worldsfair

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August 6, 2008
Aren't these kind of pretty? I have this nasty habit of owning several coffee mugs, and not cleaning them out after using them. So what inevitably happens is that I always have a mini microbial experiment in my office. Here are three examples, three different coffee cups (just so you have a…
August 5, 2008
Another score at TED talks. "Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes."
August 5, 2008
Yesterday, Ben threw out the following question: What does a scientist actually think the history of science offers? To be frank, I don't think it's necessarily a tough question to answer, but I do think that my answer, and other answers presented will be a challenge to enact in the real life…
August 1, 2008
The other day I was having a conversation with a number of scientist types, and specifically the topic of movies like Sizzle or Expelled came up. This, of course, led to the whole "framing" thing, which to be frank is a little confusing to me generally. It was here, that one of my colleagues…
July 31, 2008
This is great. And this is also an image that seems appropriate when choosing to speak about water as a resource generally - it might, for instance, be a good prelude to discussions like this. Anyway, I'm generally pretty enamored with Satoshi Kitamura's work and I've spoken about him before.…
July 30, 2008
This got published a while back in the Walrus, but I just noticed that it's also now freely available online. 0.7%, in case, you're not aware is the hallmark figure suggested by Pearson as a target for foreign aid to developing nations. Anyway, hope you enjoy. My favourite line, by the way, is…
July 30, 2008
The response for the "Things to avoid at all cost when speaking publicly" post was awesome, and so, I've tried to formalize the suggestions into a fairly definitive list. The ones that didn't make it tended to be more debatable, although admittedly, there are few in the list right now that sort of…
July 28, 2008
As plans for our student speaker conference are ramping up, we've been talking about ways to recruit excellent speakers to the project (this is where we're trying to host a university centric TED talks sort of thing). One idea, was to make some kind of video public service announcement that would…
July 23, 2008
Just a quick note. Although it's been a while, a few of us are meeting for drinks on Friday night (July 25th) at The Revel Room in Gastown, Vancouver (8pm on). It just so happens that it's about the 500th Day Anniversary of the Science Scouts. What's this? Well, it's this. Think: science…
July 22, 2008
July 22, 2008
I recently had a chance to catch the movie WALL-E, and I must say, it's very good. Still, I couldn't quite shake the irony of a show with (I thought) a fairly implicit environmental message that also happens to have logos and pics emblazon on all sorts of wasteful possibly disposable ware (like…
July 21, 2008
It's been a while since I've enjoyed a book this much. That's all.
July 21, 2008
As of 2007, residents of Vancouver, on average used 295 litres of water per day (Per capita water consumption number is 542 litres per day factoring in non-residential water use). (link) After reading the above article, I did a bit of number crunching. The contrast in water consumption, say.…
July 18, 2008
The SCQ children's book contest is back again. link We have been neglectful for the last 5 months, but here we are back again. Once again, the SCQ is seeking general submissions, where any submission that makes its way to our pages is a contender, The one that we receive before the end of…
July 14, 2008
A few days ago, I had a chance (with other ScienceBloggers) to check out Randy Olson's new flick, Sizzle. Now let me first start by saying that I'm hardly a movie aficionado - my favourite movie is still Star Wars, and to be honest the last few movies I saw before this one were Camp Rock, Alvin…
July 9, 2008
Isn't this picture great? This is from a book called Rotten Island, which was written and drawn by William Steig (best known for his books, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, as well as Shrek). Anyway, Rotten Island chronicles a place that begs: What would happen if every creature on land and sea…
July 9, 2008
July 8, 2008
I doodle a bit, and sometimes, it has this Breakfast of Champions look to it - which to be frank is deliberate, since I think it's a great visual style, especially for the purpose of teaching. Anyway, since, I'm playing around with my relatively new flickr account (mainly set up so that I can…
July 2, 2008
This is silly is so many ways. Hat tip to the filter.
July 2, 2008
To offset flights out of North America in 2007, you'd need to plant a forest the size of Oregon. In this summer's issue of the Walrus, there's a great piece by UBC'er, David Beers, called "Grounded" which imagines circumstances leading to a world where flying is essentially ground to a halt. It's…
June 30, 2008
This cracks me up every time, and will be sure to somehow make an appearance in my talks on science literacy. I'm thinking this would make a great graphic to segue into discussions on the public perceptions of technologies, etc. Anyway, summer is upon us, and so the good old blow-up pool is…
June 30, 2008
June 27, 2008
This is actually very nicely done - a commencement speech by JK Rowling at Harvard a few weeks ago. I've embedded the movie file below the fold for convenience, but full details (as well as the transcript of the speech) can be found here The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of…
June 26, 2008
When I read pieces like this one (at McSweeney's), it makes me want to make the World's Fair the place to go to at ScienceBlogs when you want to catch up on unicorn stuff. Anyway, here's the first paragraph: The unicorn starts out by laying out its plan to counter the North Korean nuclear threat.…
June 26, 2008
Occasionally, I talk about this when I'm giving a talk on science literacy, and most often, I'll present the following statement asking if it's true or false: There is a human disease characterized by uncontrollably messy hair. It is called the "uncombable hair syndrome." Anyway, it's true and the…
June 25, 2008
So, there's been much argument lately in my neck of the woods, over the BC's new carbon tax. This is coming online in a few days (July 1st), and will be responsible (amongst many other things) for what has been figured to be a 2.4c/litre hike in gas prices. Anyway, folks are getting quite antsy…
June 24, 2008
June 24, 2008
As in popperfont.com Last week, I opened up a free wordpress blog, with the hopes of collecting my writings in one place, as well, as trying to categorize the silly "true or false" questions I use in many of my public talks on science literacy (most of which have been discussed in some form or…
June 23, 2008
I think this statement should be obvious, and for that reason alone, we've included it in the SCQ's list of truths. This, by the way, is a web experiment run by the Quarterly. The background can be found here, and I'll note that I'm constantly surprised by its staying power. On a general google.…