Science & Society
Our 1950 pick is L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller's Genus Homo, a pulp adventure that takes place a million years in the future after after the genus Homo has destroyed itself, leaving the field wide open for other ape species to evolve higher intelligence, science, and technological war. Although Genus Homo was first published in book form in 1950, it was written for the pulp magazine Super Science Stories in 1941, and thus it really counts as a pre-Hiroshima novel. Nevertheless the book makes a clear reference to the possibility of humanity’s destruction by nuclear bombs, putting…
Little nuggets of (k)nowledge can often be the most simple and common sense ideas, but it takes someone else to put them into a coherent sentence. Tim Radford is a freelance journalist who has written for the Guardian, The Lancet, New Scientist and others, and even won the Association of British Science Writers award for science writer of the year four times. Awards do not a great writer make, but they're an indication that he does a decent job communicating, no?
In one of my classes during grad school I received a few sheets titled, "Tim Radford's Manifesto for the Simple Scribe - Rules of…
I think that there is an innate (somewhat mindblind) tendency to assume that other people think, feel, react the same way we do. Americans are often egocentric. We think that our way is the best way and assume that everyone wants to be like us. While it can be quite arrogant, when we are at our idealistic best, it is perhaps somewhat a quaint utopian dream.
It can be quite humbling to realize that we are not the norm and perhaps should not be. In some ways this tendency to assume inclusiveness of values can allow us to consider outsiders as part of our collective whole, but we can and do…
With 1949, we arrive at one of the big classics in the post-apocalyptic genre. George Stewart’s Earth Abides is epic in both scope and ambition, a bittersweet story that captures the immense scale on which nature operates, and which portrays the scientific achievements of human civilization as a minor ripple in nature’s broad course. It is a book focused on big themes: the reversibility of human history, the connection between technology and civilization, the impermanence of human achievements.
Earth Abides is an inversion of the story of Ishi, the last of surviving member Yahi tribe in…
Large amounts of money are being siphoned from the multi-billion dollar cigarette smuggling trade and going right into the pockets of terrorist networks and international organized crime.
A United Nations Security Council investigative body, the Group of Experts, has reported that millions of dollars in illicit tobacco revenues are reaching al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, and is financing Congolese rebels for the recruitment of child soldiers, mass rape and murders.
The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has determined…
Via GenomeWeb's Daily Scan, some comments on the prospects for citizen science in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Only one of the three appears to be an actual research scientist, but they make good points about the role of citizen science in research. For example, Clifford A. Lynch, Director, Coalition for Networked information:
I'm not wild about the term "crowdsourcing" and I think it's actually important to disentangle the developments.
One is the harnessing of massive citizen or crowd observational capabilities through distributed IT, sensors, and networking technology, keeping in…
The last couple of months of organizing the H+ Summit at Harvard University, together with Alex Lightman, Kevin Jain, and all the other collaborators of the conference team, have been very intense. Now that we only have a few days before the event, the smokes starts to clear, and while I am certainly not objective in my opinion, what lays ahead is a fantastic event!We will have more than 50 speakers talking about Artificial Intelligence, and the Technological Singularity, the Brain, Biotech, Citizen Science, and Education, Entrepreneurship, Longevity, Media&Design, Neuroscience,…
Wikipedia's Science 2.0 Article - I Call Poe
This article was inspired by Hontas Farmer's recent article and the subsequent comments: Science 2.0 - Darwinian Selection Of The Best Paper.
I call Poe because Wikipedia's article on Science 2.0 is so far removed from reality that I think it was intended for Uncyclopedia and somehow got mis-filed.
The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (April 2010)
You bet your britches the neutrality is disputed!
Science 2.0 or research 2.0 takes…
Hank |
If you haven't heard - and you will, because I will keep talking about it - citizen science is getting its own summit this weekend, when H+ sponsors "Rise of the Citizen-Scientist"(1) ... but that is not all that's been going on. Citizen Science is (finally) catching on everywhere. It's the new Prius!
The good news keeps on coming. Soon-to-be-citizen-science-fave ScienceForCitizens.net has gotten some bootstrap help from GoodCompany Ventures, which helps newer ideas get access to some expert help and get in front of VCs to raise enough money.
It's a good idea that has…
You are an idea-monger. Science, art, technology – it doesn’t matter which. What matters is that you’re all about the idea. You live for it. You’re the one who wakes your spouse at 3 AM to describe your new inspiration. You’re the person who suddenly veers the car to the shoulder to scribble some thoughts on the back of an unpaid parking ticket. You’re the one who, during your wedding speech, interrupts yourself to say, “Hey, I just thought of something neat.” You’re not merely interested in science, art or technology – you want to be part of the story of these broad communities. You don’t…