The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
worldsfair | May 11, 2007So one of the things I'd like to accomplish this summer is to really get a move on on this children's book idea. This is an idea, I've had sitting around my head for a long long while. And I've decided that what I really need is someone to egg me on, which logically suggests my seeing if there is an illustrator out there who is willing to take that leap with me.
(Clearly, I'm not the one to illustrate my own kid's book. The bird I can do - a bird waving, not so much)
Without giving the specifics away, the idea I have is really good. Good enough for me to be quite excited by its…
bcohen | May 7, 2007Cat and Girl offers a smashing take on facts and fiction. An excerpt from Spoiler Alert:
So many ways to pose a question here:
How come fiction reigns over fact?
Do you think facts are more meaningful?
Can you believe these people, suggesting that facts don't rule?
What is the danger of promoting fiction?
But facts are important of course, we know, so what place fiction?
Dare you propose we have to choose?
Yet, yet, where is beauty?
Oh please, go to some poetry blog for crissakes, alright?
But the world is larger than you or I, isn't it?
Depends what you mean...what do you mean?
I don't…
worldsfair | May 2, 2007
To hear the HEFE song, go here. Usual Science Scout stuff is here.
Sometimes, the web and the connections it provides are so interesting...
bcohen | May 2, 2007The blog Paleo Future has an amazing series of postcards showing past visions of 2000. Go here to see them all. I've given one sample below. (Thanks to TMN for the link.)
It's a weather machine (full size here)
I'd never seen this Paleo Future blog, but now will mine it heavily for technology studies courses. The History of the Future has always been an intriguing topic -- how our visions of what the future will look like have shifted across historical contexts. By seeing how these images are culturally situated, we get a nice corrective to the kind of technological utopianism that has…
worldsfair | April 30, 2007Often time, I wonder whether some of the things we present here at the World's Fair are perhaps a little too trivial. Whether it's our puzzles, the showdown, badges, our forays into humour writing, or the other oddities we sometimes revel in.
And I'm not sure if that "trivial" label can be partly blamed on our occasional attempt to combine creativity and science, sometimes with great success and other times not so much. But whatever the case, the events of the last few weeks have been especially hard on us, and that element of the trivial just didn't seem to have a place.
But this…
worldsfair | April 20, 2007Graphically anyway, yes.
These images were created for the Japanese design magazine IDEA for a special issue entitled "Made in America." TITLE: Supersize. CREATIVE DIRECTORS: J. Berger, N. Courtelis, P. McCracken, E. Mosqueda. ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNERS: N. Courtelis, E. Mosqueda. PHOTOGRAPHER: D. Forbes. YEAR 2000
From "The Design of Dissent" (Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic) link
worldsfair | April 8, 2007I just finished reading an interesting piece from the Washington Post (thanks Steve), which basically asked whether "objective" beauty and talent from one of the world's finest musicians, playing one of the world's most expensive instruments, can be demonstrated when seen out of context. More specifically, this was Joshua Bell performing with his Stradivarius posing as a street musician in a busy DC metro station.
It's quite an intriguing experiment, whereby the central question posed is philosophical (and ancient) at heart.
It's an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan…
bcohen | March 21, 2007Season 3 of New York Public Radio's RadioLab is coming soon, in May 2007. Seasons one and two are available on-line, at WNYC.
Have you heard?
It isn't Talk of the Nation -- Science Friday, with Ira Flatow. But it is co-hosted by NPR Science Correspondent Robert Krulwich. He hosts with youngish public radio guy Jad Abumrad.
This is good stuff. Along with the very great range of forms of science communication, and of places where science, art, and humanity cannot be separated into strict academic categories (oh, for example, like this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this), radio…
bcohen | March 17, 2007All together, how about the Galileo Players, Carl Djerassi, Roald Hoffman, Tom Stoppard, and Michel Frayn, for starters. Those, in addition to Playwright Kathryn Walat from this old post.
Scientists of Comedy, the Galileo Players call themselves. Or, officially: "The Galileo Players are a professional sketch comedy and improv troupe that writes and performs original comedic theater focusing on scientific, philosophical and intellectual themes." They claim to have beem inspired by Galileo's ideas and life. I cannot vouch for their comedic qualities, but can observe that theirs is an…
bcohen | March 12, 2007CLICK HERE FOR UP TO DATE COVERAGE AT THE PRESS CENTER
(Download Bracket) PDF | JPG
BEN: Welcome, Ladies and Gentleman to the 2007 SCIENCE SPRING SHOWDOWN - the thinking person's ccomplement to the NCAA tournament! Sponsored by the fine folks at ScienceBlogs Basic Concepts. That's right people, it's the dance, and we're here at the World's Fair bringing this to you live. We're about ready to give you that first exclusive look at the 2007 brackets. Over to you Dave.
DAVE: Sure thing Ben. The conference tournaments are now officially complete. Yes, the selection committee has made all the…
worldsfair | March 9, 2007So, as mentioned previously, I got the chance to hang out with Chris Mooney this past week, and gracious as he is, he also took time to meet and greet a few of the local gang of science scouts. Anyway, his visit was great as a number of interesting topics were broached both in casual conservation as well as the public panels that he was involved in.
