Links to interesting sites and discussion of them
bcohen | February 9, 2007I mean the title in a different sense than most science bloggers or SciBlog readers will likely presume. I mean it as one who studies science, not one who practices it - given the complexity, esteem, importance, and promise of the scientific enterprise, such deeper understandings of what this science thing is would seem requisite. Thus, over the past thirty or forty years, a lot of people have worked to develop the area of study known as "science and technology studies" (or, with slightly differing emphases that I don't need to get into here, "science, technology, and society" - "STS" in…
bcohen | December 20, 2006This is ecological design of a completely different sort than our last post. And product design at its most beach-like. The bikini, part of a student project displayed at the ITP Winter Show, "cools your beer and charges your iPod! (With a USB connection!)." ITP, incidentally, is the Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
(picture credit, where you can find a demo video too.)
Says, Andrew Schneider , the creator: "The suit is a standard medium-sized bikini swimsuit retrofitted with 1" x 4" photovoltaic film strips sewn together in…
bcohen | October 31, 2006The Silencer (being performed in Blacksburg, VA, on November 1, 2, and 3, ahead of its London opening in 2007) is a play about Global Warming and Climate Science. How about that, a play about global warming and climate science. Not your everyday occurrence. I can't say if it's Michael Frayn-level theater, but I can say that it's not the usual approach to confronting climate science issues.
Here's a summary of the play:
Dr. Brian Heath must decide whether to protect his family or publicize his alarming findings about the impending threat of climate change. His predicament stands for our…
bcohen | October 1, 2006For reasons of postal error, I now receive Science every week. Every. Single. Week. Who knew? I have a hard enough time keeping up with the New Yorker's weekly pattern, and now this. These people, you people, just keep doing science. (Incidentally, then, Jonathan Cohen of Virginia Tech -- I am neither Jonathan nor at Virginia Tech (anymore) -- I've got your Science magazines if you're looking for them.)
A few weeks ago AAAS printed the results to their "Visualization Challenge 2006." The images are stunning. I can't even imagine which ones didn't win. Below are a few of my favorites.…
bcohen | September 15, 2006I'm way late to the Ask a Scienceblogger of a few weeks ago. So late that the question has come back around in a new Ask for this week (and this after being trumped by last week's Organic query - and both subjects are of great interest to me and soon I will converge them, plausibly, not as a lark). I fear now that I may have waded into a mini-manifesto below.
The actual article referenced in the Global Warming Ask category is not worth addressing, though it is actually kind of funny (by intent, I suppose). But I am concerned that Global Warming talk is becoming the end-all and be-all of…
bcohen | September 8, 2006But most of it isn't.
You've eatin it, this food they speak of, good or bad or middling. I bet. No no, think again. I'm sure of it. I think later today I'll do it again. Mmmm, foody.
I'll be posting something next week in response to this week's wildly interesting "Ask a Scienceblogger" topic of Organic Food. They query:
What's up with organic foods? What are the main arguments for buying organic? Is it supposed to be better for me, or better for the planet, or what? Are organics, in any sense, worth the higher price?...
For today, this Friday, here's a discussion forum from The Nation…
bcohen | August 25, 2006It's all that.
Ars Medica, or The Ars, as British hipsters call it, is a fascinating "literary journal that explores the interface between the arts and healing, and examines what makes medicine an art." It's run out of Toronto, begun by a group of doctors (one of them my cousin), and really tip-top. So far they've had three issues, each with an eclectic mix of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art. I don't know their future plans, but for the websites claims, so I don't know what the next issue looks like. But the first issue looked like this:
All I'm saying is, this is a nice middle…
bcohen | August 15, 2006If Duffless gave us Skinner's perception of the pursuit of science -- "Every good scientist is half B. F. Skinner and half P. T. Barnum"-- then Bart's Comet gives us his perception of amateur astronomy. Plus, it's got a few nice jabs at the knowledge, science, and faith nexus. After the comet burns up on entry, and the town escapes destruction, Moe nails it:
Let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again.
