worldsfair

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March 4, 2009
Yes, it has been tough going of late, but things are looking up, so says Onion writer Peter Waldron. Check out: "LEAKED DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR MEMO THAT REMOVES AMERICAN SCIENTIST FROM ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST" at the Science Creative Quarterly. (I especially like the breeding bit)
March 3, 2009
I was just reading a short article today in the economist which listed the amount of water needed to produce a few common beverages. The stats are actually something else. In particular, a single cup litre of coffee requires 1120 litres of water (this is the same volume of water as a 104cm x…
February 25, 2009
Hat tip to Dave at Terry.
February 12, 2009
A few months back I had a chance to be involved with Dawkins' visit to Vancouver, and here we had a chance to record his speech. Not a bad way to spend an hour on this particular day. Actually, Richard's presentation is very good (quite humourous at times) and definitely worth checking out.…
February 12, 2009
I've got a humour piece at McSweeney's today in celebration of Darwin's 200th. Here's a snippet: Joins the Ice Capades: Darwin is hired for small part in a Lion King-themed ice show. Takes skating lessons and practices hard. Soon nails both the triple axel and the triple lutz. Is fired from the…
February 11, 2009
(Given it being a big week for Darwin and all, I thought it would be kind of cool to repost this post from 07) Not counting Shouts and Murmurs email queries, I've sent pieces to the New Yorker proper on three occasions, the last of which just a few months ago. What I've noticed is that there is a…
February 7, 2009
(Earlier the video had server issues, so just reposting - this video is really worth checking out) If you haven't heard of the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (or UAEM), then put it on your to do list right now. Better yet, sit yourself down and watch Mike Gretes in this video for 20…
February 3, 2009
If you recall, a while back we held a TED talk like event but with students front and centre. We called it Terry talks in concert with another project I'm involved with at UBC. In any event, all the student talks are now available for viewing (a la me figuring out how to use Final Cut). Click…
February 3, 2009
Just finished producing the last of the Terry talks videos, and will hopefully have all 9 up by the end of today. Having the chance to view all of them lately has really hit home for me that there are some amazing students out there. Anyway, kind of reminded me of this poem by Mary Oliver: SONG OF…
January 16, 2009
Beautifully done. I wish I could prepare lectures like this...
January 16, 2009
Just curious - the other day I gave a talk on the scientific method, and I was going over some of the icons that shaped the principles behind how science is done (like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and good old Karl Popper). I actually tried to paint a bit of a picture by imagining going for drinks…
January 12, 2009
Here's a slide I recently made in a lecture on the scientific method, to illustrate how easy it is to produce very different hypotheses for a particular observation. Basically, the backdrop was to consider a scenario where environmentalists had noticed a significant drop in stork population,…
January 8, 2009
For those of you at this year's Terry talks, you'll obviously be aware of our little YouTube experiment. In any event, I present to you the fruit of that labour below. If you weren't at the conference, here is the gist: audience members were ask to participate by brainstorming, pitching,…
December 25, 2008
Yes indeedy - the answer is... "The Tempest!" Which is to say, you pretty much got it from the last few PF3 related posts. But here's the full lowdown on how the images were initially chosen. Clue #1: (strange orbital looking thing). This is actually an image I found from a physicist/artist…
December 4, 2008
Or can I just call it BFAC2008? Anyway, for those of you who have an annual tradition of putting together a gingerbread house, why not do it this year with a sustainability twist? That's right! Bake for a Change is a contest where you, as the submission details say, apply sustainable building…
December 4, 2008
Being in New York and all this weekend... I'm curious to see if there are any New Yorkers keen on a Science Scout get together (maybe even use this as a potential start to another local group similar to the one in Vancouver?). All in the name of science communication of course, although usually, it…
November 27, 2008
This lovely piece has been circulating of late, but Sonke has been kind enough to allow the SCQ to present his "Advice for Potential Graduate Students" as a handy dandy pin-up, suitable for pinning up in some visible area of your lab. Anyway, worth a read - as a previous grad student, and now…
November 25, 2008
Or was it something piloted by little hairless men, with slits for mouths? Good thing it didn't hit the tar sands, or else I presume we would have seen something even more spectacular.
November 25, 2008
This past Saturday we held our Terry talks student conference, where we had 9 student speakers "give the talk of their lives." It was fun all around, with a few kinks to work on for next year, but I think we've got a good thing going. In any event, because we had been in discussions with folks at…
November 18, 2008
Recently, we had an opportunity to host a variety of great talks for science teachers. One of the talks was by Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi, with an entertaining take on the value of integrating disciplines, or rather simply getting away from being so discipline focused. Anyway, here is the link that…
November 13, 2008
If you take a gander at our "Terrytalks" speaker promo video, you'll note that one of the sillier requests we had for our student speakers was to pick a song that would work if Terry talks were to have a soundtrack. If you remember, Terry talks has a fairly straight up mandate to connect students…
November 12, 2008
Not sure if you remember a previous mention on this, but I'm one of the folks involved in a new student conference initiative at UBC. Christianed "Terrytalks", this is basically a clone of the TED talks, where we'll offer the chance for students to share their globally relevant passions and…
November 12, 2008
(Previously: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4) O.K. o.k. so I've been ultra delinquent with keeping on top of the PF3 puzzle, and for that I heartily apologize. But here we go - the proverbial home stretch. As it stands what did happen was that somewhere in the conversation, in the comments, in the hypothesizing,…
October 31, 2008
Recently, we had an opportunity to host a variety of great talks for science teachers. One of the talks was by Dr. William Rees. It was a nice little introduction into the conundrum of our reliance on "progress" to fix things. In any event, here is the link that will lead you to a 25 minute…
October 28, 2008
So, this is one of the things that has been keeping me busy the last couple of weeks. Essentially, the lab hosted a largish conference for high school science teachers (about 95 registrants) - as well, we took the tact of blogging the conference so that almost all of the content is already up (by…
October 17, 2008
... ... is coming next week. - - - Previously
October 10, 2008
I tell you - first we have a great video from Beck on sustainability, and now he goes and uses the word genome in a new B-side. The word genome - a rare word, indeed, when you look on the song lyric sites. Anyway, since the song is new, you can't really find a YouTube video or free streaming…
October 7, 2008
I've got a pin-up published at the Science Creative Quarterly today (you can download the pdf at the link). At its heart, this flowchart is really a comparison of the carbon tax, cap and trade, and the Conservative's somewhat disappointing Clean Air Act (or now the equally weak "Turning the Corner…
October 3, 2008
Although Jennifer and I had our 1,000,000th comment party a few weeks back, I only just had an opportunity to get the video footage on to YouTube. It was funny, but the "having to video" bit was a little surprising, and of course, us Canadians can be a shy group by default. Anyway, we had a decent…
October 3, 2008
700,000,000,000 - approximate number of US dollars proposed in the bail out bill (link). 0.7 - percentage of GDP agreed upon in 1970 to be set aside for foreign aid. Often sited as an appropriate funding goal to help meet the UN's Millenium Development Goals. (link) 0.16: actual GDP percentage of…