bcohen
Posts by this author
November 5, 2007
Part 1 (below) | 2 | 3
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The World's Fair sits down with Aaron Sachs, author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism (Viking Press, 2006), Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Cornell University, and environmental…
October 29, 2007
The data presented below were first published after Halloween in 2006, here at The World's Fair. We were fortunate after that publication to receive further (non-anonymous) peer review and thus we re-present below the hierarchy with amendments and adjustments, but no retractions, this time just…
October 24, 2007
Perhaps better titled, "Of these, I am frustrated":
1. That Seed continues to give Dow Chemical a platform to spend their marketing dollars.
2. That the School of Engineering in which I teach is using it's funds to sponsor a talk by the American Petroleum Institute--they, a pro-industry group who…
October 5, 2007
We at The World's Fair are proud to bring on the Grand Hotel Regina as our alternative sponsor for the month. It isn't just that we see a natural fit between the two of us -- they, in complete harmony with majestic Eiger and Jungfrau vistas; we, in complete unanimity with our distaste for the…
October 1, 2007
Barbara Kingsolver contributed an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday about dirty work. She argues there, as she does in her other writings and as scores of other agrarian-minded thinkers and practitioners have argued, that personal and civic virtue can be found from getting your hands dirty,…
September 28, 2007
Our 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…
September 14, 2007
This post was written by guest blogger Wyatt Galusky.*
Epilogue: Further Hauntings
To prove that, in some very profound way, I remain myself haunted by the thoughts I engaged here earlier -- on mystery, monsters, and ghosts -- I thought it prudent (somehow) to offer an epilogue. This comes in the…
September 12, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3---
Part III, our final installment with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series can be found here.
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WF: I cut you off at the end of the last Part. Here, I'll let you continue with the connection…
September 11, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3
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"Dendrogram showing 18 tumors from BRCA1 mutation carriers (black branches) and two tumors from BRCA2 mutation carriers (yellow branches)" (source).
Part II with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-bloggers…
September 10, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3
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The World's Fair sits down with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press, 2007), Assistant Professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and Co-Director of the Science…
September 7, 2007
While doing some background research on democracy, science, and environmental policy, I found myself reviewing some of the thousands of public comments offered for the 2007 Farm Bill we've referenced at this site several times (here's one, on science). Interesting Stuff.
Farm Bill legislation has…
August 29, 2007
This post was written by guest blogger Wyatt Galusky.*
It is in homage to David Ng's Police post of yore that I invoke this album cover to inaugurate the final installment of this three-part post on mystery, the unknown, and the remainder, all loosely filtered through quotes by Theodor Adorno…
August 29, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3
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Part III, our final installment with Lizzie Grossman, author of High Tech Trash, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series can be found here.
WF: Speaking of China, Environmental Science and Technology has been reporting a lot lately about the effects the…
August 28, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3
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Part II with Lizzie Grossman, author of High Tech Trash, follows below. All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series can be found here.
WF: At least once a month, someone's invoking Thomas Friedman to say new information technologies have made the world 'flat' and national…
August 27, 2007
It's Franz-Xaver Messerschmidt's The Yawner (model), circa 1778-1783
Did it make you yawn?
We'll take a tally.
August 27, 2007
Part 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 (…
August 24, 2007
I'm not one to publish new empirical research at a blog, but this is a good chance to do so.
As it happens, whilst scrambling to put together syllabi for the new semester, one finds the need to take a break at some point during the week. I thought an investigation into the frequent query, "Why…
August 22, 2007
*This post was also written by intern Kate Lee. See Part I here.
When it comes to practicing what I preach, there is room for a lot of improvement. I am limited by where I live, my current budget, my knowledge, and my bad habits, and I act in a way that goes against my ideals more often than I'd…
August 21, 2007
*This post was written by intern Kate Lee.
There's been a lot of discussion around the World's Fair lately about food (Food Miles, Chinese Agriculture, Science and the Farm Bill, Subsidies and the Small Farm). Up until about a month ago, I was employed by the food industry, and that position…
August 20, 2007
Yes, it's a Kaspar Schott, you're right. Vintage 1664. And just how would you determine the depth of well?
We're pleased to announce that this week's alternative sponsor for The World's Fair is none other than "How to Determine Depth of a Well." It's from Joco-Seriorum Naturae et Artis, by…
August 15, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3- - -
Part III with David Hess, author of Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry, follows below.
All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series are here.
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TWF: You think all these farmers markets will really do anything? Or do they just make for a more fun middle class…
August 14, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3- - -
Part II with David Hess, author of Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry, follows below.
All entries in the author-meets-bloggers series can be found here.
TWF: What specific areas do you examine in the book?
DH: I look at science and industry in five main fields,…
August 13, 2007
Part 1 | 2 | 3- - -
The World's Fair sits down with David Hess, author of Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalization (MIT Press, 2007) and Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at…
August 12, 2007
For those who forgot, we began seeking alternative sponsorship at this site in the face of unstable valence properties in Dow Chemical's "Human Element." Last week, we read "Documents show that Dow Chemical has been pressing India to disassociate the firm from the 1984 tragedy," in Chemical and…
August 10, 2007
Herein, discussion of another recent piece on agriculture and science - the third one, as foreshadowed in my last post - this one an editorial in the Times that touches on Food Miles. (Thanks to Laura for sending it along.) Food Miles are the distance food travels to get to your plate. The author…
August 10, 2007
This post was written by guest blogger Wyatt Galusky.*
So, this blog entry represents, I am beginning to figure, the second of what I envision to be three interrelated posts, loosely grouped around quotes from Theodor Adorno. The first dealt with remainders and what we should do about an…
August 9, 2007
In our post on Science and the Farm Bill, we might've noted more clearly that such a topic was worth a near-daily accounting. We might, or could, in another incarnation, devote the entire World's Fair to just that topic. Just this week, three stories related to agriculture and science came across…
August 9, 2007
Another post related to the Science and the Farm Bill one.
Image courtesy of Appalachian Sustainable Development (here)
Subsidies come in for a lot of debate. No controversy in saying that -- right wing, left-wing, top-wing, no wing. The controversy is about what the subsidies are for, who pays…
August 8, 2007
"You put up a candidate and then try to tear it down. And, if you can't tear it down, it's probably bona fide. That's how we do science."
--Ian Lipkin, Columbia University (as quoted in E. Kolbert (6 Aug 07) "Stung," The New Yorker, p. 58)
Bees are dying off to an unusual degree. Although one…
August 7, 2007
This week's alternative sponsor for the blog. Inquire within.
Embarrassingly, Dow Chemical is still populating the scienceblogs webspace with it's P.R., and, regrettably, we here at The World's Fair have been lax to seek alternative sponsorship over the summer. But fear no more the carcinogens…