Science Lush

Entertainment + Technology = CES and NATPE Conferences

January has been a hot mess of conferences and travel. Early in the month I headed to Las Vegas to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to speak on a panel about Best Practices in Web Production for the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV), and attend the inaugural IAWTV Awards.

CES is Gadget Heaven, with all the latest gizmos from companies like Sony, Samsung, LG and more. While the over-the-top 3D television displays were pretty insane, turning the convention hall into an entertainment fun house, at the end of the day I still don’t want to have to wear glasses to watch television in my living room. I currently have no plans to fork over a fistful of dollars just to have a baseball pop out of the screen once in awhile.

I was more impressed by the progress with connected television. Last year when I played with the Google TV interface, it was clunky and slow – a novelty that was interesting to see in action but – in my opinion – nowhere near ready for prime time. This year, Smart TVs got a lot, well, smarter. While there are still kinks to work out, I would be tempted to lay down some extra bucks for the feature to gain access to a variety of streaming services and Internet channels, as well as just to satisfy my curiosity (unfortunately, I have expensive curiosity).

Over the last couple of years, CES has been working on attracting the Entertainment Industry to their annual event, so it made for a good fit with the IAWTV, as web series are right at the intersection of content and technology. Kudos to the show producers and the organization! Held at the Venetian, the show was a funny, intimate, inclusive affair that appropriately celebrated the community of web video creators. The big winners for the night included Felecia Day’s The Guild and Shira Lazar. Click here for the full list.

A week after CES, I flew out to Miami to attend the annual NATPE Market and Conference. The event used to be held in Las Vegas...sooooo happy they’d moved it to Miami! The weather was gorgeous, and it was a treat to spend 4 days at the Fountainbleu Hotel. I spoke on the "Big Screen, Little Screen panel," where we did an American Idol-style critique of new projects from digital content creators (apparently I was Randy Jackson for the evening). I also was on the Advisory Board for and attended the Digital Luminary Awards, which honor “the innovative people and companies who are catalysts in the content revolution.” Or as I like to put it, cool people and companies making or supporting kickass projects.

Lunch with a view...and SAG New Media's Will Marshall

While at NATPE, I checked out a variety of conference panels and had many conversations about the state of the digital content business. Here’s a snapshot of hot topics and some of the interesting points raised throughout the event (if you really want to approximate the NATPE experience, go mix yourself a mojito before reading the rest of this entry).

