Nature as in Earth, as in Global, as in Global Issues Generally
worldsfair | October 25, 2006Yesterday I had an opportunity to listen to and to say hello to Ronald Wright. This is a fellow who has crossed a number of disciplinary boundaries in terms of his writing prowess, and winning lots of literary awards along the way.
He's trained in Archeology and Anthropology, and as far as last night was concerned, focused on two of his books: "The Scientific Romance", and "A Short History of Progress."
Both are examplary and worth picking up. His language is just the sort that is lovely to read. In fact, I made previous comments to his bok "A Short History" in a previous post, but I'll…
worldsfair | October 20, 2006
So a couple months ago, I sat down with some science educator types and we had a bit of a tete a tete over the Science Creative Quarterly, and how surreal it seems to have this sizable readership growing. We also discussed how lovely it is that sites like Boingboing or Digg will benefit that attempt to gain readership, with the odd link here and there.
From this, we also kind of went on to discuss how interesting and useful sites like Boingboing and Digg are in of themselves, and particularly great at finding material, graphics, media, anecdotes, (whatever the case may be) that fit nicely…
bcohen | October 19, 2006"January 19, 2009: Monsanto announces scientific breakthrough: Genetically Modified Chicken Eggs that will save the world. Patent Pending..."
Speaking of animal biotechnology, I think the sub-text of this video is: which is more frightening? GM chickens run amock? Or a year 2009 with someone called President Cheney? (And, it's in keeping with this other breakthrough.)
Ole Monsanto, maybe the only thing left for them is a Halliburton connect.
worldsfair | October 6, 2006Let's hope it's the latter, or we'll for sure need some Superhero action, and certainly not the kind that the Wonder Twins espouse (hands down, lamest superheroes if you ask me).
Anyway, what do you think? These would be pretty grand in the Spiderman villain mayhem and destruction category.
Except that these are actually a newish technology designed to harness "wave energy." This being the kinetic energy stored by the movement of water, which itself was initiated via the wind blowing on the water itself. Here's quote taken from Ocean Power Delivery Ltd, a company about to launch a 5 arm…
worldsfair | September 28, 2006(Hello folks from Kottke.org, just a note that it just so happens that today is contest day at the World's Fair - check out our front page, where the last few or so entries contain details of contests concerning coffee, limericks and mathematical notation)
Well, Ben has beaten me to the punch with an invite to check out your ecological footprint, but I just wanted to say a few more things about the topic. For example, I actually have a question that I sometimes bring up to discuss the concept behind EF. It goes:
Q: Assuming that (a) Tom Cruise's level of consumption is in parallel with his…
worldsfair | September 21, 2006...Which is a bit warped, because Muammar Gaddafi is resorting to the opinions of his own Libyan scientists, as oppose to the data presented by scientists from the Pasteur Institute and Tor Vergata University. This particular perspective might not sound so bad, except that it involves the execution of six medical workers (known as the Benghazi Six) otherwise innocent but caught in one very frightening political and possibly translational nightmare. I say political, because it would appear that the medical workers are scapegoats to save political face. And translational because even jargon…
worldsfair | September 19, 2006I just thought this was an amusing liner note for the above song.
"The melody for 'Black Seam' has lain among my mental notes for perhaps ten years, could never finish it, or find a suitable lyric until the miners' strike and a long talk with a friend who has a job trying to mend nuclear power stations with gaffer tape."
'Bring On The Night', '86
The lyrics are kinda nice too. Sting for all his criticisms knows how to turn a lyric or two. Plus, the Police rocked.
worldsfair | September 19, 2006
There is, it appears, a nice discussion going on over at a post that Ben recently put up regarding the use of nuclear energy. And quite a few of the commentary take a stance that the ideal for citizens to consume less, is at best unrealistic and at worst an impedent to our right towards progression.
I'm not sure if this sits well with me. It seems too easy to say that because humans have needs to expand, to produce more, to (dammit!) play around with charts and the like so that consumption needn't slow down, then why ask for the sacrifice? Indeed, no-one is really going to do it anyway.…
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…
worldsfair | August 31, 2006In response to the "Hooray for Global Warming" article as queried by this week's Ask a ScienceBlogger, I offer this public message from a representative of the glacier community:
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RANT FROM A GLACIER - CONCERNED, BITTER, AND SOMEWHERE NEAR THE NORTH POLE
Dear humans everywhere:
People. I'm melting. I'm actually melting.
