Media
jtoney | December 16, 2010As an antidote to recent postings about Christmas on Pharyngula, which have nothing to do with science or holiday cheer, I would like to share with you a wonderful innovative example of bridging science and technology with the arts: the Virtual Choir.
Composer Eric Whitacre embarked upon an experiment in online social media: he invited singers to post their performances on YouTube and then blended them into a single, integrated performance using Google Earth.
According to his website, the Virtual Choir -
"Featuring 185 voices from over 15 countries worldwide, The Virtual Choir began as a…
jtoney | December 15, 2010
Photo: Flickr Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
This morning, TIME magazine announced their choice for Person of the Year: Founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg. I am one amongst more than 500 million users worldwide that have used the power of online social networking to not only connect with others but to use this technology as a tool for research and teaching and learning. I am just beginning to see its potential.
On a personal level, I have been able to connect with old friends using Facebook; reaching out using the now quaint technology email never seemed to work. I invite you to share…
jtoney | December 14, 2010
Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, announced the top ten Tweets of 2010 - yes, it's that annual ritual of lists. Anyone whom might doubt the influence of Twitter might consider that in 2010, so far, more than 25 billion Tweets have been sent.
The number one Tweet was written by NBC's Ann Curry:
In the wake of the Haiti earthquake last January, the U.S. military took control of Haiti's airfield. A Doctors Without Borders plane carrying much-needed supplies and medical aid wasn't given clearance to land -- depriving the wounded of help from its team of physicians. Jason Cone, the organization'…
jtoney | December 13, 2010NBC photo
Contestants on NBC's "Biggest Loser"
In Woody Allen’s Sleeper, Miles awakens after a 200-year sleep, to a world in which healthy food choices have become topsy-turvy:
Dr. Melik: (listing items Miles had requested for breakfast): "... wheat germ, organic honey, and... Tiger's Milk."
Dr. Aragon: "Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties."
Dr. Melik: "You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?"
Dr. Aragon: "Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know…
pharyngula | December 13, 2010You just can't shut this crank up. You may recall that he earlier published a paper in an Elsevier journal claiming that all of genetics is wrong, oh, and by the way, the Quran and Bible are right because chromosomes look like ribs. He has a new paper out (only it's actually the same old word salad, freshly tossed), Molecular genetic program (genome) contrasted against non-molecular invisible biosoftware in the light of the Quran and the Bible.
The current perception of biological information as encoded by a chemical structure (genome) is critically examined. Many features assigned to the…
jtoney | December 10, 2010
The ceremony of Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize was filled with symbolism, as the award was placed in an empty chair as the recipient remained in prison for, as some say, expressing his civil rights. Liu Xiaobo embodies the pursuit of freedom within a communist system that by definition constrains personal freedom and realization of personal achievement. As I listened to coverage by PBS's NewsHour, the role of technology in the realization of human rights came into focus. While the Chinese government "blocked television coverage of the event and clamped down on Internet communications…
jtoney | December 9, 2010This is a powerful portrayal of how we have used Google to access information, summarized for 2010 in less than three minutes. I simply had to share this with ScienceBlogs readers, with acknowledgement from Mashable.
From the Mashable article:
"In terms of news searches, Haiti proved the most popular, followed by Turkish sports club Besiktas, Chile, "earthquake," Lady Gaga and the iPhone 4. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill ranked 10th."
Funny - that covers several topics that captured my attention! Our imaginations have become engaged in a digital world changing at an incredible rate - I can…
jtoney | December 7, 2010
In one of my favorite letters of all time, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Maria Cosway about a debate between his head and his heart. If you are not familiar, I encourage you to read the letter written by one of the great masters of the power of the word. In the spirit of this debate, I would like to share with ScienceBlogs readers an account of a personal special event. Yes, ScienceBlogs is about the logic of our heads, but sometimes the heart has something to say. There is a connection with science: namely, the importance of acoustics in our lives. Music has touched each of us in various…
jtoney | December 7, 2010
Google announced yesterday that you can now access three million books from 4,000 publishers from their ebookstore. These eBooks can be read on an android, iPhone, iPad, iTouch, Nook and Sony bookreaders and - almost forgot - a computer.
With this announcement, I wanted to share with ScienceBlogs readers an Op-Ed I published this Spring that discusses what we might be missing if electronic media were to replace printed media. What do you think? Please share your thoughts.
Electronic books, like it or not, may eventually replace books in print. Borders launched an e-book store with more…
pharyngula | December 6, 2010Ken Ham is humbly appreciative of the coverage his Giant Wooden Box project is getting.
We were notified late this morning that AiG's latest project, the Ark Encounter, will be featured tonight (Monday) on ABC-TV's evening newscast, World News with Diane Sawyer. Check your local listings for the ABC affiliate station in your area and the time of broadcast. (See the ABC-TV news site.) Also, here is a link to the article about the Ark project that appears in the New York Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/us/06ark.html.
