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:
November 30, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
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...
Posted by David Ng at 10:19 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 29, 2006
Category: NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
"Scientists say the global energy crisis can be solved by using the desert sun"
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 5:08 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Book Building
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...
Posted by David Ng at 2:42 PM • 55 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 28, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
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...
Posted by David Ng at 1:41 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Nature on the Web, How Bizarre
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...
Posted by David Ng at 12:50 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Website Building
I've been conferring with the Uncyclopedia recently. Legitimate knowledge, all, it being on the web. What is it? "The Uncyclopedia is the greatest achievement of mankind at the height of his splendor." Here's what I found, a propos to Scienceblogs:...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 12:00 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
(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...
Posted by David Ng at 11:39 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 22, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
"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...
Posted by David Ng at 1:56 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: The Film Building
Some stuff on the esteemed Robert Altman, who died on Monday at 81. And let's call it culture, not chatter. (Even though it isn't a war, per the Sb super category title).
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 10:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 21, 2006
Category: Advisory Board Room
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...
Posted by David Ng at 11:29 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 20, 2006
Category: The Book Building
Yesterday, I was playing with my kids and having fun with the Find Lowly Worm game that seems to be a rite of passage when looking through a Richard Scarry picture book. Anyway, in our edition of "What Do People...
Posted by David Ng at 2:52 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
"The Key to Modern Life is Strategic Ignorance." That's a quote from Joel Achenbach's story, "Another Way," in the Washington Post this weekend about an off-the-grid eco-settlement in North Carolina. (Some good pictures here.) He writes about Earthaven, an eco-village,...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:27 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 16, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
A slide show about a book about things decaying or already decayed...("Boston artist Rosamond Purcell repurposes the old, the burnt, and the mangled.")
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 1:42 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die
A story in the Post yesterday, "Think Tank Will Promote Thinking: Advocates Want Science, Not Faith, at Core of Public Policy," begins this way: Concerned that the voice of science and secularism is growing ever fainter in the White House,...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:19 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 15, 2006
Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Image resulting from tree "painting" by Douglas-fir for two minutes Nalini Nadkarni, a tree canopy researcher and a National Geographic regular, was kind enough to let me publish this interest piece that looks at the intersection of science and...
Posted by David Ng at 12:33 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
Here is some silliness to get back in the swing of things. Composed whilst waiting for Ben (Cohen) at the Vancouver Airport, recently rejected by McSweeney's, and likely to make an appearance at one of my sites in the not...
Posted by David Ng at 11:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 14, 2006
Category: Nuclear Energy
We end up examining political, cultural, economic, moral, environmental, and technical factors of nuclear energy in some of my courses here in the Engineering School. In the process of reviewing some older material, I once again came upon this wonderful...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 1:02 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 13, 2006
Category: Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
One of my favorite recent sub-features at McSweeney's is Lawrence Weschler's Convergences Contest. I am stunned yet again with today's artful entry (#28), sent to L.W. by Walter Murch: [caption from the site: "Logging trees in a Swedish forest, as...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 11:40 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 10, 2006
Category: Video links (archive.org samples, for example; Youtube.com; others...)
A video of the 8 November 2006 Transit across the sun.
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 1:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
(Image from herbalgram.org) This past week and a bit have been chaos central with a number of things going on round my neck of the woods. Some of which are your usual academic doledrums, but some of which were...
Posted by David Ng at 1:10 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 9, 2006
Category: Gift Shop & Haberdashery
Ah, how exciting it is for Democrats. So much so that they forgive and/or forget moral lapses elsewhere, such as that old Virginia trick of state-sponsored discrimination. To avoid such easy ignorance, The World's Fair's Gift Shop and Haberdashery proudly...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:19 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Gift Shop & Haberdashery
As introduced here a month or two ago, Mountain Man Dance Moves is making the rounds, picking up the press, impressing the ladies. The McSweeney's Book of Lists was released in September, with a steady rise in Amazon ranking since...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 8:28 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 3, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
So, things have been pretty busy round here, as among other things, I've been getting things ready for a visit to UBC by Wade Davis, which sort of explains my general absence from this blog (thanks Ben, for picking up...
Posted by David Ng at 3:23 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 1, 2006
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
The system has failed. My point is that the system, as we have constructed it, is a failed one. All kids choose "treat." None choose "trick." Not one. It is time to change course. It is time to cut and...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:19 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Knoxville '82: Where Miscellany Thrive
The derivation and dissemination of a basic candy taxonomy...
Posted by Benjamin Cohen at 9:12 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
