Announcement
oracknows | October 16, 2017Well, QEDCon is over, and this box of blinky lights is on its way back across the pond to its home in the US, having had an excellent time imbibing skepticism from its (mostly) British and European partners in skepticism.
Before I left, I made a somewhat cryptic remark about "major changes" to this blog coming up. Well, the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. Basically, Scienceblogs is shutting down at the end of the month. I still remain grateful for the opportunity Scienceblogs offered me. I wouldn't be as prominent as I am now without it. However, unfortunately, Scienceblogs has barely…
oracknows | July 9, 2014Today, I'm winging my way to sunny Las Vegas. Yes, in the middle of summer, when southern Nevada's weather is most like an oven, I will be there. The reason? I'll be doing a workshop and a panel with fellow supporters of science-based medicine at The Amazing Meeting.
I don't know how many of my readers will be there, but if you're there and see me hanging out at the Del Mar or in the hall between sessions, feel free to introduce yourself. For everyone else, I guess we'll have to consider this an open thread. Don't worry. I plan on doing some blogging while I'm away, but it might be more…
cevans | February 18, 2013Writing for the Internet is like yelling into the void: freeing, probably more than a little cathartic, but ultimately lonely. That's not to say that I haven't made profound connections out here, but like most writers I long for a little thing with my name on it that fits in the hand, that can be passed around and earmarked, tossed away and re-discovered.
Which is why I'm so pleased to announce the existence of precisely such a little thing: my brand-new collection of essays and arcana, High Frontiers, fresh from the presses of Publication Studio:
High Frontiers brings together disparate…
cagapakis | July 5, 2011Oscillator is moving to the brand new Scientific American network! I'm excited for this new opportunity and sad to be leaving my old home here. I want to give many special thanks to SEED people past and present for their help and support, in particular Nikki, Erin, Greg, Evan, and Wes. And of course I have to thank all of you who read and commented and shared and supported me here, I hope you change your RSS feeds and bookmarks and come visit me at my new spot!
cagapakis | April 25, 2011Two videos that Patrick Boyle and I made were selected for the Bio:Fiction Film Festival! One of the prizes is an online audience award, and you can watch and rate all of the films! It's such an honor to be part of this festival and to be showing our work next to that of so many amazing artists, scientists, and filmmakers, and we would be super thrilled if you voted for us!
Here are our videos! First, the world premiere of Compound 74, a fictional documentary about a possible future of synthetic drug design through synthetic biology:
And second, the commercial we made for Ginkgo BioWorks--…
cagapakis | April 16, 2011Before you get your tickets for SB 5.0 make sure that you'll be in town for the world's first Synthetic Biology Slam!
gboustead | September 22, 2010
The innovative new opera by Tod Machover, Death and the Powers, opens this Friday for its world premiere in Monte Carlo at Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo. Machover gave Festival-goers a sneak peak of this hugely ambitious work earlier this summer at the 2010 World Science Festival, which included a thought-provoking conversation with AI legend Marvin Minsky.
The opera—a brainchild of Machover's Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab in co-production with American Repertory Theatre—explores transhumanist and existential territory, such as mortality and theory of mind, as well as…
cagapakis | September 16, 2010Our friends at Ginkgo BioWorks are hiring and they asked Hydrocalypse Industries to make them a video! Who Is the Bioengineer of the Future?
It could be you!
cagapakis | September 13, 2010The new season of Science in the News starts next week with a great schedule of science lectures by Harvard grad students free and open to the public. If you're in the Boston area, definitely check it out!
Here's the schedule:
September 22: Evidence-based Medicine: A Case Study of Vaccines and Autism
September 29: Bots That Mimic Bugs: Flying, Crawling, and Squishy Robots
October 6: You Are What Your Mother Ate: The New Science of Epigenetics
October 13: Beyond Agribusiness: New and Old Ways to Grow Food
October 20: The Laser Turns 50: A Brief History and New Frontiers
October 27: Forget-Me-…
gboustead | September 7, 2010
Update: The broadcast went really well. Thanks to everyone for participating. You can check out the replay and transcript with Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak here â Stay tuned for more interactive broadcasts to come. We've got some dingers lined up...
Join us tomorrow for a special interactive broadcast of The Search for Life in the Universe, originally taped during the 2010 World Science Festival. Accompanying the broadcast, we're very excited to have live commentary and a Q/A session with the SETI Institute's Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak.
