Posts
January 14, 2011
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Yesterday, I went on Facebook. Not an unusual activity for someone my age. Or for someone my parents’ age, which I still haven’t gotten used to. But that’s not the point of this.
Several of my “friends” had statuses mentioning "Ophiuchus", whatever that is. One girl’s panicked reaction to this unpronounceable phenomenon had received enough attention to elicit ten of my peers to "comment" on it.
So, I did what any self-respecting person
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Yesterday, I went on Facebook. Not an unusual activity for someone my age. Or for someone my parents’ age, which I still haven’t gotten used to. But that’s not the point of this. Several of my “friends” had statuses mentioning "Ophiuchus", whatever that is. One girl’s panicked reaction to this unpronounceable phenomenon had received enough…
September 22, 2010
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5:12 PM | Death and the Powers is here
The innovative new opera by Tod Machover, Death and the Powers, opens this Friday for its world premiere in Monte Carlo at Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo. Machover gave Festival-goers a sneak peak of this hugely ambitious work earlier this summer at the 2010 World Science Festival, which included a thought-provoking conversation with AI legend Marvin Minsky.
The opera—a brainchild of Machover's Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab in co-production with American Repertory
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12:12 PM | Death and the Powers is here
The innovative new opera by Tod Machover, Death and the Powers, opens this Friday for its world premiere in Monte Carlo at Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo. Machover gave Festival-goers a sneak peak of this hugely ambitious work earlier this summer at the 2010 World Science Festival, which included a thought-provoking conversation with AI legend Marvin…
September 07, 2010
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5:09 PM | Broadcast: The Search for Life
Update: The broadcast went really well. Thanks to everyone for participating. You can check out the replay and transcript with Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak here → Stay tuned for more interactive broadcasts to come. We've got some dingers lined up...
Join us tomorrow for a special interactive broadcast of The Search for Life in the Universe, originally taped during the 2010 World Science Festival. Accompanying the broadcast, we're very excited to have live commentary and a Q/A session with
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12:09 PM | Broadcast: The Search for Life
Update: The broadcast went really well. Thanks to everyone for participating. You can check out the replay and transcript with Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak here → Stay tuned for more interactive broadcasts to come. We’ve got some dingers lined up… Join us tomorrow for a special interactive broadcast of The Search for Life in…
August 10, 2010
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7:03 PM | Greetings from the People of Earth
The above video montage was kindly produced by multimedia artist and musician Claire L. Evans (of Universe) to open the WSF 2010 panel "The Search for Life in the Universe," which featured the likes of Jill Tarter, David Charbonneau, and Steven Squyres. Unfortunately, due to a production clusterWTF, it didn't end up running. Which is a shame, because I really like its somewhat chilling but still hopeful subtleties. Claire breaks down her motivations for
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2:03 PM | Greetings from the People of Earth
The above video montage was kindly produced by multimedia artist and musician Claire L. Evans (of Universe) to open the WSF 2010 panel "The Search for Life in the Universe," which featured the likes of Jill Tarter, David Charbonneau, and Steven Squyres. Unfortunately, due to a production clusterWTF, it didn’t end up running. Which is…
August 05, 2010
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Numbers don't lie, but they tell a lot of half-truths. We have been raised to think that numbers represent absolute fact, that in a math class there is one and only one correct answer. But less emphasis is put on the fact that in the real world numbers don't convey any information without units, or some other frame of reference. The blurring of the line between the number and the quantity has left us vulnerable to the ways in which statistics can deceive us. By poorly defining or incorrectly
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Numbers don’t lie, but they tell a lot of half-truths. We have been raised to think that numbers represent absolute fact, that in a math class there is one and only one correct answer. But less emphasis is put on the fact that in the real world numbers don’t convey any information without units, or…
August 02, 2010
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6:12 PM | James Webb Telescope Video
Hey gang! Remember when we set up a model of the new James Webb Space Telescope in Battery Park? If you don't, the people at Behind the James Webb Space Telescope have produced the cool little video above about the telescope's visit to NYC and the World Science Festival. Read the comments on this post...
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1:12 PM | James Webb Telescope Video
Hey gang! Remember when we set up a model of the new James Webb Space Telescope in Battery Park? If you don’t, the people at Behind the James Webb Space Telescope have produced the cool little video above about the telescope’s visit to NYC and the World Science Festival.
July 13, 2010
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I got into this stuff because of science fiction. I was a huge nerd in high school. I remember there was a time that between UPN, TNN, and The SciFi Channel you could watch six straight hours of Star Trek on a Friday night. None of those networks exist anymore. I built a Stargate in my parents’ basement freshman year (see above)--though I never got it to send me anywhere. When my Junior English teacher told me to write a paper on John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or another famous
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I got into this stuff because of science fiction. I was a huge nerd in high school. I remember there was a time that between UPN, TNN, and The SciFi Channel you could watch six straight hours of Star Trek on a Friday night. None of those networks exist anymore. I built a Stargate in…
June 22, 2010
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3:19 PM | Why Faith and Science?