A big theme that seemed to be reoccuring was the issue of public relations, branding, and the role of overall aesthetics in getting folks to notice things - um big things like the issue of global warming or general scientific literacy for…
bcohen | March 5, 2007This is "a new website that brings together images and viewpoints to create insights into science and culture." Sounds like Seed, no? It's what Scienceblogs is/are about.
This page, on the dilemma of science in the public -- the "fine line between intellectualism and elitism" -- is really fascinating. The site authors "examine how the message [of science] changes as it moves from the scientific to the popular arena. We also look at the medium, at how technology facilitates engagement with science. Finally, the motive is scrutinised: why popular science is not part of a dumbing down process…
worldsfair | February 26, 2007
Well, finally a science song that kicks ass!
This one has been humbly adopted as the Science Scout's anthem. It's called "Increase the N," and comes courtesy from a local Vancouver band called HEFE. Click here for their myspace account, and check out the song on their embedded player.
Why, "Increase the N?"
Because science is all about making sure, building consensus, and honing the truth - you can't do that without doing the experiment enough times to convince yourself and others of what you see.
Oh and the bit about mass-spec? Check out the lyrics below if you're not convinced.,…
worldsfair | February 22, 2007
So:
The Police is starting their tour in Vancouver on May 28th and May 30th, and even though I'm more or less still a fan of Sting, I've just got to say that watching Stewart Copeland play those polyrhythmic drum beats at the Grammys was pretty impressive. Here, take a look yourself:
But how do drummers do that crazy syncopated, wierd off-phase stuff? Is there any biology behind this skill? Turns out there is.
In particular, if you PUBMED the term "polyrhythmic", you'll come across several publications, several of which look at off-phase motor skills, and a few, even, that looked at…
bcohen | February 21, 2007Proteus is a film about the 19th century biologist and artist Ernest Haeckel. It's almost a few years old now, and has already worked its way through the blogosphere. But, given Dave's interest in Haeckel and the recent uptick in Haeckel-talk at the blogs, let me bring it up again.
Haeckel and his assistant, 1866
(no, not a still from the making of Deadwood)
Slate had a beautiful slideshow of Haeckel's images a while back. The Panda's Thumb made note of it. Haeckel's famous for his amazing artistic abilities, and the unbelievable wealth of imagery he left us (well, and being tagged…
bcohen | February 17, 2007After a long delay, the Annals of Science at McSweeney's are back with Volume XII. In fact, I've been off-line for several days (what a world out there, you should see it) and only now saw that it was up: "Galileo Was Right About the Stars".
So, if you were looking for a small write-up with an over-reliance (some might say juvenile fixation) on Italian names, and one that held Galileo, Jesuits, Maffeo Barberini, Spanish anti-papal cabals, and weather commentary together, then this is your lucky day.
worldsfair | February 9, 2007
So I recently bought the new Shin's CD (it's good by the way), and it kind of got me thinking a little of the parallels between the discovery of new music and discovery in the general scientific sense.
It's like there's this aristocracy element to it all, where being the best and (maybe more importantly) being the first is really key to it all.
For example, I happened to have "discovered" the Shins back in 2001 whereby the song "New Slang" made it onto the first baby mix ever I made for my first child (my daughter Hannah, who was born in August 2001). It's a great song, but that's not…
worldsfair | February 7, 2007This is really just to direct folks to a marvelous post over at bldgblog.blogspot.com. You know, speaking as a teacher who is always on the hunt for striking imagery, this one is really quite beautiful (and thanks to McSweeney's by the way, for the direction)
Anyway, take a look at this:
This image (from At this Rate, by Giles Revell and Matt Wiley), represents land development as seen from above - a photoshop reworking of a satelite's view of the plight of urban sprawl if you like. And of course, if it's not immediately evident (visit the bldgblog link above, and it will be), it looks…
worldsfair | February 6, 2007Or maybe we can call this... "ALIVE IS THE THING"
From the Journal of Applied Physiology. 30: p420 (1971)
Often in the life sciences, the act of observation must occur as an exercise of the dynamic whole. Not through the focused eyes of a molecular lens, or the turbulence of cells in petri plates and test tubes. Not even within the safe boundaries of a cadavre. Although these are powerful conveniences to be sure, the quest for truth often relies on effects seen in the context of the moving, the breathing, and the conscious - preferably all three at the same time. We call this the…
bcohen | February 6, 2007[Basic concepts: Epistemology.]
Adolph Quetelet, a mathematician of the High Enlightenment, explained with scientific precision how to know when lilacs will bloom (this was about the year 1800). The lilacs, he said, bloom "when the sum of the squares of the mean daily temperature since the last frost added up to (4264C) squared."
So now we know. Whew!
That's one way to put it. This, to me, offers one way to get into the basic concept of what's called epistemology. Perhaps calling it a basic concept is a bit askew, since it is complicated and philosophically thick. But it's interesting,…