:52 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 15, 2006
Category: The Film Building
Hello, those of you from boingboing.net. Please take a moment to peruse the site. In a nutshell, this is a site that is all about looking at things from both the humanist and scientific perspectives. The World's Fair is run...
Posted by David Ng at 12:26 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
This is what happens when an individual is comfortable with the sciences... Einstein's EEG The World's Fair, in collaboration, with the Science Creative Quarterly is pleased to participate in The ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose raise-money-to-help-science-classrooms-a-thon!. In our case, donations $10 and above via...
Posted by David Ng at 9:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 14, 2006
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
Oh dear, there is certainly a lot of discussion over Ann Coulter's new book - in particular, her breathtaking views on evolutionary theory. Hmmm, when I wrote Chapter Titles From My Creationist Textbook, I had no idea that it already...
Posted by David Ng at 6:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
There's a new Annals of Science at McSweeneys, which is actually about technology -- internets, trains -- and as such as much about history and philosophy of science and technology as just science straight-up. Although, I'm of the mind that...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 1:27 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: About writing generally
Because I am lucky enough to be in a position where my living is not dependant on writing, I've always taken the attitude of aiming high since the worst that can happen is that you get rejected from a place...
Posted by David Ng at 9:44 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 13, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
What we have here is success, to communicate. Dave and I want to map out the site, and use a map to do it, and so a map it is. It's not just a metaphor, people. It's also an image....
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 2:08 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Phillippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince, Wilma, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, Gamma, Zeta... Not exactly the makings of another Children's Alphabet Picture Book. Rather, these are...
Posted by David Ng at 12:58 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Last semester I was fortunate enough to be involved with a UBC project (called Terry) that looks at global issues from a multidisciplinary angle. One of the things in my charge was arranging a kind of high profile speaker series,...
Posted by David Ng at 9:58 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 12, 2006
Category: The Book Building
I thought it would be kind of interesting to try and showcase a few links from the types of journals and publications that take less than academic stabs at science writing. It's the sort of stuff that interests me to...
Posted by David Ng at 12:58 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?" Hands down, I'd want to explore whatever science the women Thomas Dolby was talking about...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 10:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?" Well, being a molecular biologist with a pretty tight feed into the proteomics and genomics...
Posted by David Ng at 9:30 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
continued from part II | from the beginning DN: ... or how's about Jake and Elwood? (maybe, we should get Fedoras after all). You know, we do both dabble in the science writing game. BRC: This is true, though there...
Posted by David Ng at 6:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 10, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
continued from part I BRC: I saw a guy wearing a fedora the other day. I think he was serious. Anyway, I'm a conflicted soul always, almost by design, I'm starting to think. But not in a bad way. Which...
Posted by David Ng at 6:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 9, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
DN: Hey, my name is Dave Ng. BRC: I'm Benjamin Cohen. Dave, what's your story? You're Canadian right? So that's this whole other thing, I take it. DN: Yes, I am Canadian, living in Vancouver actually and based at the...
Posted by David Ng at 12:45 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 7, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
(via Edward R. Tufte's "Envisioning Information")...
Posted by David Ng at 1:44 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 6, 2006
Category: About writing generally
Here is a selection of my writings on-line, many, but not all, of which are about science and technology - Ben...
Posted by David Ng at 1:22 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: About writing generally
Here is a selection of some of the writing I've done - Dave....
Posted by David Ng at 12:11 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
