Category Archives: science and society

Tales From The Industry XIX – Black Comedy

By | | , , , , ,
4 Comments

Wow, a lot of time has passed since I thought I’d get around to posting about this. You’ll recall that I went to take part in the taping of a segment for Comedy Central some time ago, Well, later on I went to the taping of the full show in which it will appear, and it was an amusing and interesting experience.

Lewis Black on set of Root of All Evil

The show? Comedy Central, and in particular, Daily Show fans will be pleased to learn that Lewis Black finally has a shw of his own, and it is called “The Root of All Evil”. The format is that he presides as a judge over a case examining which of two popular […] Click to continue reading this post →

Stellar Basketball Physics

By | | , ,
2 Comments

shaq on supernovae (from the onion)So the Onion’s gone and mixed some astrophysics with basketball. Headline:

“Shaq Terrified Of Phoenix Suns After Reading About Supernovas”

(Image on right also from the Onion.)
You can tell how it’s going to go from the title, although it’s rather amusing just how much stellar astrophysics they pour into the article (not even trying to disguise it much). Extract:

…new Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal admitted Monday that, upon reading about the phenomenon of massive stellar explosions popularly known as supernovas, he is now terrified of the entire organization.

(Wow… Shaq isn’t in LA any more? Huh. I’m so out of it. Update: Oh, yeah, I remember now. He went to Miami in 2004. Evidently I don’t follow the NBA.)

…and further: […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Debate 2008 – Closer to Reality

By | | , , , , , , , ,
4 Comments

So Chris and Sheril have announced the next step in the journey to a real debate about science issues of note that intersect with the current political sphere. And they’ve come a long way in a short time! Here’s some of what they said in a recent post:

ScienceDebate2008 is now co-sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies, and the Council on Competitiveness. We were looking at venues, and finally settled on an offer from the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute–named, of course, after one of this country’s first and greatest scientists. We can’t think of a more appropriate venue.

And guess what?! They’ve actually invited the candidates: Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

So the next step is to get the event (they suggest April 18, 2008) taken seriously by the […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Reply

By | | , , ,
3 Comments

Explorer 1 SpacecraftToday is the 50th anniversary of the day the USA replied to the world-changing Sputnik launch by the USSR almost four months earlier (see my post), as well as Sputnik 2 (carrying the dog Laika) a month after. In some sense, the space race began in earnest with this launch of the craft called Explorer.

A great thing about the Explorer 1 craft was that it even did some groundbreaking […] Click to continue reading this post →

Science Communication

By | | , , , ,
Comments Off on Science Communication

At the Science Blogging conference earlier this month, there was a very interesting discussion about communication of science, science and the media, and science in politics. It was led by Jennifer Jacquet of Shifting Baselines, and Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney (both of The Intersection), who each did a mini-presentation (Sheril and Chris doing a sort of tag-team double act, starting off with discussing Sciencedebate 2008, and moving into discussions of “framing” science, the separation of the cultures, and so forth – and of course, opportunities for bloggers). Happily there was a video made, and I’ve embedded it below (the quality is mixed, but overall […] Click to continue reading this post →

Planck Meets Fleming

By | | , , , , , , ,
11 Comments

So yesterday at Pinewood Studios they announced the name of the upcoming second James Bond film in the new series that (excellently, in my opinion) re-envisions the Bond movie universe. Last year’s first one was “Casino Royale”, you may recall. Did you hear what the next one will be called? […] Click to continue reading this post →

Categorically Not! – Science Goes Hollywood

By | | , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Categorically Not! – Science Goes Hollywood

Reza Aslan at Categorically Not!The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday January 27th (upcoming). The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series – started and run by science writer K. C. Cole Reza Aslan at Categorically Not! – of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area.

Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events. (Above right and left: Reza Aslan speaking on the origin of various ideas in Religion at the event entitled “Beginnings” on 16th December, 2007. Click right one for larger view.)

The theme this month is Science Goes Hollywood. Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Despite our prejudices to the contrary, Hollywood and Science have a lot to say to each other. Take special effects: Nothing Disney dreams up can […] Click to continue reading this post →

Put Yourself In Their Shoes

By | | , ,
2 Comments

alan alda and kc cole

Excellent evening on Wednesday night. As I expected, KC worked her magic and steered the conversation in many interesting directions, with Alan Alda turning out to be – not unexpectedly – quite the character. I suspect that it was recorded (on video) and so I will update this post or do a later post with a pointer to it later. Alda was swamped by people buying his book and getting is signed and so forth at the reception. It was great to see such a good attendance at this Visions and Voices event all about science and the arts – very much in the spirit of what this is all supposed to be about.

  alan alda and kc cole  alan alda and kc cole  alan alda and kc cole

Among the many things of note that were said, one thing I liked a lot was the telling by […] Click to continue reading this post →

Alan Alda Chats With KC Cole

By | | , , , , ,
2 Comments

kc colealan alda scientific american frontiersTomorrow afternoon at 4:00pm there’s be an interesting conversation on campus for sure. It’ll be between the science writer and journalist KC Cole and the actor Alan Alda. He’s such an interesting person, and (among other things) currently presents Scientific American Frontiers.