To summarize the summary: Bart's punishment for yet more misdeeds is to help Skinner's amateur astronomy observations at 4:30 am. Skinner leaves the telescope for a…
bcohen | August 10, 2006Scienceblogs, as is widely known, is devoted mostly to fashion and men's neckwear. This makes sense: the most pressing concerns in the scientific and technological landscape have, for many years, been dominated by practitioner questions about what to wear, how to wear it, when to wear it, and why. I can't even tell you how many proposals I've had to referee for NSF on this very theme. (Yes, Coturnix, that was me, Anon Referee #4, on NSF #38872GT4-2003; Sorry Tara, I just didn't buy the Intellectual Merit of your #9927K654-2005 -- don't shoot the messenger!). This link should be tops for…
bcohen | August 8, 2006There is a triple theme here, circling around cabinets of curiosity, which I'll get around to eventually. How about a picture first.
Frontispiece from Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm's cabinet of curiosities
But first. A few days ago we linked to a site on the "Longest Running Scientific Experiment," at the Athananius Kircher Society. I'm still not sure what the site is, or the Society I should say, but it's, let's say, curious. Someone--Wamba--commented that it reminded them of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which was just right. What a perfect connection. The MJT was the…
bcohen | July 30, 2006While driving back home yesterday and dreaming of that Saturday afternoon sweet spot of a nap time, I heard the above comment from one of the people interviewed on a story on Weekend America. A Kansan contributor to the program, Laura Ziegler, was interviewing her neighbors about the upcoming vote for School Board there, wondering what their takes on the I.D and Evolution thing were. One guy down the street's all gung-ho for teaching I.D. - and he's a medical doctor! -- and instead of really explaining why, he says instead, "There's not a shred of evidence that Darwin was a scientist." (…
bcohen | July 28, 2006[When we last left our dueling bloggers, they were reading Erik Reece's Death of a Mountain. And now, part 2, as continued from the first part of the conversation, wherein -- beyond the Reece article -- the bloggers made mention of mountains, their Appalachian disappearance, the new availability of golfing in West Virginia and Kentucky, the new opportunity to land planes safely on formerly hilly terrain, and the questions oddly left unasked about coal, energy, and where we get it.]
DN: You know that article is quite the eye-opener. And it's some of the smaller statements like the following…
bcohen | July 28, 2006How about a sampling of the lists over at McSweeney's, the perfect Friday activity. Here are a bunch that are either science-related, engineering-related, invention-related, or plain unrelated.
I'd be interested in any kind of ranking people have, the bests of the links, that is.
We'll do these in reverse chronological order...
Failed NASA Sapce Programs, by Jonathan Shipley
Hoover Dam Fast-Fact Pamphlet If Hoover Dam Were a Scale Model Made of Legos, by Orr Goehring
Dr. Phil's Inventions, by Scott Smith
Unpublished Sequels to Famous Science-Fiction Novels, by Steve Rushmore
Terrifying…
worldsfair | July 25, 2006Well, I'm on vacation as of today and thought now was as good a time as any to show off my primary online love affair. That is, the Science Creative Quarterly of which I am the editor. For the next week or so, I've chosen a piece on the SCQ that I think fits well with a particular blog on the scienceblog consortium. Overall, that means 43 pieces for 43 different blogs presented over the next seven days. Look out for the duck.
In the meantime, here is a general description of the Science Creative Quarterly.
- - -
- A WORTHY CAUSE INDEED -
Dear Reader,
On most mornings, somewhere in the…
worldsfair | June 13, 2006Last semester I was fortunate enough to be involved with a UBC project (called Terry) that looks at global issues from a multidisciplinary angle. One of the things in my charge was arranging a kind of high profile speaker series, with an emphasis on bringing out individuals who are not only doing great things, but are also excellent engaging orators. This was wonderful in that I got to hang out with some pretty amazing folks. Anyway, the talks are all available online, a good portal for them being here, but I thought as bait, I'd present a few interesting, funny, at times poignant, 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…