Are we alone? It’s a question that has obsessed us…
cagapakis | July 11, 2010I am thrilled to announce that I will be one of the Synthetic Aesthetics residents this fall. Synthetic Aesthetics is a new program run through Stanford and the University of Edinburgh and funded by the National Science Foundation and the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council that asks the question "how would you design nature?":
Synthetic Biology is a new approach to engineering biology, generally defined as the application of engineering principles to the complexity of biology. Biology has become a new material for engineering. From biological circuits made from DNA to…
ably | July 8, 2010After hosting blogs for four years, it's about time I started my own. So, welcome!
Let me begin with a bit about me and what I believe.
I believe that science has the unique potential to improve the state of the world. I think this potential is being hindered today by a lack of science literacy around the world and by the largely closed and restricted nature of the world's scientific information. Two connected topics (ie. Science Literacy and Open Science) that I care passionately about and will delve deep into on this blog. I also believe that science can be more than a subject; it can be a…
gboustead | June 17, 2010
The full replay of Hidden Dimensions: Exploring Hyperspace, featuring Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, Shamit Kachru, and Linda Dalrymple Henderson, is now available for streaming for a limited time. If you haven't had your mind blown yet this morning, I recommend you head over to our livestream replay pages pronto, grab a tall cup of coffee, and prepare for perspective-scrambling kernels from some of the greatest living physicists.
Watch now >>
gboustead | June 16, 2010
The fine folks at NPR's RadioLab have produced a new episode based on Strangers in the Mirror, which features Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close (and was moderated by RadioLab's own Robert Krulwich).
Have a listen over at their site. Or add to your cue wherever podcasts are sold for free (ie, iTunes). And check out their amazing back catalogue of archived shows while you're there.
I've been asked by several people about the famous people recognition demonstration used in this program. To take the actual test developed by go-to prosopagnosia experts, Brad Duchaine and Ken Nakayama, that I based the…
gboustead | June 16, 2010Have a story to tell from the 2010 World Science Festival?
Maybe it was something you learned? (Like, for instance, if the Earth were to be a black hole it would have to collapse to the size of a grain of sand.) Perhaps it was a serendipitous chat you had when bumping into your favorite scientist, artist, or author over the weekend's festivities? (I had a charming chat with Dr. John Mather and his wife about the crude pocket telescopes he used as a child that ultimately inspired him to take a closer look at the cosmos.) Or maybe it was a conversation you had with friends inspired by one of…
gboustead | June 10, 2010
Well, another World Science Festival is in the books. And what a trip it’s been. One attendee at this year’s festival suggested that, as if conjuring the gravity of a supermassive black hole, we must have slowed down the passing of time in order “to do so much in 5 days.”
Accusations of timespace manipulation aside, there were plenty of magic moments during the 40+ events throughout the run of the Festival. From Professor Stephen Hawking’s poignant speech in front of a packed house at Lincoln Center during the Opening Night Gala to the all-day celebration of science in the heart of New York…
sb admin | June 3, 2010...is over here, where you can also see a live stream and comment thread. I'm in there via the Kimmel Center's liveblogging booth, but you can also follow me (or the #WSF10 tag) on Twitter.
We're going live to Norway as we speak, so tune in!
Update: Your 2010 Kavli Prize Winners:
Astrophysics
Jerry Nelson
Raymond Wilson
Roger Angel
Nanoscience
Nadrian Seeman
Donald Eigler
Neuroscience
Thomas Suedhof
Richard Scheller
James Rothman
gboustead | June 2, 2010Kind of a Big Deal: We'll be streaming the Kavli Prize announcements live from Oslo tomorrow morning as part of a high-end webcast, complete with stateside commentary, featuring Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus, Co-Chair of President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Antonio Damasio, Mostafa A. El-Sayed, Kip Thorne, Elizabeth Vargas.
Watch Live, starting at 8:00am EST Thursday, June 3 >>
gboustead | May 29, 2010
Want to go to the World Science Festival, but can't bum a ride to New York City? Your favorite program is already sold out? You want to be there for the suspense and drama of the 2010 Kavli Laureates announcement Thursday morning, but you've run out of sick-day excuses at work? Well, buck up, the WSF has your back.
For the first time, the World Science Festival is streaming events live (and in stunning quality), as part of a joint webcast with the folks at Livestream. Customizable widgets and live forums integrated with Twitter and Facebook top off the experience and allow creative science…
grrlscientist | April 19, 2010tags: education, public outreach, Ask A Biologist, www, announcement
Dave Hone emailed to ask me to announce to you that his popular educational website, Ask a Biologist, has finally found several sponsors and has been relaunched!
This site has been published continuously for 3 years and during that time, Dave's team of biologists have answered nearly 2500 questions and more importantly has served over 500,000 readers. But because this is done on a voluntary basis, Dave and his team have had trouble advertising and getting the site upgraded. Thanks to several grants, the new site is up and…