Cyclone Sidr

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cyclone sidr - nasa photoOver on the Intersection, Sheril Kirshenbaum and Chris Mooney are wondering why on earth there’s been little or no US media coverage of Cyclone Sidr, the monster storm that is bearing down on Bangladesh. Given the size of the storm, its approach, and the low-lying nature of Bangladesh, the landfall of this storm could be utterly catastrophic (it has already begun to take many lives) – beyond Katrina, for example. Please go and have a look at their series of posts (and more to come I bet) about the storm. For example, here, here, here, here, and here.

-cvj

Tales From The Industry, XV – Coincident Science Bloggers

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Well, that was a bit of an odd day. Let me explain.

hollywood center studios

An email and then a call with a producer at Comedy Central last week led me to the (historic) Hollywood Center Studios today. I was to do an appearance in a little comedy “bit” that will be part of a show to air next year. They wanted scientists for a fun piece, but I won’t say what they were doing with us since I don’t know if they’d like it revealed before airing (probably not). It’s a new show too, with some very well known and smart comedians on it. I’ll tell you more when I can. All I can say is that it looks as Click to continue reading this post →

Iranian Atomic Secrets

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This just in from the Onion (America’s Finest News Source, I remind you). Seems that there’s been a definite confirmation of potentially dangerous objects in Iran’s possession. Article’s title: “U.S. Intelligence: Iran Possesses Trillions Of Potentially Dangerous Atoms”. Extract:

condoleezza rice atoms[…] the Department of Homeland Security uncovered new information Monday proving the Middle Eastern nation has obtained literally trillions of atoms—the same particles sometimes used to make atomic bombs—for unknown purposes.

Onion’s image caption: Condoleezza Rice displays for reporters one of the many varieties of atoms Iran is believed to already possess. (Of course, she’s holding a model of a molecule, but let’s not quibble here.)

Continuing…

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Tales From The Industry XIV – MANswers

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Ok, ok. Since more than a few people have spotted it, I think it is best to (as they used to say in Hill Street Blues back in the 90s) “get out in front of this thing”.

You’ll recall (see list of related posts) many of the good things that I’ve talked about concerning the work various program makers are doing for the History Channel’s The Universe, and KCET is doing for PBS’ WIRED Science, Discovery’s Science Channel, and other science shows I’ve mentioned (and there are more I’ve not yet mentioned). I’ve shared with you some details about some of my own small role in some of these sorts of things so that you can see some of how these programmes come to be, including various shoots I’ve mentioned here and there, various behind-the-scenes activities, and my optimism about what seems to be a general renewed interest by program makers on various channels in making more and better science programs, working more closely with scientists in the process.

From all this you’ll be of the expectation that within a year or two, my dream that everybody on the street will be chatting about science topics/culture just as often as any other topic in our culture might be realized. Well, of course, that’s a bit hasty. The vast majority of stuff out there is just as it always was, and some efforts go rather wrong. Here’s an example:

You’ll remember a couple of fun shoots I did last year. I blogged them here and here. I had high hopes that they’d turn out to be part of something promising. I was (and am) willing to try to bring a little science flavouring to places where it is not normally found, to audiences who don’t normally seek out science programming. Who knows where that can lead? But… the show turned out to be, how shall I put it? Low on science and high on… other stuff, shall we say.

The show I’m talking about is on Spike TV and it is called MANswers. I always knew it was going to be close to the mark, but was willing to take the risk just in case it got a few people thinking about science for a second or two or more. My reasons? No Click to continue reading this post →

My Work Here is Done

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lexington visit Yep. All done. Sitting in great cafe with a cup of camomile, listening to one of my favourite Mingus albums on the cafe’s overhead speakers, feeling that it all went well. (The latter – Mingus in a great cafe late at night? – is not really the Kentucky I remember.) I seem to have gone three for three. Class, seminar, colloquium. No disasters, besides skimping on the sleep a bit here and there and writing some of the material at the last minute. Good.

So I gave the seminar at noon*, talking about much the same material I did in my Santa Barbara talk I mentioned before here. We then went to lunch at a Korean place nearby that was rather good. I ordered the bi bim bap (as I often do at Korean places) and to my disappointment, it did not come in the super high temperature Click to continue reading this post →

A Return

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I’m in Lexington, Kentucky, for a couple of days to give three presentations at the University of Kentucky (or “UK” as everyone refers to it here – I hope that explains the previous post). I should be preparing two of them instead of blogging, but… you know how it is. Here’s how I got here:

lexington visit On Wednesday afternoon, after a class on magnetostatics, and an attendance of a lunchtime event where four of our faculty (Biology, Geology, Cosmology (our very own Elena Pierpaoli!), Biology) presented their research, I dashed for a plane. Some hours later, at 10:45pm local time, I touched down in Chicago, and 15 minutes later was on the highway in the company (and car) of Nick Halmagyi.

