Science Lush

The Lush List: 11/05/2011: Santa Fe Special

This weekend I went to Santa Fe with my college roomates. Our plans included walking, wine, galleries and good eats, but of course some science-related moments popped up amidst the art and the appetizers...

When sending mail to a secret laboratory...
While on a restaurant tour of some of Santa Fe's best eateries, we stopped into La Casa Sena Wine Shop and Lounge. Turns out that in addition to some lovely bottles, the wine shop is also know for its address, 109 E. Palace. This was where all the mail from Los Alamos was sent during the Manhattan Project so that no one would find out why a whole bunch of physicists were sequestered on a mesa 35 miles outside Santa Fe. For more on the history of the Manhattan Project, check out Jennet Conant's 109 East Palace.

 

Sci Fi Art
Canyon Road features gallery after gallery, so we spent one early afternoon strolling through town checking out the artistic offerings. My favorite by far was Chalk Farm Gallery, which bills itself as "The world's leading gallery for visionary art." It was a treat to see fantastical works by Daniel Merriam, Robert Bissell and Michael Parkes up close. I was particularly thrilled to catch an exhibit from science fiction and fantasy artist Stephan Martiniere, who has done work in a variety of entertainment fields including feature films, animation, video games, theme parks, editorial, commercial and book covers. His work as a concept artist for live action films includes such movies as Star Wars Episodes II and III, The Time Machine, Red Planet and I,Robot.  Seven  36" x 24" fine art canvas giclees of his pieces were on display - I wish I could have jumped into them to explore some of the worlds he's dreamed up.

World Too Near
Pic from www.martiniere.com, where you can purchase the artists' work and find out more about him.  

 

 

 

 

LA Times Book Fest Science and Tech Panels

If you happen to be in Los Angeles this weekend, check out the LA Times Festival of Books, which is being held on the UCLA campus on April 24th and 25th. In addition to books, signings and kiddie events galore, there are several panels that should appeal to the scientifically and technologically curious.

SATURDAY PANELS:
10:30am: "Water: The Past, Present, and Future of our Most Precious Resource." Moderator: Thomas Curwen. Speakers: Michael Hiltzik, Jenny Price, Steve Solomon and D.J. Waldie.

NOON: "Science & Humanity: From the Past to the Future." Moderator: M.G. Lord. Speakers: Brian Fagan, Michael Shermer and Richard Wrangham.

1:30pm: "Science: The Universe Revealed." Speakers: Marcia Bartusiak, K.C. Cole and Jennifer Ouellette.

SUNDAY PANELS:
1:30pm: "Science: Time, Reason, and Memory." Moderator: Margaret Wertheim. Speakers: Sean Carroll, Timothy Ferris, D.T. Max and Terry McDermott.

3:30pm: "#Book: New Media Meets Publishing". Moderator: Carolyn Kellogg. Speakers: Pablo Defendini, Dana Goodyear and Wil Wheaton.

Pages: 'Proust Was a Neuroscientist' - Art + Science

Cracked open a new book this week - Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Deals with one of my favorite topics, the link between art and science. I'm looking forward to spending the next several weeks (or months depending on how busy the work schedule is) diving into the worlds of Proust, George Eliot, Cezanne, Gertrude Stein and others as Lehrer attempts to connect their artistic methodologies to scientific discoveries.

I'm already intrigued by the introduction, which includes this food for thought:

Every method, even the experimental method, has limits. Take the human mind. Scientists describe our brain in terms of physical details; they say we are nothing but a loom of electrical cells and synaptic spaces. What science forgets is that this isn't how we experience the world. (We feel like the ghost, not like the machine.) It is ironic but true: the one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know. This is why we need art. By expressing our actual experience, the artist reminds us that our science is incomplete, that no map of matter will ever explain the immateriality of our consciousness.

Though I know a few Cylons who might disagree with the statement above, I think it's an interesting statement about the different needs that art and science fill. There's nothing quite like that moment of catharsis in the theater when you recognize your own life in what is happening on stage.

