bcohen | March 28, 2007Good stuff. Slate's explainer explains how horticulturists know when the cherry blossoms will bloom. (They ask and answer because the Washington, DC Cherry Blossom Festival is coming up.) It's a somewhat relevant follow-up to my earlier basic concepts post about the best way to "know" a lilac. The answer? Okay I'll give it away...
"The peak is technically the date on which 70 percent of the area's Yoshino cherry blossoms are open."
Knowledge knowledge everywhere, and lots and lots to drink.
By the by (code for "a propos of nothing"), my daffodils bloomed two weeks after my neighbors but…
worldsfair | March 27, 2007Another writing contest I'm affiliated with. And to reiterate, pretty much anything goes as long as it fits (even remotely) in the global issues genre. Plus (plus), there's a category for non-UBC folk, and the insider info is that we don't have an awful lot of those kind of submissions (full details below)
* * *Note that the contest deadline has been extended to March 31st, 2007PDF | JPGThere once was a website named Terry1
That wanted to make people wary
Of things going on
In the world that are wrong
Without making it all seem too scary.So this is a call for submissions
To write or create…
worldsfair | March 27, 2007Basically, an almost last call for entries. And to reiterate, a humour piece is needed, plus (plus) additional captions can be supplied if you want to take a chance at modifying your score for better or for worse. Also, note that the prize rocks! (full details below)
* * *PDF | JPG
The Science Creative Quarterly seeks science humour pieces for entry into our awesome new contest. Judging will be based on a number of criteria that can be annotated as follows:
Briefly, final Score (FS) is equal to the the base score of the humour piece submitted (S), times a number (n) of modifiers (fs) which…
bcohen | March 27, 2007McSweeney's started a new sub-feature a little while back that I find intense and sharp. They are columns from a former speech writier for the military and now Iraq-based troop, Roland Thompson, called "Dispatches from Iraq." So far, just two. Today, the site is highlighting the feature by re-posting the first Dispatch, titled "The Truth."
I thought it was so crisp on first reading that I wanted to link to it. I hope you enjoy.
bcohen | March 26, 2007The Washington Post ran an article yesterday in thier Outlook section about "The Negligible Benefits of Ethanol, Biodiesel." The authors are discussing the article today here. Check it out.
David Tillman and Jason Hill wrote it -- Tillman is "an ecologist at the University of Minnesota and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Jason Hill is a research associate in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota."
Also, last Friday the BBC reported that "Biofuel demand makes food expensive." It's a brief article; go forth, check that out too.
worldsfair | March 23, 2007I've shown this before somewhere in this blog, but since Ben recently put up a post on "unintended consequences" and the use of genetic modification, just thought it worth mentioning that an older piece of mine on Grimace is up at the SCQ.
bcohen | March 23, 2007Can the principle of sufficiency, of seeking enough, face the dominance of the efficiency model that currently underpins our economic structure and works to undermine ecological sensibility?
I've been reading Thomas Princen's (2005) The Logic of Sufficiency (MIT Press) with great interest. Princen is a professor at the University of Michigan. He works in the School of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy, specifically working on Natural Resource and Environmental Policy. He's also the co-editor of another fine book (with Michael Maniates and Ken Conca), Confronting Consumption (2002…
worldsfair | March 22, 2007
So like, I'm not a big fan of making lunches for my children, and in my household we actually alternate that chore between the two of us (If Kate is doing bedtime stories, I'm on lunches, etc). In fact, on the days when the daycare or school is doing a "hot lunch" or it happens to be "Hot Dog" day or whatever, and it works out to be on the day you're suppose to make the lunch, then it's like time for a goddamn happy dance! Much merriment. Seriously.
Anyway, because of this, I just want to say a few words of thanks to the Starfrit company for one of their products. No, it's not the Apple…
bcohen | March 22, 2007Our very own Seed Magazine reports: "US researchers have created genetically-modified mosquitoes resistant to a malaria parasite, raising the possibility of one day stopping the spread of the disease, a new study says."
Perhaps doing so isn't such a good idea. Perhaps ecological awareness would suggest that the consequences of such a move are not entirely understandable by us. The problem may not be solvable with strictly technical means. Just an observation.