In the run-up to this year's Faith and Science panel at the 2010 World Science Festival, there was some concern expressed (here and here) about our sponsors' influence on programming. In light of such criticism, we thought it would be a good time to reiterate the Festival's absolute editorial independence, as addressed last year by World Science Festival co-founders, Brian Greene and Tracy Day, in response to similar concerns: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
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10:19 AM | Why Faith and Science?
In the run-up to this year’s Faith and Science panel at the 2010 World Science Festival, there was some concern expressed (here and here) about our sponsors’ influence on programming. In light of such criticism, we thought it would be a good time to reiterate the Festival’s absolute editorial independence, as addressed last year by…
June 17, 2010
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The full replay of Hidden Dimensions: Exploring Hyperspace, featuring Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, Shamit Kachru, and Linda Dalrymple Henderson, is now available for streaming for a limited time. If you haven't had your mind blown yet this morning, I recommend you head over to our livestream replay pages pronto, grab a tall cup of coffee, and prepare for perspective-scrambling kernels from some of the greatest living physicists.
Watch now >> Read the comments on this post...
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The full replay of Hidden Dimensions: Exploring Hyperspace, featuring Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, Shamit Kachru, and Linda Dalrymple Henderson, is now available for streaming for a limited time. If you haven’t had your mind blown yet this morning, I recommend you head over to our livestream replay pages pronto, grab a tall cup of coffee,…
June 16, 2010
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The fine folks at NPR's RadioLab have produced a new episode based on Strangers in the Mirror, which features Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close (and was moderated by RadioLab's own Robert Krulwich).
Have a listen over at their site. Or add to your cue wherever podcasts are sold for free (ie, iTunes). And check out their amazing back catalogue of archived shows while you're there. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...
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7:17 PM | Tell Us a Story
Have a story to tell from the 2010 World Science Festival?
Maybe it was something you learned? (Like, for instance, if the Earth were to be a black hole it would have to collapse to the size of a grain of sand.) Perhaps it was a serendipitous chat you had when bumping into your favorite scientist, artist, or author over the weekend's festivities? (I had a charming chat with Dr. John Mather and his wife about the crude pocket telescopes he used as a child that ultimately inspired him to take a
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The fine folks at NPR’s RadioLab have produced a new episode based on Strangers in the Mirror, which features Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close (and was moderated by RadioLab’s own Robert Krulwich). Have a listen over at their site. Or add to your cue wherever podcasts are sold for free (ie, iTunes). And check out…
June 11, 2010
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3:15 AM | That's a Wrap (Or Is It?) + THANK YOU!
Well, another World Science Festival is in the books. And what a trip it’s been. One attendee at this year’s festival suggested that, as if conjuring the gravity of a supermassive black hole, we must have slowed down the passing of time in order “to do so much in 5 days.”
Accusations of timespace manipulation aside, there were plenty of magic moments during the 40+ events throughout the run of the Festival. From Professor Stephen Hawking’s poignant speech in front
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June 05, 2010
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We'll be streaming the animal cognition program live from the Skirball Center in NYC, featuring Brian Hare, Vanessa Woods, Jeremy Niven, Patrick Hof, and Klaus Zuberbühler. And moderated by RadioLab's Jad Abumrad.
Kick-off is at 3pm today. ScienceBlogs Editor Evan Lerner will be calling the game with me in the L'Blog booth, playing Jerry the King to my JR.
Watch live and join the conversation (and/or correct our typos) in the Cover It Live forum.
Or follow us on the Twitt: @WorldSciFest
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June 04, 2010
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If you can't make it to the Tishman Auditorium in New York tonight to catch the highly anticipated program The Limits of Understanding, we've got you covered. The event will be streaming live, but we'll also be there to cover it, so follow along with the commentary alongside the video stream, and feel free to join in! The event starts at 8:00 EST. Moderator Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Laureate and President of Rockefeller University, will join mathematician Gregory Chaitin, philosopher Rebecca
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7:50 PM | Your Inner Bonobo
Vanessa Woods joins us from Your Inner Bonobo at Psychology Today. Vanessa is an award-winning journalist and author who studies the cognitive development of chimpanzees and bonobos at sanctuaries in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Join Vanessa and other leading scientists in All Creatures Great and Smart, a World Science Festival program that challenges long-held assumptions about the differences between 'animal' and 'human.'
Who is the smartest of them all?
You
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June 03, 2010
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At 8:00 pm EST tonight, tune in to the live stream of Black Holes and Holographic Worlds, which Greg Boustead and myself will also be covering live from NYU's Skirball Center. Moderator Alan Alda and physicists Raphael Bousso, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Andrew Hamilton and Kip Thorne will explore recent discoveries about what are perhaps the most mysteriously named objects in the universe - black holes - and how they have led to the idea that our entire world might be something like a hologram. Hope
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