worldsfair
Posts by this author
May 15, 2007
"One way for ecologists to define and correlate these varied environments is by categorizing these areas by the types of plants that inhabit them. These categories are called biomes. Categorizing each biome by plant life is not an end in itself; instead, indigenous plant life acts as an indicator…
May 15, 2007
"Ecology is a study of interactions or relationships between organisms and the environment; the connectedness between living systems and non-living systems on the Earth. Ecology is, in a sense, a historical field, founded upon the Earth's far reaching and ever evolving natural history."
(Click here…
May 15, 2007
"In the simplest terms, gastrulation is a stage in early development; in human beings it occurs between two and three weeks after fertilization. It is that stage when a two-layered cell mass undergoes a set of specific movements and interactions that establish the three germ layers of the embryo (…
May 15, 2007
"The pharyngula stage: the pharyngula is a vertebrate embryo that has assembled the outlines of the body plan. It has the key features of vertebrate morphology -- a post-anal tail, a notochord, a dorsal neural tube, a segmented musculature, and an array of branchial arches ("gill" arches). The…
May 12, 2007
No science. Just some songs, I'm digging right now. Available at our gift shop.
May 12, 2007
Keep the Car Running, Arcade Fire
The Story, Brandi Carlile
Last to Know, Neil Finn
May 11, 2007
The SCQ recently published an interesting piece on the topic of science and religion.
It's called "Science, Religion, and the Creation of Life on Earth."
My feelings on the relationship between science and religion are described very well in the words of Dr. Henry Eyring[1]:
"For me there…
May 11, 2007
So one of the things I'd like to accomplish this summer is to really get a move on on this children's book idea. This is an idea, I've had sitting around my head for a long long while. And I've decided that what I really need is someone to egg me on, which logically suggests my seeing if there is…
May 10, 2007
Since we were discussing lab work the other day, let's look at it from another angle. How cool would it be to be able to get a "mad scientist" version of a journal or a protocol book? It might go something like this:
* * *
1. Vortex each overnight bacterial culture thoroughly, and transfer 1ml…
May 9, 2007
Title: Pushing the Right Buttons
Art Director/Designer: Erika Rothenberg
Country/Year: USA/1992
The political choice between feeding the hungry or military aggression is dramatized in this poster. (from The Design of Dissent, Milton Glaser & Mirko Ilic)
May 8, 2007
Currently, I teach a graduate course in molecular techniques, but also have the privilege to generally interact with a lot of grad students from many different disciplines. Anyway, if I haven't seen anyone in a while, I usually (jokingly and probably annoyingly) query with a "Are you done yet…
May 3, 2007
PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
She shoots! She scores!
O.K. folks, so this was a wierd one for sure. I'm mean seriously, on one team, you've got it stacked with 2 or 3 giant squids (the big female variety as well) plus a roster so deep as to command 97% of the animal kingdom; and on the…
May 2, 2007
I've just started playing around with facebook, and thought it would be a great way to organize the whole Science Scouts phenom (even Nature picked up on our anthem, "Increase the N"). Anyway, we've had at least 150 calls for membership from the first boingboing nod, and with the second nod from…
May 2, 2007
To hear the HEFE song, go here. Usual Science Scout stuff is here.
Sometimes, the web and the connections it provides are so interesting...
May 2, 2007
Well, Ben has beaten me to the punch on showing some of the marvelous pictures presented here at Paleo Future. But I've actually been interested in these images for the past two weeks (with a nod to BoingBoing), having had the chance to look at some current projects that aim to use future…
May 1, 2007
- CLICK HERE -
Stay tuned for the final eight...
April 30, 2007
Often time, I wonder whether some of the things we present here at the World's Fair are perhaps a little too trivial. Whether it's our puzzles, the showdown, badges, our forays into humour writing, or the other oddities we sometimes revel in.
And I'm not sure if that "trivial" label can be…
April 20, 2007
Graphically anyway, yes.
These images were created for the Japanese design magazine IDEA for a special issue entitled "Made in America." TITLE: Supersize. CREATIVE DIRECTORS: J. Berger, N. Courtelis, P. McCracken, E. Mosqueda. ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNERS: N. Courtelis, E. Mosqueda. PHOTOGRAPHER: D.…
April 18, 2007
...The Blob has been dormant for half a century, but it's out there and the only thing preventing it from squishing through the streets of our cities right now, leaving a slimy trail of death in its wake, is the biting cold of the polar ice cap. Remember? That's where the Air Force marooned it…
April 17, 2007
Teams have just returned from Sagittarius A*, situated pretty much at the centre of our own galaxy. This was where the final game of the Sweet Sixteen was played in a last minute venue change implemented by the tournament organizers to generate some buzz.
Regrettably, special relativity nuances…
April 12, 2007
Is it just me or don't you think that Mr. Vonnegut would've been the person to have written the perfect piece about his death. He'll be missed - that's for sure.
(Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007)
April 11, 2007
I've got a list up at McSweeney's today. Click here to read.
That brings my creationism/intelligent design mockery count to three. The previous include this one and this one.
April 8, 2007
I just finished reading an interesting piece from the Washington Post (thanks Steve), which basically asked whether "objective" beauty and talent from one of the world's finest musicians, playing one of the world's most expensive instruments, can be demonstrated when seen out of context. More…
April 6, 2007
PRESS CENTER | UPDATED BRACKET
Welcome folks, to this here what we'll call the beautiful game (at least we'll say that for the molecular level). This game really had it all, it was dynamic, it had equilibrium, it had fluid transition, and it was catalytic. It involved freakishly large chemical…
April 4, 2007
I've talk about Pokemon before (in the context of biodiversity), but here's an interesting bit about how it sideline hundreds of kids, who happened to have watched an episode where the aggressive animation manage to mess with heads.
Here's how it panned out:
Anyway, the short version is that the…
April 4, 2007
This is more a hat tip to a great article by the New Yorker's Michael Specter. In a recent issue, his piece "The Denialists" was published and it does a great job of providing the exasperating context to what is really a sad state of affairs in countries like South Africa.
Zeblon Gwala is a 50-…
April 3, 2007
Well, despite the political fallacies inherent in drafting such reports, the answer is an unequivocal "hell yes!" But a piece at the SCQ by Sarah Burch (which constitutes the second part of an FAQ about the IPCC reports) is better at telling you why:
Given the deluge of noble mandates and far-…
April 2, 2007
Great White*
Tiger*
Hammerhead*
Thresher*
Leopard*
Megamouth*
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Not sure if there are any academic papers that monitor the decline of heavy metal, but there is certainly a wealth of research that examines the decline of shark populations. Thanks mostly to the work of Ransom A. Myers, who sadly…
April 2, 2007
I dunno. I'm curious what the verdict is and how much of depends on whether the phrase Boots the Monkey means anything to you.