Why are they working on a genetic fix? Because the problem is significant:
Each year 350 to 500 million people are infected with…
worldsfair | March 21, 2007Kuhn vs. Determinism (by an excitable commentator)
Oh, oh, I can't believe it, I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE IT! This one was for the history books, people. Team Kuhn beating the pants off of the Determinism squad. A real life massacre of crisis proportions. Really, it was all Kuhn ALL THE TIME. Word is, is that when Determinism was confronted with the realization that Kuhn himself was playing ("What the f-? You're suppose to be dead!"), the team just lost their form and the defence essentially crumbled. And oh, did it got ugly - really ugly! Final score was 100 to 56 - which, of course, sent…
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 21, 2007To make note of our newest member of the left sidebar blogroll, this is a post about Prometheus. Prometheus is a science policy weblog co-authored by a consortium of policy analysts, engineers, scientists, and STS types at or near or connected to the University of Colorado at Boulder. The blog is hosted, specifically, by the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. Their conversations are generally high-level and well-informed; the debate and dialogue doesn't seem to devolve into ad hominem very often, if ever; their approach strikes me as collegial and rigorous at the same time…
worldsfair | March 21, 2007This is how I'd imagine the thought process would go (or why I think satire does a pretty good job of showing the silliness of intelligent design).
(From Inkling)
bcohen | March 19, 2007FIRST ROUND RESULTS | PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Kuhn v Determinism, wow, that will be a game. How do we make sense of the match-up? What are we left to debate? The Essential Tension between them, as it were, would be Kuhn's influence (which he later disavowed) on the social constructivists, on those who rejected the deterministic mindset of earlier philosophical studies of science (on the one hand) versus that Determinism itself (on the other hand). Does "this" lead straight to "that," directly, ineluctably? Or does "this" get to "that" in ways we can't entirely anticipate?
So I…
bcohen | March 18, 2007One "newsmakers" blurb in particular from last week's issue of Science (Vol. 315, No. 5817, 09 March 2007) stood out to me. It was about how Taranjit Kaur, a pathobiologist at Virginia Tech, is working to reduce the ecological footprint of her own research.
(Consider this a nice and brief addition to the ecological footprint-related posts Dave and I have added to the site over the past months, but instead of Tom Cruise, or me, it's about ecologically conscious scientific practice, maybe more like this.)
Here's the full text of the story:
PACK 'N PLAY. While studying to diagnose disease in…
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…
worldsfair | March 16, 2007Mandatory testing of all tourney players has found substance abuse in all members of the Internal Medicine team. Specifically, the players tested positive for Norethandrolone, a testoterone derivative, and Showdown officials have ruled that they have no choice but to disqualify the team from the tournament. This means Surgery advances.
PRESS CENTER | OCTOPUS REGION | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Darwin crushes Jesus! Kuhn destroys Popper! Pluto Wins, Pluto Wins!!! (CHAIR bracket results are in)
bcohen | March 16, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Holy cow. What a day. Holy cow. We've been trying to track all the action, but probably missed some of the highlights. We caught that late three, way way behind the arc, from Pluto to secure their win over IAU, but still can't believe it. Totally stunned, totally stunned. The raucous crowds at the Darwin v Jesus game was as we expected, and intense. And the others, well, hopefully some of the other viewers will file some comments below on the games we didn't get to track too closely.
Popper: 65Kuhn: 87
Oh Popper, dear Popper, a lot of people thought…
worldsfair | March 16, 2007PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
Well, you know it's big when the American Idol gang weigh in with an opening musical number (live at the HIV vs Plasmodium court, and telecast to the others). Not only that, but the crazy reworking of Kelly Clarkson's "Since you've been gone" using the words from Koch's Postulates, was a huge hit. In any event, here are the results below.
HIV: 81
Plasmodium: 67
Well, the song must of really inspired the players in the pathogen centric game. HIV and Plasmodium really battled hard. But you know, at the end of the day, there really wasn't any contest.…
worldsfair | March 15, 2007This just in.
Looks like the supply and management staff for the Genomics and Proteomics teams are causing some headaches for the venue organizers. "Basically, too much hardware," as one onlooker commented. And too much indeed. It appears that with all of the high throughput robotics hardware being wheeled in, the equipment has actually spilled over into a neighbouring court - specifically, the one that was to host the "Photosynthesis" vs "Respiration" game.
"I can't believe the amount of crap they hauled in. How many $%&*# mass-specs do you need to play basketball?" said a…