More thoughts to come...

Pages: 'My Stroke of Insight': Sense & Energy

Just started reading Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.'s My Stroke of Insight, which I am loving. It's about the Harvard-trained brain scientist's experience of her own stroke, and combines a personal and clinical look at what she went through both the morning of her stroke and during the eight years of recovery.

I'm that rare artist who likes to make lists and gets a bizarre satisfaction out of constructing project timelines. Reading Taylor's breakdown of right and left brain functions has given me a lot of food for thought, and is inspiring me to make a list of topics to research when I'm done with her book (told ya' I like the lists). It's making me think about how I think. And how I feel. I'm about 1/4 through the book and here's the passage that's got my brain doing backflips at the moment:

Although most of us are rarely aware of it, our sensory receptors are designed to detect information at the energy level. Because everything around us - the air we breathe, even the materials we use to build with - are composed of spinning and vibrating atomic particles, you and I are literally swimming in a turbulent sea of electromagnetic fields. We are part of it. We are enveloped within it, and through our sensory apparatus we experience what it is.

When doing theater, we often talk about 'feeling' the energy of the audience, about how there's a very real interchange between what's happening onstage and the peeps in the seats. At times this can take on on a very lofty, hi-falutin' tone...something my artsy right brain loves, but my left brain mocks a bit. However, this passage from Taylor's book soothes my analytical left brain, let's it know that there's actual theory and reason for some of the magic that happens onstage. And that in itself is pretty amazing.

'Vook' is a Bad Hook

What's in a name? Well, a lot when the name is "Vooks." The product actually sounds potentially promising, but the name is awful. From MediaBistro:

These digital book/video hybrids are called "vooks," and they were created by a multimedia company called Vook, which was started by former newspaper business columnist turned Internet entrepreneur Brad Inman.

Granted, I'm an old-fashioned kinda gal and tend to love my paper readables (yes, I just made that word up). But at some point I'm sure I'll join the digital revolution. And I don't want to do it with a "vook," which sounds like something out of a bad vampire movie.

Seriously, can't you just picture a bad Count Dracula imitator intoning, "I vant to suck your blood...but first I must finish my vook! I just can't put down this copy of Tvilight!"

via www.mediabistro.com

Quotes: Margaret Atwood on Science & Religion

Author Margaret Atwood was interviewed in The New York Times about her upcoming novel The Year of the Flood. The author, who wrote The Handmaid's Tale - one of my favorite books, had this to say about science and religion:

Ms. Atwood herself is a “strict agnostic,” she said, meaning that she will not present as knowledge something that is unknown. Still, she said she believes in a love match between science and religion, as long as that religion is not one of the standard ones or “a group of people that demonizes everyone else,” or steeped in dogma.

“I think that kind of reconciliation is coming and also has to come if we are to have any hope for the planet,” Ms. Atwood said in an e-mail message. “Either one by itself is too a) unreal, in the sense of misrepresenting the physical universe, or b) bleak, in the sense of leaving a whole area of human experience unrepresented.”

For more about the book: yearoftheflood.com

Follow Margaret Atwood on Twitter: @MargaretAtwood

Google Celebrates H.G. Wells' Birthday

The aliens are taking over!

Google's logo, that is...

In celebration of science fiction author H.G. Wells' 143rd birthday, Google has featured several cryptic logos over the past month, culminating in today's design.

Ben Parr's post on Mashable chronicles the stealth campaign, which included an earlier 'o' abduction, crop circle logo, and various corresponding tweets.

Wells is generally credited with popularizing the concept of time travel in his novella The Time Machine. But is time travel really possible?

-For a primer on the topic, read "How Time Travel Will Work" at HowStuffWorks (from the Discovery Corp).

