Am I the only one who sees this, or does this look like the head of some giant friendly robot, all smiles with big cheeks? Remember Brad Bird’s Iron Giant, for example?
Well, it is actually not from science fiction but science fact. And it is a robot, sort of – well it can be controlled remotely to swivel its head and so forth. It is actually a Click to continue reading this post
I find this a bit sad, although most people will say “they’re only bees”. They (and lots of other beekeepers with their bees on trucks) were in the area to help with pollinating crops. I’m very enamoured of the idea that we still need bees to be brought in to perform such a crucial task for our agriculture, which makes it all the more sad to me to hear of the accident befalling the dutiful drones. Millions of bees were released on Sunday (and apparently hundreds of thousands probably killed) after a truck carrying several of their colonies overturned near Sacramento, California. You can listen to the NPR story (here) about the resulting chaos (and the emergency call-out to beekeepers in the area for help) and sting-fest that followed.
You can also read more on this in the local newspaper in the area, er… The Sacramento Bee. (No, really!)
-cvj
It’s a bit more than a month away. It’s always fun every year. It’s a Los Angeles celebration of the written word, done in wonderful sunshine, with hundreds of marvellous events in three days for young and old – Yes, it is the LA Times Festival of Books, coming up the weekend starting April 25th. The main daytime proceedings take place on the 26th and 27th (Saturday and Sunday) and I recommend them to you if you’ve not been. Mark your calendar. (Once you’re over there on Sunday, stay for the Categorically Not! event in the evening (entitled “Loops”), which will involve among others, science writer Dava Sobel!!) (Above right: One of the 2008 theme images from the Festival’s website. More here.)
The Friday evening will see the book prizes given out, kicking off the festival as usual. I remembered this just now because I found myself curious about the shortlist of books in the Science and Technology category. I wondered if there was something on Click to continue reading this post
Take your pick. (Yikes. I almost forgot.)
A breakdown of your choices:
Continuing a bit about the microbiology to be found in the garden, I did a post not so long ago on Correlations giving an update about the composting system I started a while ago (post on that here). You might find it interesting, and so I thought I’d let you know about it. It is here.
All’s looking well for an exciting Spring season of gardening!
-cvj
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.
The show? Comedy Central, and in particular, Daily Show fans will be pleased to learn that Lewis Black finally has a show 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
As you may recall from the post I did some time ago, the “Light Cone” is a rather important concept in physics, and keeping track of it in a given physical scenario is an extremely important tool and technique for understanding many physical situations. (I urge you to review that post before continuing reading this one.)
One way to understand a most important concept – the event horizon – is by keeping track of lightcones, and so let’s go ahead and explore that here. The outcome is that Click to continue reading this post
Not quite as (juvenile) funny as the equivalent phrase when rings were discovered around the seventh planet, but it’ll do as a post title. I’ll tease you with the image here Click to continue reading this post
The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday March 9th (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 – 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.
The theme this month is Puzzles! Here’s the description from K C Cole:
What isn’t a puzzle? The universe, life and everything are essentially puzzles that, to borrow from Einstein, “beckon like a liberation.” Designing buildings, choreographing dances, cooking meals and getting along with other people all involve solving puzzles (as, of course, does figuring out what’s right in front of your eyes—not to mention putting together a program such as Categorically Not!) A love of puzzles and the challenge of solving them is deeply embedded in human nature.
Gwen Roberts, Scott Kim, Gavin Scott. Our March 9th Categorically Not! features puzzlemaster Scott Kim, who’s Click to continue reading this post
I don’t mean that in a bad way. It is what it is. Quite varied and wonderful, our universe is, with unexpected features I don’t think many would have guessed at not long ago (like the fact that we only understand what about 4% of it is!! Crazy, in a Click to continue reading this post
A lovely release from the Hubble Heritage project. Well worth clicking on for more detail. The image was made using Hubble. It’s a planetary nebula (NGC 2371), the Click to continue reading this post
Not long ago David Morrison (UCSB) came to the mathematics department here at USC to give a colloquium.
This was a treat for me for many reasons. Here are three:
A snapshot from last Friday night (a week ago). There was no organized meal from the conference that night, and so people were left to their own devices to explore the chilly embrace of Washington DC. With the group of people that I was with, music emerged after dinner. Here is cosmologist Stephon Alexander (some of you may know him from his blogging days as part of the Quantum Diaries project.) with his saxophone. He’s in the middle of explaining tritone substitutions to two young Click to continue reading this post
No doubt about it: Spring has sprung. Whoever says there are no seasons in LA – and there are many who do – have no idea what they are talking about. The signs are in the air – there’s been a distinct change of the smell; lots of flowers are blooming. A parade of displays has begun. These are some of the poppies that are in various corners of the campus here at USC:
Here’s another shot….
I had some unusual guests in my General Relativity lecture yesterday, Eric Salat and Philip Shane, two film makers from Left/Right productions. They’re working on a documentary for the History Channel on the development of various ideas in physics in the early 20th Century, and they wanted to know more about the topics, and to see a full (1 hour and 50 minute) lecture from me.
While it is the History Channel (hence the dramatic subtitle – sorry), it is not part of the series “The Universe”, by the way. It is another separate part of the increased very welcome expansion of that channel’s science programming. Have you noticed the diversification of their programming that they’ve been doing? I’ve mentioned it before, and a number of people have commented on it to me elsewhere. It has been great to see.
It’s always fun to have more people in the classroom, and so we had a lot of fun… (Or at least, I did…I hope everyone else did too.) I happened to be doing a lecture on Click to continue reading this post