Are you not paying attention to what's going on here? Are you not following the news? Are you just out and out disregarding the collected and heated but (get this) generally agreed upon advise from a whole bunch of experts? Is it because you don't trust them? Because…
worldsfair | August 30, 2006
Remarks by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa,
to the Closing Session of the XVI International AIDS Conference, Toronto, Canada
"This is the last speech I shall make at any of these international conferences in my role as United Nations Envoy. I'm glad, for obvious Canadian reasons, that it comes in Toronto. But I'm equally pleased because this has been a good conference, covering an extraordinary range of ground, and I therefore feel confident in asking you to join with me in giving force to the oft-repeated mantra: "Time To Deliver."
Of what would that meaning consist…
worldsfair | August 30, 2006In AIDS Crisis, Listen to UN's Lewis:
CBS News.com / American Prospect, by Ezra Klein
It's become fashionable amongst a certain genus of blustering right-winger to deride the United Nations as sclerotic, weak-willed, mealy-mouthed, and lacking sufficient moral outrage and courage in confronting the injustices and atrocities of the world. So it's perhaps understandable that while watching Stephen Lewis deliver his blistering indictment of the G-8's indefensibly lackluster response to the AIDS epidemic, I seemed nearly incapable of concentrating on his exquisite speech, finding my thoughts…
worldsfair | August 29, 2006
It's been a year since Katrina hit New Orleans, and although sometimes it seems like we've learnt a lot, other times it seems like we've learnt almost nothing at all.
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Rohrich RJ, Spear S. "Hurricane Katrina, plastic surgery, and you: the art of giving back." Plast Reconstr Surg. 2005 Oct;116(5):1548-9.
Lach HW, Langan JC, James DC. "Disaster planning: are gerontological nurses prepared?" J Gerontol Nurs. 2005 Nov;31(11):21-7. Review.
Adair SM. "Hurricane Katrina--pediatric dentistry's response." Pediatr Dent. 2005 Sep-Oct;27(5):358
Plotinsky RN. "Handwashing in a Texas evacuation…
worldsfair | August 11, 2006This has to be one of my favourites, written pretty much the day after I listened to Stephen Lewis talk. Anyway, it also ties in with the start of the International AIDS Conference this Sunday. I'm hoping our Canadian government has some choice announcements to make at the beginning, but I guess we'll just see.
AMERICAN: Is it an animal, mineral or vegetable?
ETHIOPIAN: Yes sir, I believe it is all three, sir.
AMERICAN: Hmm... Can I get it online?
ETHIOPIAN: I'm sorry, sir. I do not understand your meaning, sir. On where, sir?
AMERICAN: Online... You know, like at eBay or Amazon?
ETHIOPIAN…
worldsfair | August 4, 2006So, a while back I did my yearly pilgrimage to my wife's grade one class, where I did my usual liquid nitrogen thing (freeze stuff, smash it, make ice cream, scare young kids with overly large safety goggles, etc), and as usual I was open to all manner of questions in my role as a scientist type (my wife actually refers to me as Dave Ng the Science King in the class, a moniker that hasn't caught on in my graduate level classes).
And I'm always amazed at how much these 6 year olds pick up from what they hear and see in their day to day. Â Anyway, one of the kids asked this really cool question…
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…
worldsfair | July 24, 2006A few months ago, I attended a conference called Writing Home, Science, Literature, and the Aesthetics of Place, which had a nice byline written by Gary Geddes. It read:
"Philosophy," Novalis said, "is really homesickness, it is the urge to be at home everywhere." The home-place assumes many different guises. A physicist or mathematician may sometimes feel at home amongst, and speak of the beauty or elegance of, ideas, concepts, formulas, even shapes such as the ellipse. Writers, too, have always struggled with the problem of place and its literary evocation, even after Oscar Wilde declared…
worldsfair | June 15, 2006Hello, those of you from boingboing.net. Please take a moment to peruse the site. In a nutshell, this is a site that is all about looking at things from both the humanist and scientific perspectives. The World's Fair is run by two science academics, who write things for McSweeney's and the like. We even have a puzzle if you think yourself the clever type (hey, that rhymes!)
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Since I brought up Al Gore a few days back, I thought I may as well let you in on a cool little film that is available in Issue #1 of McSweeney's Wholphin DVD. Essentially, it's a short 15 minute movie filmed by…
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…