This year’s Terry speaker series was great, and now the SCQ is pleased to announce that summaries are available for all three (as well as the audio of the entire speech). Follow the links, and seriously people – be inspired. Summaries by Peter Ottis from News 101, CITR 101.9FM – – – “The End of Education” by Dr. David Orr (January 13th, 2006) LINK TO SPEECH | SUMMARY Dr. David W. Orr is Professor and Chair of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College. He is best known for his recent work in ecological design including his efforts to build a $7.2…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From commentary
HOLLYWOOD VS. SCIENCE: HOW FAR ARE WE FROM INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL?
Virtually all Hollywood science fiction – from Star Trek to Total Recall to the Alien franchise – agrees on one basic point: sometime in the near future, humanity will soup up its spaceships, stock them with silver jumpsuits, and get itself beyond the confines of our solar system. So, in no time at all, humanity will reach other worlds, says Hollywood. We may meet new species, and someday, God willing, we’ll all get the chance to have aliens hatch out of us at breakfast. To many of us, this vision is just a matter of time. After all, it’s been…
SORRY, BUT I’M BUSY TONIGHT: I HAVE TO GOOGLE “EVIL INTERNET”
(This marks the first of five pieces to be presented this week, all written by the UBC Let’s Talk Science Partnership Program) Let’s start with a confession. I am 29 years old and I don’t own a cell phone, a TV or a car. I do not have a subscription to a broadband Internet service! Gasp! This is by choice! GASP! For these reasons my mum regularly refers to me as a “Luddite” on phone calls from my home town Dublin, Ireland. The Republic of Ireland has one of the largest mobile phone ownership in the world. Market penetration has…
ON THE POTENTIAL PRESENCE OF BEER OR BEER-LIKE LIQUIDS IN OR RESULTING FROM VOLCANIC EMANATIONS
Symonds, Rose, Bluth, Gerlach (1994) have reported on the concentrations of various gases present in volcanic emanations for three volcanoes: Kilauea, Erta` Ale, and Momotombo. These gases typically include water vapor (H20), and, in order of their occurrence by volume, carbon dioxide (C02) and sulfur dioxide (S02). In addition, volcanoes are also known to release small amounts of several other gases, among them hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen chloride (HCL), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and helium (He). The United States Geological Survey, in a web site describing volcanic gases (2006), includes some of the data provided by…
BREAKTHROUGH BREAKDOWN
(graphic altered from Kadivar et al., 2006) If it’s not new, you can’t publish it; it is an axiom that illustrates a sickness in science. Doing biological research is not cheap, it takes time and money, and there is not enough of either to go around for everyone to fulfil their Nobel Prize dreams. If a scientist wants stability and adequate funding, i.e. a career, they have to produce. But these days knowledge is not enough; it has to be something that can turn into a “breakthrough”, a patent, or a pill. The pressure to produce, and for experiments to…
HARMONY IS ALWAYS HERE
The SCQ would like to introduce a new category, which we have tentatively called “impressions.” Think of it as an avenue to reflect on the music, words, or film that affect your relationship to science or your relationship to something that entails a small link to science. Hmmm, is that vague enough? – – – – – I’m not entirely sure if I became a rational scientific person by nature or nurture. Whether it is genetic or whether it is the obvious result of too many years of study. Whatever the case may be, I am a slave to my…
THE GIRAFFE: A FAVOURITE TEXTBOOK ILLUSTRATION OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES
High-school biology texts regularly present Darwin’s theory of evolution in contrast with Lamarck’s earlier explanation, and the organism most often used to illustrate the difference between the two views is the giraffe (e.g., Creager et al., pp. 233-240). Lamarck, it is said, told a story of giraffe necks becoming longer as the animals tried to stretch their necks to reach food (Law of Use and Disuse). The longer necks acquired in this way would then be passed on to their offspring (Law of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics). Continued stretching over the generations led to today’s long-necked giraffes. Darwin, on the…
ASPARAGUS, STINKY PEE, AND SCIENTIFIC CURIOSITY
I was recently enjoying a nice dinner with a few close friends of mine. Our conversations are often less than delicate, so it was no surprise that talk soon became a little tactless. The subject turned to the unpleasant yet inevitable consequences of our meal that would visit each of us within a few hours. No, we weren’t talking about beans (the so-called “musical fruit”), but about asparagus, a seemingly benign green delicacy that goes especially well with hollandaise sauce. Strangely, one member of our group had no idea what we were talking about, despite describing asparagus as her favourite…
DRUGS ARE THE ANSWER
Okay. Experiments are failing. Confidence is disappearing. Each dark day feels a little more desperate than the last. I am in dire need of course correction and I’ve stumbled onto an absolutely foolproof solution that will undoubtedly have me rocking the bench again very, very soon. Drugs. That’s right. Drugs are the answer. And nothing weak either. Though the irony of abusing nicotine while studying lung cancer scores well, cigarettes just don’t have the kick I’m looking for. With firsthand experience attempting to pipet after guzzling a sixer, booze are out too. And you can forget pot: my lack of…