KC’s always so good at steering these conversations, so while I’ve no idea […] Click to continue reading this post →

Physics and Whiskey

By | | , , , , ,
9 Comments

jameson irish whiskeyBeing a loyal fan of Scottish single malt whisky, I never thought I’d be blogging about Irish whiskey, but this is why we get out of bed in the morning – we seek the stuff we can’t guess*.

So I was going to point out to you an amusing distraction. The series of radio ads for Jameson Irish Whiskey that you can listen to here. There’s one featuring a physicist, you see, and a friend of mine sent me the link for that reason**. There’s the idea of attraction, and so gravity is brought in by the ad man trying to use the concept to sell the product, and the physicist is obviously not having it… a short bit of fun play between segments of some program on some station somewhere or another. I can see that they’d work rather well. Have a listen.

That was going to be it, until I found another – real – physics connection. Turns out that Guglielmo Marconi – he of the use of electromagnetic waves for telegraph communication, Nobel prize, and so forth – is the the key to the connection. Do you know what it is?
[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Tales From The Industry XVI – Correlations Meetup and More

By | | , , , , , ,
2 Comments

It all began over dinner on Thursday night, before the rains began. Some of us met up at Ciudad (a favourite place of mine to eat in downtown Los Angeles, primarily for the mojitos) and the began to get to know each other in person, as opposed to online. I’m talking about the Correlations bloggers, and members of the team who work on the entire Wired Science website (which is excellent, by the way) with which Correlations is embedded. I met most of the latter group at various KCET events (the first screening of episode 1, the wrap party a few weeks ago I never got around to blogging, etc). This however, was the first time I got to meet Sheril Kirshenbaum, although we’d got to know each other so well online I have to say that it sort of felt as though we’d already met. Co-blogger (and show producer) Damon Gambuto arrived a bit later – I’d met him before at the party. The other bloggers coming from out of town to the meeting, Tara Smith and Michael Tobis, I would meet the next day since Michael’s flight was coming in late, and Tara was not feeling well. Tamsin Gray, being stationed in Antarctica, was not going to attend. Of the show host co-bloggers, Chris Hardwick (who I’d already met at the wrap party) would be there next day too. Ziya Tong was away.

Here’s a shot of some of us chatting at dinner (see also Sheril’s thoughts on this here):

correlations meetup dinner

Damon Gambuto is second from left, and there’s Sheril Kirshenbaum and cvj on the right – click for larger view. There’s also Liz on the left, and Philip Dunn in the centre, both from New Media.

The main purpose of all of this from the bloggers perspective was simply to meet and […] Click to continue reading this post →

Reflection

By | | , ,
3 Comments

It’s time to do that other thing that people do at this time of year: Reflect upon the year that is coming to an end. People start doing highlight programs on the radio and tv, surveying the year of blog posts on blogs, and so forth. Also, various science editors start doing their “top science stories” of the year. They are usually smart enough not to try to rank them, but even so, I do find myself wondering about what makes it to the lists and what does not. I’m particularly curious as to the nature of the discussions that must have taken place in order to compile the list.

Of course, science does not work to a tidy calendar (even though that would be rather nice and neat for our funding agencies), and – more significantly – it is often very hard […] Click to continue reading this post →

NSBP and NSHP

By | | , , , ,
2 Comments

nsbp and nshp conference logoI learned from Chanda Prescod-Weinstein* (an occasional commenter here) that it is time to register for the joint NSBP and NSHP (National Society of Black Physicists and National Society of Hispanic Physicists) conference. It’ll be in Washington DC, February 20th-24th. (Actually, it has been time to register, for some time, but I’m late to the party, as usual.)

Chanda’s been working on some of the organization, and she says on her blog (go there for more):

This year’s conference will feature a plenary on Cosmology and Quantum Gravity, organized by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and starring Abhay Ashtekar (Penn State), Lenny Susskind (Stanford), and Meg Urry (Yale).

[…] Click to continue reading this post →

Political Science

By | | , , , , , ,
7 Comments

Ok, a sidestep into politics for a short, but important moment.

With all that’s going on with all the presidential debates and press conferences and other appearances, has anything struck you as a major topic (or class of topics) that is simply missing from the national discussion? A topic that affects our lives in so many ways, and helps shape our futures in a most profound manner?

I’m thinking of science. I’m thinking of it in all the forms in which it intersects with politics – where decisions made by the president involve policy directly related to science (climate change and stem cell research are two of the most obvious), scientific research (both basic and applied), safety and security issues (consider the EPA, Katrina and other natural disasters), resources (the ongoing and coming battles about water sources, for example, pollution and air quality go here too, as well as under other headings), and energy (well, take your pick of example issues there). There’s also science education, on which there ought to be coherent effort for many reasons […] Click to continue reading this post →