Blogs

A Choon of a Science Friday with Strange Sounds, Strained Plumbing, and Straight-to-Your-Inbox Science

brunswick — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:05:11 +0000

Let's face the music… and put our face in it.

It's open-season on proposals for Biorythm, so to get you in a musical mood, check these out. We reviewed of the Darwin-meets-beserk-electro-opera album "Tomorrow in a Year," but if you really need a dose of strange, have a look at what Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) has done to the spectrograph image of his music.

It gets weird at 5:27

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-KMFxzA_Lk&feature=player_embedded#

(Wanna know ho to do this? Via synthgear http://www.synthgear.com/2010/strange-weird/richard-james-spectrograph-f... )

Back after this ad break…

If you watch the match over the weekend, consider the fishes. Because the bigger the game, the bigger the number of ad-break flushes. In another instalment of data that gets way cooler when visualized, behold: the water consumption in Edmonton Canada during the olympic gold medal hockey game:

http://www.patspapers.com/blog/item/what_if_everybody_flushed_at_once_Edmonton_water_gold_medal_hockey_game/

World wide tubes

Data visualizations are just getting better and better as the web gets more ubiquitous. And the BBC's map of net growth only starts in 1998, really driving home the point that the internet as we know it really did come down in the last shower.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8552410.stm

Change Wellcome believe in

The Wellcome trust are changing from a project-funding basis to one based on funding investigators, which will "provide researchers and their teams with the support to pursue individual, bold visions without constraints."

Irishscience

http://irishscience.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/how-should-we-fund-research-invest-in-projects-or-people-and-how-do-returns-on-research-investment-arise/

has a good writeup, and distills some of the impacts this could have on the science scene in Ireland, saying, "This approach couldn’t be more different than the intuitively-appealing and well-intended ideas regarding the relationship between research and economic growth promoted by some politicians (such as in this article by former Taoiseach John Bruton). The path from university research to innovation is much more complicated, unpredictable, uncontrollable and non-linear than anyone would expect."

Science is in with the in(box) crowd

Lastly, what kind of articles do you send on to friends? What kind of articles do you get? Well, credit is due to the enthusiastic readers of the New York Times, who mail science articles more than any other kind, a new study has found.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/science/09tier.html

People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics. Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list. In general, they found, 20 percent of articles that appeared on the Times home page made the list, but the rate rose to 30 percent for science articles, including ones with headlines like “The Promise and Power of RNA.”

Let's face the music… and put our face in it.

It's open-season on proposals for Biohythm, so to get you in a musical mood, check these out. We reviewed of the Darwin-meets-beserk-electro-opera album "Tomorrow in a Year," but if you really need a dose of strange, have a look at what Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) has done to the spectrograph image of his music. It gets weird at 5:27.

Science Gallery Competition - Your stories

Swedey — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:53:31 +0000

How has Science Gallery changed your life? Did you go in with a passing interest in fashion and leave as a potential physics student? Did Lab in the Gallery reveal all you ever wanted to know about research? Did you find a partner to collaborate with at a Science Gallery event?

As Science Gallery enters its second year we are looking for your stories about the gallery and its impact. We are looking for the quirky, moving, inspiring or downright bizarre stories. A couple of lines are plenty - but we may follow up with you to get more details.

Thousand Yellow Cocoons, Under Over Through: A Review of The Knife's 'Tomorrow in a Year'

brunswick — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:13:33 +0000

Evolvaphone fans get ready-- this is required listening for the musical evolutionist. Here's the pitch:

Science Friday: French nanorevolutionaries, the baby boomer researchers, and your laptop's unsung sonar song.

brunswick — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:45:24 +0000

Get your sonar on, without the nuclear option.

What do dolphins, Tom Clancy novels, and your laptop have in common? They can all make good use of sonar!

Non-coders, you can stop watching at 1:20. For everyone else, you can rig your computer to automatically sleep by using your computer's mic and speakers to detect via echolocation when you walk away. (via Lifehacker)

Interview: Margaret Wertheim on Science Communication and the inspiration for Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

brunswick — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:52:06 +0000

Margaret Wertheim sat down with us to speak about the upcoming Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit, her thoughts on science communication, and strategies for engaging new audiences with science.

Margaret Wertheim interview (download)

Science Friday: Futurefood, website music, ridiculous robots, and the spirituality-surgery link

brunswick — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:13:33 +0000

Science of Love, religion, and brain surgery.

Leviathan Science is asking whether science can predict love tonight, but leviathan previously tackled the issue of religion and science at Science Gallery. On that note, a new study has just shown that brain surgery boosts spirituality. Read it on Nature (subscription-only), and the ReasonProject.

Science Friday: Pearls Before Flies, The Drugs (that) Don't Work, and the Maths of Wonderland

brunswick — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:20:21 +0000

My three year old could make art like that.

It turns out some cave 'art' might actually be more linguistic than impressionistic.

And to our readers in the UK ... please don't sue me!

Darwin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:32:08 +0000

Many of you will already be aware of the campaign for libel reform in the UK. The UK libel laws are stifling free speech, and, with no clause for public interest, scientific discussion is being muted too.

Simon Singh's particular case (he is being sued by the British Chiropractic Association) has become the rallying point for efforts to reform UK libel laws to strike a more equitable balance between protection of reputation, and freedom of speech.

OMG! Learning is fun!!!

Darwin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:48:34 +0000

There's a note sitting on my desk as I write. It was given to me by a transition year student who just spent two weeks in my lab on a work placement. It says, "Thank you for everything, I really enjoyed myself". This sits alongside a similar note from another TY student a few weeks earlier.

Science Friday: Broken Hearted Girl Syndrome, urban planning with slime moulds and facebook, and curating like a gangsta

brunswick — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:56:07 +0000

Broken Hearted Girl Syndrome