• Tablets are fundamentally changing things. They are not “lean back” or “lean forward” – they are a “curl up” experience, and provide a different cultural, social environment by which to consume content. (Niko Chauls: MSN Original Programming)
• Home page real estate is invaluable for portals such as MSN, Yahoo! and AOL. It’s limited, and must be used strategically to direct traffic. This affects content choices because it means that a portal can only promote a video series a certain number on the home page. For example, Tom Hanks is a huge star, but if Yahoo! put him on their home page every day to drive traffic to his new series Electric City, users would get really annoyed.
• Lots of questions about what being a “network” in the digital space really means. Normally, television networks act as gatekeepers, determining what gets on the air. But how does gatekeeping work in the digital realm, where - unlike the broadcast world - there is unlimited space? Russ Axelrod (Microsoft, Dir of Branded Experiences) offered the idea that in the online arena, gatekeeping comes in the form of the decision about what to promote. With so much content out there, marketing and promotion become just as important as creating a good show. Consensus was that equal amounts should be spent on content creation and the marketing of that content.
• As “hits” attempt to break outside of traditional television, i.e. Netflix’s forthcoming original content offerings, recommendation engines become a crucial part of streaming services. And of course, social networks are now a key part of any digital project, as the power of a friendly recommendation is boundless...it can accelerate a hit’s rise and then broaden it out to additional audiences.
• What is the relationship between online content and traditional television? Is online merely a testing ground for new TV programming? A place to build an audience that can then be transported to multiple platforms? Or the next step, the evolution of traditional television?  Daryl Evans from AT&T said he believes the question is not WHAT we’re going to be watching on television in five years, but WHERE we’re going to be watching it.
• A large percentage of the advertising money spent on online video is currently going to shows that first premiere on traditional platforms, i.e. Grey’s Anatomy, partly because it’s very hard right now to fulfill a large buy with online content. The inventory and scale are not there yet. But if a brand wants to spend $10 million on ABC for a one-week flight, their agency can call and have the deal taken care of in a day. An original online property wouldn’t have the inventory or the audience needed to fulfill the order. Of course, advocates of digital content argued that what brands really need is the right audience rather than a lot of audience, and it’s easier to find the right audience online because of the combination of narrowcasting and analytics. Those from the portals responded that at the end of the day, content isn’t just about quality – it’s also about who will buy it. If an advertiser won’t support it, you can’t make it because there’s no money to do so. That’s the world we still live in if you are on an ad-supported, free-to-the-viewer platform.
• Sales in ancillary markets are a key part of attempting to monetize digital content. Curt Marvis summed it up nicely when he said, “I wouldn’t develop something for the online world that was only meant for online, the same way I wouldn’t develop a feature that was only meant for the theater. You create it to be seen in the theater, but you know television, DVD, etc. are all going to be part of the life of the film.”
• Geoblocking of online content is a double-edged sword. While it allows you to repackage content and sell it overseas to local markets, international fans on social platforms get pissed off when they can’t view a show they are excited about when it’s released in the U.S. The creators of Aim High witnessed this firsthand when non-U.S. fans of their star Jackson Rathbone got upset because they kept reading about the show but couldn’t watch it (currently, it's only available in the U.S.).  Lesson learned: when putting together a release plan, producers need to evaluate the possibility for revenue in ancillary markets vs. value of the viewers a social campaign brings to a project, and the relationship between the two.
• Lots of talk on both panels and in the hallways amidst conference-goers about over the top (OTT) streaming and cord cutting. During his "Over the Top & Upside Down: How OTT Is Changing the Game" session, Suisse Securities' Spencer Wang talked about the “good enough” concept: the idea that while not everyone will want a particular solution, a segment of the market may be willing to accept it...and that may be enough. Streaming has a different value proposition than the traditional cable and satellite offerings. It underperforms established products in certain areas, such as features and inventory, but it has other offerings that fringe customers may value more, including low price, convenience and simplicity. OTT is not a perfect substitute for pay TV, but may be right for homes at a certain income level who watch a lower than average number of television hours. In addition, “OTT only” subscribers skew younger and less affluent. These “cord nevers” may set the stage for larger changes down the line when they have their own households and don’t want to pay for television. 
  
• And what would a conference with a digital media track be without YouTube? The company had a large presence at the event, and both staff and YouTube personalities populated many of the panels. Much of the chatter was about YouTube’s new Channel initiative. The company’s Tom Sly said that they are making this investment in their own platform so that others will see the value of it, and then bring their own money to the platform. But what will success actually look like for this initiative? Some believe that YouTube will be judged not by whether the shows are “good” or “bad”, but by whether YouTube can drive traffic to them. AOL and Yahoo! have become experts at using the firehoses that are their homepages to drive traffic to various elements elsewhere in their ecosystem; can YouTube develop this same skill? 

 

The Lush List: 5/7/10 - Art & Bones, Neanderthal DNA and a Free Program at Griffith Observatory

1. ORGANIC ART

When one thinks art, "cockroach" isn't the term that usually comes to mind. However, a group of visual artists profiled in THE NEW YORK TIMES article "Of Compost, Molecules and Insects, Art Is Born" find their inspiration in such unlikely, organic subjects. Examples of such art are currently on display in the show “Dead or Alive,” at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Reports Natalie Angier:

The museum recently hosted a round-table luncheon in which scientists and artists addressed the hardy evergreen issue of how much the arts and sciences had in common and where they differed. The basic conclusion: both enterprises are important, difficult, creative, driven by insatiable curiosity and a desire to solve problems, but artists are allowed to make stuff up and scientists really shouldn’t.

Helen Altman creates skull-shaped, spice-enhanced sculptures to turn death into a "sweet" thing; this made me think of my trip to Rome in 2008 during which I visited the Capuchin Crypt. The small space features artwork created out of the bones of over 4000 Capuchin friars who died between 1528 and 1870. Though some might find it a bit macabre, I was fascinated by it. Clearly, the bones hadn't just been thrown up on the walls - someone had to sort the bones and design the intricately constructed images I was now looking at, such as that of a skeleton surrounded by angel wings created out of pelvic bones.

