Humor stuff, and in the best of worlds, science humor stuff
worldsfair | June 23, 2006Sir Francis Bacon, British philosopher, essayist, and scientific revolution advocate (1561 - 1626):
Quite a few of them are dead.
B.L.T., sandwich:
A lot depends on whether the lettuce and tomato count as one degree.
Bacon County, Georgia:
Geographically speaking, could get you as far as Florida or South Carolina
Canadian Bacon, meat cut:
Network probably not as good as Kevin Bacon's, unless of course you're referring to pigs.
Roger Bacon, Franciscan friar, English philosopher, and one of the earliest advocates of the scientific method (1214 - 1294):
Sadly, all dead.
worldsfair | June 19, 2006Re: Blogging is for Chumps, first off.
This is a call for outstanding candidates to apply for two intern positions within the context of producing relevant material for The World's Fair. The successful applicant is expected to work in areas of interest to current faculty members (Dr. David Ng and Dr. Benjamin Cohen), to interact with related groups within our network, and to have demonstrated ability in producing essays of reasonable quality and interest.
Due to the competitive nature of this process, we ask that all candidates at the very least meet the following criteria:
The candidate's…
worldsfair | June 16, 2006
(This is an old slide I used for one of my genetics classes - the general idea about what Grimace is exactly was pilfered from a graphic design school advertisement I saw where several presumably student's works were showcased. if you happen to know who the student was that originally designed it, let me know, because a few of my graduate students are interested in finding out).
I can't remember exactly how I found out about McSweeney's, but I do know that upon reading Wendy Molyneux's "How To Tell People That You Are A Billionaire Without Sounding Obnoxious", I was pretty much hooked. Also…
worldsfair | June 14, 2006Oh dear, there is certainly a lot of discussion over Ann Coulter's new book - in particular, her breathtaking views on evolutionary theory.
Hmmm, when I wrote Chapter Titles From My Creationist Textbook, I had no idea that it already existed or was perhaps in the process of being written, since it's clear that this must be the sort of reading she's basing her arguments on. Or maybe my original query and edit (below) leaked out somehow?
...Reviewing a few immunology textbooks, which led (of course) to procastination, which ultimately led to this.
cheers, dave ng
LIST SUBMISSION: HEADINGS…
bcohen | June 14, 2006There's a new Annals of Science at McSweeneys, which is actually about technology -- internets, trains -- and as such as much about history and philosophy of science and technology as just science straight-up. Although, I'm of the mind that there is no such thing as "science straight up." And I think the piece is more about space and time, to which, who doesn't love space and time?
worldsfair | June 13, 2006Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Phillippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince, Wilma, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, Gamma, Zeta...
Not exactly the makings of another Children's Alphabet Picture Book. Rather, these are names of the 27 hurricanes/tropical storms given by the World Meteorological Organization in 2005, the first time in history, where letters of the Greek alpabet had to be used when the predetermined names had run out. A few days ago, the first such storm of the 2006 hurricane season, named Alberto, rumbled and…
worldsfair | June 12, 2006I thought it would be kind of interesting to try and showcase a few links from the types of journals and publications that take less than academic stabs at science writing. It's the sort of stuff that interests me to no end, because if you read through "Public Understanding of Science" type studies (a really misfortune label since this causes the acronym PUS to be flitted around), you hear some negative stuff about how the scientific literacy of countries like the UK and USA generally hover around 20% or so.
Now granted, defining scientific literacy is a weighted chore, and maybe something I…
bcohen | June 12, 2006"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
Hands down, I'd want to explore whatever science the women Thomas Dolby was talking about does. It's never really been clear to me how you can blind someone with science, but that's what I want to find out more about. Sure, you can blind a guy with lots of stuff, but those aren't "science." You can blind someone with a well-placed punch, I bet, and with damage to nerves, or looking directly at the sun, or something. And of course with…
worldsfair | June 12, 2006"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
Well, being a molecular biologist with a pretty tight feed into the proteomics and genomics arena, my alternate career would whimsically (and in constrast) have something to do with astronomy - i.e. looking at big things far away. In particular, the sort that means I'm already beyond good with mathematics, dabble a bit in rocket design (just so that I can say I'm a rocket scientist), and of course the most important part would be free…
worldsfair | June 6, 2006
Here is a selection of my writings on-line, many but not all of which are about science, technology, and nature - Ben
B.R. Cohen's Days at the Museum, a short series of dispatches from the Smithsonian.
B.R. Cohen's Annals of Science, a series of short stories about science and history and sometimes strange people.
"I Dream in Malcolm Gladwell", over at The Morning News (January 2009)
"An Anti-Environmentalist Writes His Next Column While Eating Take-out and Driving His Hummer", at McSweeney's (September 2008)
"Bisphenol-A: The One Act Play", at Dave's Science Creative Quarterly (May 2008)
"…
worldsfair | June 5, 2006Here is a selection of some of the writing I've done - Dave.
"True Encounters in my Research Career", The Walrus, September 2007 (with Chris Hutsul). (commented upon at The World's Fair)
"The Reason Is Math Bush Edit", Science Creative Quarterly, September 5, 2007
"Analyses of the Six Degrees of Separation of Bacons Other Than Kevin Bacon", Science Creative Quarterly, April 26, 2007
"Words I See When I Read the Phrase "Intelligent Design" While Squinting", McSweeney's, April 11th, 2007
"An Intelligent Designer on the Cow", Inkling Magazine, March 21, 2007
"Anytime", Science Creative Quarterly…