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:
September 29, 2006
Category: Nuclear Energy
Here's Jeremy Rifkin in the LA Times on why we should pursue a range of decentralized energy technologies -- solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass, for example -- and not the nuclear that's become in vogue of late. (For the...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 1:02 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: About writing generally
(The Science Creative Quarterly is a science writing webzine I run at UBC) PDF | JPG The Science Creative Quarterly seeks science humour pieces for entry into our awesome new contest. Judging will be based on a number of criteria...
Posted by David Ng at 11:53 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: About writing generally
(terry.ubc.ca is a webzine on global issues that I coordinate at UBC) TERRY'S WRITING CHALLENGE There once was a website named Terry1 That wanted to make people wary Of things going on In the world that are wrong Without making...
Posted by David Ng at 11:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Gift Shop & Haberdashery
If so, please say "hello." And just to make it a bit more interesting, I'll treat the first five commenters currently at UBC to a cup of coffee. Those on board first can then give me an email at tscq@interchange.ubc.ca....
Posted by David Ng at 11:29 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 28, 2006
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
(Hello folks from Kottke.org, just a note that it just so happens that today is contest day at the World's Fair - check out our front page, where the last few or so entries contain details of contests concerning coffee,...
Posted by David Ng at 1:12 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It's the Ecological Footprint Quiz. Yeah! If you've never taken it, give it a whirl. About a 3 minute process. My test results: If everyone lived like me, we would need 3.7 earths to get by. Some background on Ecological...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 7:00 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 27, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
This groundbreaking report--"Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center offers new treatment for lameness"-- just out, is riveting. And I think this says it all: "Lameness is a condition that affects many [people] and this therapy is a very promising alternative...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 11:59 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
First, a quote, then (below the fold) the book I found it in (and, incidentally, the post title about infinite variability, is taken from the book, below): W.H. Auden: "The historical world is a horrid place where, instead of nice...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:33 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 26, 2006
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
The diagnosis we would all shudder to get. The below image is actually a joke (reprinted from an issue of Esquire in July of 2000)...
Posted by David Ng at 11:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 25, 2006
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
However, unlike the MRI (which had strong personal significance), this time the sequencing data, hung by the lamp to the right, is of nothing in particular. Thanks everyone for the comments - it was interesting and also valuable. Nice...
Posted by David Ng at 8:24 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 24, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Always so worried about public relevance this, public relevance that, why not cherish the pointless? Why not celebrate the wasted funds, effort, and resources? Let's do so, with the Most Scientific-Buzz-Marketing-Synergy-Tacular Nanotech Patent of the Month (MSBMSTNPM)! Now...deep breath...a collective...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 7:48 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
Or, Has anyone heard of The Onion? Of course you haven't. Dave and I are the only ones who know about it. (What an oddly reminiscent introductory trope?) Dave has a mandate that we meet a quota of Onion references....
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 4:39 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 22, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Currently in the ScienceBlog forums (as well as in posts such as this), and under a variety of such non-descript titles as "The Search-Spammer has been Banned..." there is much discussion about music, good and bad, and how life is...
Posted by David Ng at 2:10 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
(From McSweeney's) WEB SPITE By Jim Stallard Sadie, Sorry about my little lie in the subject line. No, this isn't an e-mail from your mom, but it's the only way I could get you to open this. You ignore my...
Posted by David Ng at 8:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 21, 2006
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
...Which is a bit warped, because Muammar Gaddafi is resorting to the opinions of his own Libyan scientists, as oppose to the data presented by scientists from the Pasteur Institute and Tor Vergata University. This particular perspective might not sound...
Posted by David Ng at 1:56 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Video links (archive.org samples, for example; Youtube.com; others...)
Here is an example where an artist, perhaps unknowingly even, is consuming less. A short animated movie, using only the reused, recycled, or (at the very least) the very old, that shows how aesthetics can be achieved through any means....
Posted by David Ng at 8:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
This figure was published a while back in Science, so it must be real....
Posted by David Ng at 8:25 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 20, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Although I recently had a piece on the art of vanity searching of the motif DAVIDNG, here is an interesting art project that revolved around "Davids" in general. (From Geist)...
Posted by David Ng at 1:47 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
So, for the last couple of days, I've been feeling a little unsettled. Here's the backdrop, but I'm also interested on what folks think, if they care to comment....
Posted by David Ng at 1:23 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 19, 2006
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
I just thought this was an amusing liner note for the above song. "The melody for 'Black Seam' has lain among my mental notes for perhaps ten years, could never finish it, or find a suitable lyric until the miners'...
Posted by David Ng at 3:22 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
This article by David Ewing Duncan, "The Pollution Within," is in the new issue of National Geographic. (He was also on NPR this morning.) So, while we're on the subject of consumption her at The World's Fair, I think we...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 11:56 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
There is, it appears, a nice discussion going on over at a post that Ben recently put up regarding the use of nuclear energy. And quite a few of the commentary take a stance that the ideal for citizens...
Posted by David Ng at 11:43 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 18, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Janet has finally put up the results for the nerd-off here, and I have to say that I feel like it was a fair and heated battle. Some folks have mentioned that I was a better contender for winning a...
Posted by David Ng at 1:42 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
So it turned out that my back to school crunch was even crunchier than expected, no doubt brought upon by the fact that my daughter had just started Kindergarten (talk about the sense of relativity and time flying), and the...
Posted by David Ng at 1:17 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Links to Other Conversations and Articles
Can you take shelter in the ridiculous if everywhere becomes ridiculous?
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 15, 2006
Category: Nuclear Energy
Global warming is bad; so is deteriorating environmental health. Forsaking the latter by introducing nuclear power in efforts to counteract the former is irresponsible.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 10:00 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 14, 2006
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
The 13 Sept "Ask a Scienceblogger" query is: When I think about global warming, I feel completely powerless. Is there any meaningful action I can take to help?... The answer is yes: consume less. In individual acts, on a daily...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:58 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 13, 2006
Category: Gift Shop & Haberdashery
A smashing product plug -- this is Mountain Man Dance Moves, the McSweeney's Book of Lists. "SIGNS YOUR UNICORN IS CHEATING ON YOU" and "THINGS KOALA BEARS WOULD SAY" below the fold. (By the way, bad news on a prior...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 5:23 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 12, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Well Janet has decreed a nerd-off, and I think I'm game to compete (albeit a little late). The truth is, is that I am a nerd at so many levels, whether this gauged by my application to the Super Friends,...
Posted by David Ng at 8:50 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 8, 2006
Category: Links to interesting sites and discussion of them
But most of it isn't. You've eatin it, this food they speak of, good or bad or middling. I bet. No no, think again. I'm sure of it. I think later today I'll do it again. Mmmm, foody. I'll be...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:55 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: About writing generally
To start off the sophomore year of the SCQ, I published a piece that I had sitting around for the last year or two. Basically, it's a creative non-fiction piece that looks at the sorts of things one can fear...
Posted by David Ng at 8:24 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 7, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
I have to say that I was seriously upset by hearing that Steve Irwin was killed recently, and by a Stingray barb no less. It's kind of strange actually, because I was just about to submit a humour piece to...
Posted by David Ng at 8:00 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 5, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
Here it is: (Download pdf) (View high resolution JPEG)...
Posted by David Ng at 8:00 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 1, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Somehow I thought the quote below might go with the "Letter to the Dead" poem I posted yesterday. So I will offer in in the same vein of not-too-much-pre-commentary. It's just a quote. But it does a few things: Ties...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 1:12 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