As a writer, the Crypty piqued my curiosity about what kind of person would have been able to find the beauty in the bones. Did he or she see him/herself as an artist? As someone sentenced to a horrible task? Did they view it as a service to the dead? Angier's article shows that finding inspiration in such unusual materials is not a lost art.

Perhaps a clue from an inscription in the Crypt:

"Quello che voi siete noi eravamo; Quello che noi siamo voi sarete."
What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be." 

2. NEANDERTHAL + MODERN HUMAN SITTIN' IN A TREE...K-I-S-S-I-N-G...

Next time someone says you're acting like a Neanderthal, you may be able to reply, "Well, that's because we share DNA." As reported by Chris Stringer in TimesOnline,

In this week’s issue of the journal Science, a truly international team of more than 50 researchers have published their findings from a reconstructed Neanderthal genome of more than three billion bits of DNA coding...Using massive improvements in DNA recovery techniques and computing power, three small fragments of bone excavated from the Croatian cave of Vindija have provided most of the sequence. These three female Neanderthals who died around 40,000 years ago have been immortalised through their DNA.

The Neanderthal genome was compared to those of 5 modern day humans. Turns out that if you are European, Asian or New Guinean, the research suggests you may have between 1%-4% in common with the Neanderthal genome. Not so much so if you are from Africa, although researchers only looked at the genomes of a west African and a south African. A mixture would have been more likely to occur in someone from northeast Africa.

For a more in depth look at this story, including video commentary and a timeline of Neandertal-related discoveries, check out Science Magazine's special online feature on the Neandertal Genome.

3. LOS ANGELES EVENTS

If you're looking for something fun & science-y (& free!) to do in Los Angeles on Friday, May 7th, stop by Griffith Observatory for ALL SPACE CONSIDERED, their monthly astronomy update. Topics this month include the first images of the sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, volcanoes in the solar system, the May sky report, and birthday celebrations for both Griffith (75!) and the Hubble telescope (20). The event is held in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater from 7:30-9:15pm

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.

The Lush List: 4/23/10 - Earth Day, DNA Day and Fireballs

1. Thursday, April 22nd was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, with celebrations of Mother Nature around the globe. The Earth Day 2010 Action Center, a project of the Earth Day Network, has a variety of resources including sections for campaigns, events, petitions, action pledges and organizing tools. 

On Sunday, April 25th, the Earth Day Climate Rally will take place in Washington, DC, on the National Mall from 11am - 7pm, with the goal of urging the government to enact comprehensive climate legislation. If you can't make it to DC, the event will be streamed live on EarthDay.org. The line up looks pretty dang impressive, as well as entertaining. According to the Earth Day Network:

The Climate Rally will include notable speakers Reverend Jesse Jackson, film director James Cameron, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Olympic gold medalist Billy Demong, producer Trudie Styler, author Margaret Atwood, NFL player and television personality Dhani Jones, environmental photographer Sebastian Copeland and many more.

The rally will also feature live music from Sting, John Legend, The Roots, Jimmy Cliff, Passion Pit and Joss Stone, among others.

Need some inspiration? In a piece at The Huffington Post, Gene Karpinski, President, League of Conservation Voters, urges the public to look at Earth Day as more than just a yearly opportunity to install energy efficient light bulbs.

We can let ourselves once again be inspired to act boldly and think big. We can rally for new laws to ensure that all Americans can enjoy the clean air and water we asked for forty years ago. We can demand legislation that curbs global warming pollution and creates the jobs of the future. Perhaps most importantly, we can tell our legislators that the time for action is now. Since January 1st, over one million Americans have contacted their senators urging them to pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill this year.

2. Friday, April 23rd was National DNA Day. As described by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health:

National DNA Day is a unique day when students, teachers and the public can learn more about genetics and genomics! The day commemorates the completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003, and the discovery of DNA's double helix.

A moderated chat was held from 8am - 6pm during which NHGRI Director Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D. and genomics experts from across the institute and around the nation took questions from students, teachers and the general public on topics ranging from basic genomic research, to the genetic basis of disease, to ethical questions about genetic privacy. My favorite li'l tip: when a 9th grader asked the easiest way to remember the complementary base pairs, Sarah Harding, M.P.H. responded: 

I'm sure people have different ways to remember, but one option is to remember that G and C are both curvy letters, so they go together. That leaves A to pair with T.

