Author Archives: Clifford

Science on TV – Having Your Say

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Recall that I told you about the pilot for the upcoming show Wired Science in an earlier blog post. It airs today, (Wednesday, January 3) on PBS. It was made by KCET here in Los angeles, and as you may recall from the post, in August I learned some interesting things about the context in which the show sits. It is rather interesting. It’s all part of a head-to-head competition, or “experiment” as PBS are calling it.

You see, there are two other shows being piloted on PBS over the next couple of weeks too. One is Science Investigators, made by WGBH, Boston, and the other is 22nd Century, made by Towers Productions (I think). They are three different takes on a science TV show format. The casting, scripting, presentation… all these things vary a great deal.

They’re really trying to come up with newer, more accessible formats, with the aim of getting science out there to the general public. This is a great thing. Only one show will “win”, sadly. The prize is the go ahead to make more episodes, and have them air on PBS. The judges…. this is the important part… The Judges are YOU. Go to the PBS site […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Sense

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I learned just now that there’s a charity in the UK called Sense About Science. From their website, I read:

Sense About Science is an independent charitable trust. We respond to the misrepresentation of science and scientific evidence on issues that matter to society, from scares about plastic bottles, fluoride and the MMR vaccine to controversies about genetic modification, stem cell research and radiation.

Our recent and current priorities include alternative medicine, MRI, detox, nuclear power, evidence in public health advice, weather patterns and an educational resource on peer review.

This is good to hear about. Recall earlier that I was wondering aloud whether there was anything in the UK that is equivalent to the USA’s Union of Concerned Scientists, or the recently formed Scientists and Engineers for America. This is not really an equivalent organization (they consult with scientists, rather than being a scientist-run organisation for example, and they seem relatively disconnected from the makers of public policy, where a lot of the real battles are to be fought), but they are at least swimming in the same waters.

I learned about them because they’re in the news today. ‘Tis the season for […] Click to continue reading this post →

Work on the Play Day

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science play cartoon cvj“The Play’s The Thing!” you yelled, as you got out of bed this morning. Well, at least for today. Today, you’ll mostly be sitting in one place with manuscript, paper and pencil. Scribbling. Crossing out. Scribbling some more. Making notes, etc.

Yes, today is work-on-the-play day and it will be very interesting, since you’ve not looked at the thing for a long time due to other commitments. Certainly not since it was read by real actors with real people in the audience at the Pasadena Playhouse during the Summer, although you could not attend, due to being out of town. You wonder if it was as fun as the other public reading, and whether readings will ever be as magical to you as that first private one.

Looking at the manuscript with fresh eyes, you’ll form the opinion that it has become a bit […] Click to continue reading this post →

Time for the Inventor Story

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three way ping pong by katrin stantonYes, right on schedule. The UFO story was yesterday, and today the Inventor story. It starts out with his three-way ping-pong table (of course! – and it’s called TriPong1), but before I even clicked on it I knew there’d be a “oh, and by the way, he has an alternative theory of the universe”, at the end.

I was not disappointed. My favourite bit of Katrin Stanton’s AP story: […] Click to continue reading this post →

What is it with Saucers?

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No, really, I want to know what the reason is. Most times you hear these Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) stories (or Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon stories, as we’re supposed to say these days, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevtich), it’s a flying saucer that’s been apparently seen. Why this shape? Where did it come from? Did it predate ficition writings, or come as a result of them? It is an idea that they ought to be symmetrical somehow? Then why not a flying sphere (which would be awfully cool)? Or a flying cylinder? Given that aerodynamics are not really at issue (it seems) with the astonishing technology these things are usually reported to have, why on earth not a flying teacup, for that matter?

Does anyone know or have a good theory about the origins of the flying saucer in our collective imagination? Do people report other shapes more commonly in other cultures?

Yes, there’s always the explanation that you hear about flying saucers more than other shapes because that’s the preferred choice of vehicle of the Visitors, but I’d like to […] Click to continue reading this post →

Hooking Up Manifolds

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lorenz manifold

I love crochet. I spent a huge number of hours doing it when I was young, and only in later years did I realize that the same things that attracted it to me then are the same things that drive and motivate a lot of my research interests. (I many have mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying again).

It’s the love of patterns, plain and simple. If your child -of whetever gender- gets […] Click to continue reading this post →

Last of the First

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The other day, in a nice cafe on the boardwalk at Venice beach, I was working with Veselin Filev, a student of mine, on a paper that he would later submit to the arXiv. The end of the year was approaching and I wandered off into some irrelevant anecdote or other (as I am wont to do), explaining to him a bit about little traditions concerning the arXiv, from the “old days”. I mentioned in passing that one last tradition will come to an end because the numbering system for papers will all change sometime this year (apparently the mathematicians are close to producing too many papers in each month – more than the 1000 the system can handle1.)