-Listen to this July 2009  story on Minnesota Public Radio featuring Ronald Mallett, a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut and the author of Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. Director Spike Lee has acquired the rights for a film he plans to write and direct. Mallett's work has some of its inspiration in Wells' The Time Machine, which he first came across as an 11-year old in the midst of mourning the sudden death of his father. He thought if he could just build a time machine, he could go back in time and warn his dad about what was going to happen and prevent his death...

-In a 2006 MSNBC article, theoretical physicist Brian Greene (The Elegant Universe) and John Cramer, a physicist at the University of Washington, discuss the realities of time travel.

-Courtesy of the internet, go back in time to NOVA's 1999 special on the topic. The companion website includes text & audio from Carl Sagan, an Einstein thought experiment and a "time travel" glossary.

15 Minutes of Surfing: Science Fiction Authors

It started with today's Daily Dose e-mail from Flavorpill, which via io9.com, featured a link to Kyle Cassidy's photo series "Where I Write." In this project, Cassidy takes a look at science fiction and fantasy writers in their native habitats. His subjects include titans such as Frederik Pohl, Piers Anthony and Ben Bova.

While visiting Bova's site, I stumble across a link to an essay he wrote on tor.com about the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Alas, when I click, I get the dreaded 404 article-not-found error. But the site, which I am unfamiliar with, is intriguing - the tagline is "Science Fiction. Fantasy. The Universe. And related subjects."

I pass up a post called "Buzz Aldrin is so GANGSTA" (so true!) to click on a tribute to one of my favorite sci fi authors, Octavia Butler. She passed away in 2006, and on July 22nd she would have been "62 and awesome," as described by writer Nisi Shawl. In the piece, Shawl talks about Butler's charismatic personality and her commitment to the increased representation of people of color in the fantastic genres. Butler's "Xenogenesis" series is still one of the most thrilling, sensual pieces of sci fi writing I've ever read.

And with that, my 15 minutes are up...

'Unscientific America': Chris Mooney interview on KPCC

I'm listening to an interview on KPCC with Chris Mooney, one of the co-authors of the new book UNSCIENTIFIC AMERICA: HOW SCIENTIFIC ILLITERACY THREATENS OUR FUTURE. In the book, Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum make a plea for enhanced scientific literacy and reintegrating science into the public discourse. 

I tuned in mid-interview just as Mooney and the host (not sure who it is - someone who's in for Pat Morrison - apologies - will add his name later if I find out) were talking about science and religion. In the book, Mooney and Kirshenbaum posit that religion and science do not have to be in conflict. He criticizes the group he calls the "new atheists," anti-religionists who include Sam Harris, author of THE END OF FAITH, and Richard Dawkins, author of THE GOD SOLUTION: A REPLY TO THE GOD DELUSION. 

Mooney says that he doesn't think that it helps the cause of science literacy to pit science against religion, with fundamentalists on one side and atheism the only choice on the other. Says Mooney, "The point in the chapter [in our book] is what does this have to do with science? Does it help unify us, or perpetuate a culture war? It's important to understand the creationists and what motivates them. It's tough to convince anyone to change their minds, but attacking all that they believe in isn't going to do the trick."

As an example, he mentions those working in the trenches who are trying to teach evolution in places like Kansas. He says that their experiences show that you don't win your point by taking the discussion all the way to atheism. Instead, he urges science as common ground. Says Mooney, "We all have to agree about a reality. We're not going to agree about the supernatural. So we should agree about science."

Of course, this is much easier when the other side plays nice, which creationists are not always in the habit of doing. Mooney credits the Intelligent Design supporters with the brilliant maneuver of pushing for parity in the classroom for their beliefs. Rather than trying to have evolution omitted from the lesson plan, they instead insist that their theories be included in the discussion.

Regardless of my personal spiritual beliefs, I am an ardent believer in separation of Church and State. And in my book, that includes the classroom. If you want your kids to learn about your religion's views on the origins of the Universe, send 'em to Hebrew school or CCD or the mosque. And take the responsibility to be around to answer questions they may have about the differences between what they learn in religious classes and school. The school system isn't supposed to address those questions - parents are.