3. For a little piece of outer space you can touch, head out to southwestern Wisconsin. If you're lucky, perhaps you can find a bit of debris from the that fireball streaked across the sky on the night of Wednesday, April 14th. As described by Space.com:

A camera mounted to a campus building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison caught the Wisconsin meteor's explosive demise. The meteor's sonic boom and explosion were also seen and heard by numerous witnesses, and sparked frantic 911 emergency calls across six different states, according to the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Science Online 2010: Am Amazing Experience + Science & Entertainment Panel Review

Finally catching up on some long overdue blogging!

I spent a big chunk of January on the road, first in North Carolina at Science Online 2010, then at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. To read about my festival adventures, head on over to the News on the Doc blog at Documentary.org, where I chronicled my daily dose of movies and events and posted filmmaker interviews for the International Documentary Association.

While I'm a bit embarrassed that it's taken me so long to get something up about Science Online, aka scio10,  it's also been useful to have some time to reflect on the experience (multiple plane rides = good thinking time). A huge thank-you to conference organizers Bora Zivkovic and Anton Zuiker, the masterminds behind the 4th annual event.

I must admit, I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into when I agreed to head out to the Research Triangle. Compared to the rest of the attendees, I'm relatively new to the science blogging community, though I've had a lot of experience in the online space. But something about the participatory nature of the way the conference was put together (and the exuberant nature of Bora's Tweets!) gave me a good feeling, and now I'm so glad I followed my gut and made the trip. I knew it would be a weekend full interesting discussions about science; what I never expected was that there would be so many wonderful conversations about writing as well. Indeed, Science Online is just as much a conference about 21st century communication as it is about what happens in the lab.

Another unexpected delight at Scio10 was the diverse group of panelists and attendees. In addition to the expected authors, bloggers and scientists, there were museum outreach directors, high school students, teachers, science pranksters, iPhone app developers, underwater cinematographers, librarians, software developers, and more. The connective tissue amongst the group was a love for science and an interest in how it's being explored in the online space.

To that end, the event and its attendees made excellent use of Web 2.0 tools. Conference tweets, tagged with #scio10, were projected onto screens at the event venues. While you were in one session, you could see what you were missing in the others by keeping an eye on your phone's Twitter feed. Several panels were streamed into Second Life and live streamed on U-Stream, and those observing from afar could submit questions to the room. The wireless during the sessions, provided by SignalShare, rocked - it was robust enough to allow me to Skype in a guest speaker during my session. Almost everything was videotaped, and Bora & Anton & Co. are in the process of getting the vids online. You can find them here on Science in the Triangle's YouTube channel.

Science & Entertainment Session
I co-hosted a panel on Science and Entertainment with the lovely Jennifer Ouellette, author and science blogger extraordinaire. I presented several examples of cutting edge online campaigns and content pieces that either made use of or were inspired by real-life science, and Jennifer talked about her work with the Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences.  In true UnConference model, we then posed several questions to the audience and opened it up to the whimsy of the room.

Topics of discussion included:

• If science's responsibility is to accuracy and Hollywood's responsibility is to good storytelling, where and how - or should - the two meet in the middle?
• How can science bloggers pursue relationships with Hollywood studios? Does Hollywood really care about what they have to say?
• Studio films such as Angels & Demons, Terminator, Star Trek and Avatar have the budgets to create innovative online content as part of their marketing campaigns. How can science adapt what they've created in the fictional realm and use it to explore real science online in new, attention-grabbing ways?
• With rich media experiences becoming more common online and drawing more eyeballs, how can good ol' fashioned blogging evolve so that it doesn't become the print media of the Internet?
• Currently, it's common for bloggers to point out the errors in the science contained in movies and television. Yet, film and TV have proven to be sources of inspiration for students, as good storytelling stokes the curiosity that eventually leads kids to pursue careers in science. With this in mind, is there a way to establish a more cooperative relationship between the the worlds of science and entertainment?
• As entertainment consumers move from a lean back experience to a more participatory role, how should science on the web adapt? 

Thanks to all who joined in the robust conversation; this sampling of Tweets from our panel will give you a sense of it...