I explained that in days of yore, some people would try to get the very first paper of the year, so that they would have a rather special number, of the form hep-th/XX01001, where XX denotes the year. By far the coolest of these was […] Click to continue reading this post →

Happy New Year!

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I’d like to wish a Happy and Successful New Year to all readers, whether you be regular, occasional or first time visitors! In a very short time, you’ve all helped make this blog into a pleasant, informative, and fun place to visit (certainly for me).

succulent starbursts

I’d hoped that this could be -and it has indeed become, with your help- a place that […] Click to continue reading this post →

A Different Perspective

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The Bad Astronomy Blog gives a top ten list of astronomy images for 2006. There are some really wonderful choices there, and Phil Plait gives a good deal of discussion of each one. The winner is this fantastic back-lit (by the sun, not some giant NASA flashgun) image of Saturn taken -of course- by the Cassini mission:

Back-Lit Saturn by Cassini

Now there’s another wonderful feature of this photo that makes it such a clear winner. […] Click to continue reading this post →

Planet Hunter

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This is a diagram of the layout of the equipment on the Corot (COnvection, ROtation and planetary Transits) space telescope, launched recently from a site in Kazakhstan:

corot satellite

It’s a European Space Agency (ESA) mission, primarily run by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES – the French Space Agency, if you will) and it’s going to be looking closely at about 120,000 stars for signs of planetary bodies in orbit around them, in addition to studying the stars themselves. There’s a BBC story here, with video, more figured and images, and links to other sites, such as this condensed mission guide. The Proteus platform in the diagram refers to that fact that this is but one of a series of craft in the “Proteus” series, the platform itself being the design of the core containing the instrumentation and control systems of the device. Learn more about that here.

By going over to ESA’s site, you can learn a lot more about the scientific objectives and […] Click to continue reading this post →

Attack of the Clones?

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cloned cowsNo, probably not, but we are probably in for a battle. The FDA is said to be about to announce the approval of using cloned animals for food. The announcement will be on Thursday, but there are several news reports about it already. Here is a link to an AP article written by Libby Quaid. (I also borrowed from that article the picture -left, by Chris Gardner- of cloned dairy cows Cyagra1 and Genesis.)

What will the battle be about? Well, Let’s get the fear-mongering (that opponents of this announcement will use to their advantage) out of the way first. If these were indeed clones in the purest sense of the word, produced in unquestionable circumstances, in an industry that did not already have several unsettling and dysfunctional features to it (see for example here) then there would be no issue. The bottom line is that we should be no more scared of clones than we should be of twins.

But it is not that simple. According to the article to which I pointed, here are claims -backed up with documentation- (I have not read the research, so am merely reporting that it exists) that the cloned animals are not produced in a manner that would be acceptable for the production of animals by other means -there are still many deaths and deformities in the process, and these birth defects are still not fully understood.

Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said the FDA is ignoring research that shows cloning results in more deaths and deformed animals than other reproductive technologies.

The consumer federation will ask food companies and supermarkets to refuse to sell food from clones, she said.

“Meat and milk from cloned animals have no benefit for consumers, and consumers don’t want them in their foods,” Foreman said.

That alone might not be so terrible, you’re thinking, but the big thing […] Click to continue reading this post →

A Christmas Present For The B!

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Good News Everyone!

On Tuesday a box arrived in the post. What did it contain? New tyres (or is it tires?) for the Brompton!

new tyres for brompton

I ordered them as a well-earned present for the bike, for all the hard work put in almost daily, getting me to and from work and about on various errands (including dashing around campus from meeting to meeting) …. and because the back wheel was virtually worn away. What’s the big deal about this? Well, they’re reinforced […] Click to continue reading this post →

Really Old Stars?

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One sees them a lot around here, given the town I’m in, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

There’s a Spitzer telescope press release about the possible discovery of the most early stars detected to date. These would be the very first stars to have formed in the universe. Remembering that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, pause for a moment to be impressed by the claim of Kashlinsky, Arendt, Mather and Moseley that these stars appeared less than a billion years after the big bang. You should also read some discussion in John Baez’ recent post. [Update: See remarks from Ned Wright at the end of this post.]

The new milestone on the timeline of the universe’s history, if this is correct, would look roughly as in this image (from the press release):

timeline of the universe from spitzer

Extraordinary claims (like this one) require extraordinary evidence, and so there’ll no […] Click to continue reading this post →

Funky Fresh Air

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james brown image from concertshots.comOh, man! Right now I’m seriously jammin’ along to NPR’s Fresh Air. Why? It is a retrospective on James Brown (you’ve heard the news, I imagine). Terry Gross (the show’s presenter) has lined up a 2005 interview with him, and also has cut in interviews with Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, etc. It’s all about his music’s history – the influences, the influenced, the ideas, the groove, the politics, the movement, the Movement, and so much more.

If you’ve not listened to James Brown’s music before, this is a good chance to learn what it’s all about. (Image right from concertshots.com.) […] Click to continue reading this post →