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, 2006Geez, it looks like our traffic stats are really taking a beating lately, so I am compelled to assume that this has something to do with the whole Pluto thing.
I mean this isn't too much of a stretch is it? Well, o.k. maybe it is.
Actually, the day it was announced, I ended up hanging out and going for drinks with a group of bioinformaticians and one science philosopher. To be honest, it didn't seem to be a big deal to any of them, which I found really surprising. In fact, one of my conversations that day (thursday I think) went like the following:
ME: Dammit, Pluto is no longer a planet…
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.
- - -
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…
bcohen | August 28, 2006Spirit has done well in past years, jabbing and ducking, bobbing and weaving, while Matter has met every lunge, every uppercut, everything. It's a stalemate, for any reasonable viewer, but the odds-makers are still booking it and the networks are still promoting it. The whole fight is ill-conceived, I fear, born of some prior age when oddsmakers still thought there was a battle to be fought, when they were still in the flush of modern youth with the belief that spirit and matter were to set be against one another....
...I'd have to point to the literature of the early twenieth-century, to…
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…
worldsfair | August 25, 2006
Last night, before she went to sleep, Hannah (my eldest) said to me, "Daddy, in two more sleeps, I'm going to be 5 years old." Man, do they ever grow up fast. Takes me back to the beginning...
August 27th,2001:
Kate starts recording her contractions. She has contractions at 9:24am, 9:28am, and 9:33am.
Kate calls Dave at about 9:30am and tells him that she "sort of has contractions," but that they are irregular. She's thinking that they are actually Braxton Hicks contractions.
Dave asks if he should come home and skip his 10:30am meeting - Kate says no, it's alright.
Kate has contractions…
worldsfair | August 24, 2006Well, it looks like units of our Psyche Strainers are shipping robustly. So much so, that we are perhaps close to thinking about bankrolling a possible movie venture. In this respect, we're thinking specifically of adapting a screenplay from a previous SCQ piece called "WHO IS THE GREATEST SCIENTIST OF THEM ALL,", but having taken a lesson from the "Snakes on a Plane" phenomenon, we have decided to promote this venture as "SCIENTISTS DOING ULTIMATE FIGHTING."
Catchy right? And assuming the Pysche Strainers continue to do well, we figure we can raise enough funds to attract even the…
worldsfair | August 22, 2006Well, this is just a heads up to let you know that the SCQ is preparing to start its year two. For a while, we've only been presenting academic review type pieces, which, to be frank, has just not been good for traffic and the like (what do you think that says about readership?).
And so, on September 5th, we'll revert back to the eclectic mix that the SCQ is admired and loved for, including our great humour pieces which has led to folks sometimes referring to us as the "McSweeney's for Sciencegeeks."
Anyway, if you're interested in participating, here are a few submission types that we are…
worldsfair | August 22, 2006Monday Night FootTESTIS
Hootie and the FUGU RUBRIPES
Winnie the FECES
MASTICATEbacca the Wookie
Tchaikovsky's BERTHOLLETIA EXCELSA-cracker Suite
I can't believe it's not TWO BUTTOCKS AND AN ANUSer
Joani PRODUCES OXYTOCIN FOR Chachi
Bye bye Miss American CIRCUMFERENCE DIVIDED BY THE DIAMETER
Chairman FELINE VOCALIZATION's Little Red Book
Hey FORNICATE FORNICATE, the Cat and the Fiddle.
The Facts of STEM CELL / ZYGOTE / BLASTOCYST / EMBRYO / FETUS / NEWBORN
bcohen | August 21, 2006I'll have to work on putting this new building together - The Worlds' Fair Gift Shop - but know that one of our first items will be a scientifically backed, technologically robust Psyche Strainer. This strainer, which is still technically under wraps back in the lab and of which we can't yet post an image, works with Snake-Plane simplicity: it takes the psyche of the populace, and strains it. We can provide a prototype image, which I think Salvatore got from the Crate and Barrel.
Earlier prototype of The World's Fair's Psyche StrainerThe Psyche Strainer we'll be marketing, though, is far…
worldsfair | August 18, 2006Specifically, he said:
Well, I think if you're going to focus on the similarities of your three examples, it's almost as if an inherant goofiness is key for the spreading phenomenon. Mel Gibson drunk? That's goofy. Zidane with the headbutt? Also goofy. Maybe that's why something like 0.7% won't work - can you really make something like that goofy?
Of course, this wasn't the Bono that left the first comment on the previous Snakes in a Plane/Viral Marketing post.
Was it?
Although, come to think of it, that post did immediately follow a rejected science humour piece about him. And the email…
bcohen | August 18, 2006Called: "Dale Peck Reviews Einstein's Latest." I'm serious. This is a failed piece. Failed because it's too obscure, although it was fun to do. But it requires too much from the audience, and who really cares and wants to do all that work?
You have to know that Dale Peck is the lit-crit bad boy, famous for trashing every single piece of fiction written in the last decade. Even though that's not entirely true, and even though, somehow, for reasons that escape me, he actually is a good writer -- that is, he writes decent fiction himself -- the guy simply loathes all manner of…
worldsfair | August 17, 2006I felt bad not putting up the answer to the Puzzle Fantastica in the previous post, so to compensate, I'm prepared to give out the answer to a previous question I had concerning a mysterious looking contraption. In fact, here it is at this link specifically, and as well, it pertains to this picture below.
Basically, it's an attempt to provide info on how to perform polymerase chain reactions, but on the cheap so to speak. Which involved building your own thermal cycler and fortuitously led to an opportunity to publish the article at MAKE (which BTW has thrilled my engineering colleagues to…
worldsfair | August 17, 2006
...will be released on September 5th, 2006 (we forgot to mention that last time)
bcohen | August 17, 2006Mario Biagioli, a historian of science at Harvard, wrote a book a dozen or so years ago called Galileo, Courtier. It's a study of the context of patronage, courtly virtue, and shifting credibility between philosophers and mathematicians in and around the time of Galileo's trial. Great book, fascinating to read, lots to say about it. But my point of interest right now is in the idea and practice of scientific patronage. Biagioli says in his epilogue that his story of Galileo helps highlight the shift in scientific patronage from earlier princely forms to later institutional ones, and that…
worldsfair | August 16, 2006Two things seem to be front and centre lately on the media circuits, one of which being the HIV/AIDS conference, and the other (in direct contrast) is the release of "Snakes on a Plane." Both have a viral connotation, whereby HIV is suitably obvious, and the movie has more to do with information disemination.
It's all very intriguing though - that is, this concept of a viral mechanism of getting information out there. The "Snakes in a Plane" is certainly a good example of this, and in fact, as far as I can tell, most everything reported about the movie is more to do with this aspect, rather…
worldsfair | August 16, 2006(This is an oldish attempt at the "Speaks to a Geneticist" series, but was never sure if it was on or not)
- - -
BONO: Why am I so weary?
GENETICIST: From a genetic point of view, I would say that your weariness is a reflection of your metabolism. That is, your ability to pull energy from the food you eat, and the ability to utilize that energy effectively. Both of which should not be a problem for a person of your age and affluent stature. My guess is that you are just overdoing things. Here, Mr Bono, would turning up the lights help wake you up?
BONO: You know, I am probably overdoing…
worldsfair | August 16, 2006
This is not a clue. More a hint, mostly.
For any newbies, here are the past posts on the PF:
Most recent (and most impressive; a compilation of sorts)
Before that, Update #B (on evidence)
Before that, whence we provided the final clue
Before that, the 4th clue
Before that, Update #A
And the original posting.
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…