The website for the Ark Encounter is ArkEncounter.com.
We…
jtoney | December 6, 2010As a member of the American Diabetes Association, I attended the ADA annual meeting several years ago and heard an inspiring lecture by Prof. Gene Barrett (Univerrsity of Virginia). Dr. Barrett delivered that year's President's Address titled: "The Sheep, the Ostrich, the Ant, Diabetes, and the Tragedy of the Common". {You can read the published article from this address here.}
As Dr. Barrett explained, the "tragedy of the Common" can be described as follows:
"Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit - in a world that…
jtoney | December 6, 2010
With the virtues that online social networking may offer for education, a thought for today is to consider a strategy to give yourself a respite from the frantic, nonstop pace of Facebook, Twitter, Digg and any other virtual world that sucks you in. A curious new software (counterculture?) called "Anti-Social*" has emerged that offers the user this:
"You'll choose an allotment of time for Anti-Social to block your access to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and whatever else you deem distracting (LOLdawgz.org), decide whether you'll need access to your email, and then start the fade to…
jtoney | December 6, 2010
As a scientist and educator, I had never planned on playing the role of a science journalist. That role was approached with caution step by step, on mental tiptoe, first with publishing Letters to the Editor in The New York Times, progressing inexorably towards Op-Eds and Blogs, propelled by a joy of writing and the desire to explain the importance of science in our daily lives.
Everyone seems to have access to the megaphone of the press previously available only to a cloistered club of journalists. My goal was not to add an idiosyncratic opinion or to criticize -- of which there is no…
pharyngula | November 28, 2010Today, Wikileaks begins releasing a huge collection of US embassy cables, and we're about to discover the degree of skullduggery that's been going on.
The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
This document release reveals the contradictions between the US's public persona and what it says behind closed doors - and shows that if citizens…
sastyk | November 23, 2010I hope my readers will forgive me today for lapsing back into my prior profession rather than my present one as an energy and environmental writer. You see, before I gained fame and fortune writing about our ecological situation, I was a mild-mannered college teacher, whose favorite and most important job was teaching rhetoric to undergraduates.
I am perhaps odd in observing that I thought that teaching writing was the most important thing I did. Most academics believe their primary subject matter is the central portion of their work, but I came to see that the place that I had the greatest…
hrynyshyn | November 17, 2010There's an advertising feature in the latest GQ that champions 17 "Rock Stars of Science." Each ad includes a genuine rock music star alongside three or four genuine scientists, some Nobel laureates among them. The idea is to make science sexy.
Will it work? Chris Mooney, co-author of Unscientific America, is one of the minds behind the campaign. if you want to know more about it, head on over to his Intersection blog, where he writes about the risks of the project:
Was it an absolute requirement for them to carry on like this (see right) to make their point?
Unfortunately yes--if they were…
sastyk | November 16, 2010PANRC, by the way, is the acronym for "Post-Apocalyptic Novel Reading Club" pronounced by those in the know (ie, the person who just made this up 3 seconds ago) as "Panric" ;-). And while December's selection (we'll start on 12/1), Jim Kunstler's _The Witch of Hebron_ has been out for a bit, Kurt Cobb's _Prelude_ (which is, in fact, an immediately pre-apocalyptic novel) is now out. YAY!!!!
I've read _Prelude_ and besides the fact that I think it is fun and readable - a peak oil novel someone might actually read for fun - I think what Cobb is doing is important and I want to support it.…
pharyngula | November 14, 2010The A&E Channel has a new show coming up: Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal. Sounds awful already, doesn't it? But it's worse than you think: they're looking for disturbed kids who think they've got magic powers, and then they're flying in "professional psychics" to coach them in dealing with their awesome powers, i.e., indulge their delusions, get off on feeling superior to unhappy kids, and collect a paycheck for psychic child abuse.
They're putting kids in the hands of a creepy skeevo like Chip Coffey, all for your entertainment.
This is quite possibly the most loathsome thing…
pharyngula | November 13, 2010I've noticed that the bad practice of "he said, she said" journalism so common at the NY Times disappears when the subject is religion. There, instead, the standard role of the journalist becomes one of the credulous, unquestioning observer. It's evident in this new article on the revival of Catholic exorcisms, being discussed at a conference.
The purpose is not necessarily to revive the practice, the organizers say, but to help Catholic clergy members learn how to distinguish who really needs an exorcism from who really needs a psychiatrist, or perhaps some pastoral care.
That's not a…
jtoney | November 8, 2010
This Halloween, Lady Gaga costumes were all the rage, but one fan has taken devotion to a whole new level.
This fan, who has attended some 28 Lady Gaga concerts worldwide (so far!) and created an "adoring fan" website, happens to teach sociology and has developed a new sociology course, "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" at the University of South Carolina, as reported in The New York Times (Oct. 29). It is often said that the tenure system is founded in academic freedom, allowing instructors to teach subjects without constraint, hopefully with the students' best interests in mind.…