Our mission? To hang out for a few hours in an excellent bar or two of his acquaintance and catch up on what’s been going on with each other, workwise and otherwise. The Charleston was indeed excellent, and (after chortling a bit about the memory of my annoyance at being charged $29 for a serving of a single malt scotch in a bar in Aspen during the Summer) proceeded to order the same here (he the Macallan, me the Talisker). At about 1:00am, the music stops and a guy with a face full of character sits down at the upright piano, is introduced to a scattering of applause, and proceeds to play some Chopin. Everybody shuts up and turns to listen. Appropriately, the piano sounds like all upright pianos in all bars all around the world sound (the tuning is just a bit wobbly), and the guy is good – really good. He stops playing the piece, and there’s some more scattered applause; someone (jokingly?) offers his a dollar as he walks away which he waves away enthusiastically; the music comes back up, and everybody turns back to their conversations. Nick and I continue to chat about various aspects of life, and order a couple more whiskeys.

At 1:25am or so we wander over to another bar. Nick seems a bit surprised by my suggestion to do this (‘cos I’m supposed to be going to sleep), but I’m just enjoying walking for a bit in the cold, wearing a cozy hat and coat that normally get no use these days, and there’s something nice about a proper bar hop in a neighbourhood with good bars and in the company of someone who appreciates it. This bar has an Click to continue reading this post →

All in a Weekend’s Work and Play

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I’ve been distracted by several things recently, and so (even more than is usually the case) there’s far more to report than there is time to report it. Among the highlights are, as already mentioned in the comments, a Saturday visit to MOCA (Geffen Contemporary) to see the Takashi Murakami exhibition. (Coinciding nicely with me about to embark upon reading “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by the other very well known Murakami: Haruki Murakami.)

murakami flower ball
His simplest motif – which he reuses again and again in many pieces – is the smiling flowers in various colours. The 2D version of the 3D flower box is one of my favourites, and here it is in a room that is wallpapered with the motif. There’s a more solemn one with a range of expressions on the flowers’ faces in an entire field of them (“Kawaii – Vacances”) (including one shedding a tear), but I could not find a good web reproduction of it. The below is a rather small version:

murakami: kawaii - vacances

It’s only the second weekend since it opened here in LA and it is hugely popular, with tons of people in the exhibit spaces walking around excitedly and pointing at things. (This being LA, this included a lot of activity in the special Louis Vuitton room, which Click to continue reading this post →

Struck

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I’ve met some striking writers in this town, but these are easily the best so far:

writers striking

Writers on strike in Hollywood at the Sunset Gower Studios. (This is the Sunset Blvd entrance to parking. Remarkably, it was reported that earlier today at one of these entrances, someone on the production/editing staff deliberately ran over one of the striking writers in his car to gain access to the building.)

I’m sorry. It is a poor opening pun but I could not resist. I was rather excited this morning as I got an email from someone who’s working on a science documentary show I was reading a script for and the subject was “HELP!”. I was wondering if it had something to do with the strike. The show will air not too long from now and I began to Click to continue reading this post →

Remembering Bob Miller

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The Artist and Science educator Bob Miller died on Sunday. This is very sad news indeed. He and his work may be familiar to many of you from San Francisco’s Exploratorium.

categorically not - really?I met him only once, on the evening of April 23rd 2006 at a Categorically Not! event. From that short time I got a sense of his enthusiasm for explaining many phenomena in optics and other aspects of physics to anyone who would listen. He was a unique and highly original person in every positive sense of those words, and his passing is a great loss. The Cat Not! event during which I saw him in action (see clickable image on right) describing optical illusions and other phenomena was one of the most delightful such evenings that I can recall. After re-reading my report on the event, I thought I’d share it with you as a celebration of his life. It is the previous post, and it has links to some of Bob’s work.

Bob Miller was a dear friend of science writer K. C. Cole, and so (with her permission) I am reproducing here a piece that she wrote about Bob Miller not too long ago. It is a fitting tribute. -cvj

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The physicist Frank Oppenheimer used to say that artists and scientists are the official “noticers” of society—people whose business it is to notice things that other people either never learned to see or have learned to ignore.

I’ve never known anyone with quite the knack for noticing as San Francisco artist Bob Miller, and since I’ve known him, countless things I used to think quite ordinary have been animated by his imagination. Once he asked me: How would you suspend 500,000 pounds of water in the air with no visible means of support?

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