@f1000 talks about scientific consulting on films like Avatar, TV shows like CSI and video games at #scio10 http://bit.ly/5PYlLn

@thegarbagegirl  Love this! http://www.thesoulstoragecompany.com/ Presented at #scio10 session on science and entertainment

@abelpharmboy  Alastair Jeffs: Have to be able to tell a good story; the science is great but...people want a story. Work w/a classical writer

@abelpharmboy  @tamarakrinsky noted that some networks have diversity mandates #scio10 12:09 PM Jan 16th from TweetDeck

@abelpharmboy @edyong209 @docfreeride So if one convinces a filmmaker that a young black girl discovering a drug would be a money-making story...#scio10

@edyong209  Passive consumers of entertainment are becoming active consumers. Want to take part. #scio10

@thegarbagegirl  @tamarakrinsky said something I've believed all along: people want to be involved in the story telling process

@abelpharmboy Hrynyshyn: why aren't there more "normal" people on Bones or House - Jen-Luc says normal does not make compelling characters

Janet D. Stemwedel (@docfreeride) has archived her extensive tweets from the session on a post on her blog Adventures from Ethics in Science - a great collection of observations! 

Another thing I'm digging about Scio10 is the continuation of conversations begun in North Carolina via blogs and tweets. Over on The Intersection, Chris Mooney posts: 

Science and Entertainment: Beyond Blogging – Tamara Krinsky and Jennifer Ouellette: Hollywood getting into science = definitely cool. But will Hollywood’s ace marketers ever see a real need to court science bloggers to get the word out about films, given the relatively small size of our audiences and the vastness of their ad budgets? Not clear to me how much *we* matter, at least so far.

My response to Chris is that Hollywood will care as long as they think there's money to be made. And when I say Hollywood, I'm talking about the studios and the marketing engines...individual creatives like directors and writers usually have much more genuine interests in the science that's inspired them. Increasingly, bloggers fit into that revenue-generating equation. As audiences become more and more fragmented, finding ways to catch hold of the individual shards who may have interest in a film becomes increasingly important. For example, the online campaign for Coraline was built on identifying and generating interest from several different niche audiences. They buzz created by these early fans bubbled up to larger outlets, feeding the campaign and driving coverage by more mainstream media, thus helping the film to attract a wider audience.

LINKS
If you want to take a peek at some of the projects we showcased during the panel, here are some handy-dandy links for ya'...

Star Trek
This is an example of the innovative banner ad campaign designed for the film which allows users to rotate through the bridge (this one appeared on MySpace). At various places, hidden features allow you to launch a picture gallery and videos. Museums and labs take note: this could serve as inspiration for a virtual tours.
Agency Credit: Avatar Labs

Terminator: Salvation
[Note: the title link takes you to images used in the application, which is no longer available]
This Skynet Adobe Air Application developed for the Terminator: Salvation domestic movie release campaign featured a faux information processor. The sinister Skynet Corporation invited users to download the app to their desktops to help process information.  It mysteriously “broke” the day the film was released. This kind of app is an engaging way to distribute new video and text information to fans.

The designers were inspired by “SETI at Home,” a distributed computer programm  where users can download and analyze radio telescope data to help with SETI. Agency credit: Crew Creative

Cold Souls
This film stars Paul Giamatti as a man who puts his soul in storage for awhile so he can deal with some of his issues. As part of the marketing campaign, they created a humorous site for the fictional "Soul Storage Company," which allows customers to store their souls online. Site features include the ability to browse the soul catalog and take an office tour, complete with some lovely B-movie-esque video.

Angels & Demons
The “On Location” section of the movie site is an interactive map that contains factual information about the various historical locations used in the film. Hotspots open images, video, models and behind-the-scenes commentary to bring to light the fact behind the fiction. It's an engaging example of the way that a sci-fi film could potentially showcase real science, differentiating between movie and theory in a way that celebrates both the truth of the science and the imagination of the storytellers.

Avatar
The site for the film features an Adobe Air application which allows users to download an interactive trailer to their desktops that includes regularly updated newsfeeds and links to external content on sites such as YouTube and Twitter. The site creates a community by incorporating social networking tools such as the Typepad community and Facebook Connect.  

Routes Project
This groundbreaking multi-platform exploration of genetics and bio-ethics used a variety of platforms to engage a young audience. The science underpinning Routes was developed in partnership with the Wellcome Trust as part of the Darwin200 program celebrating the bicentenary of Darwin's birth. It included the following elements:

• An eight-part online mini series called ROUTES in which Katherine Ryan, a Canadian stand up comic, submits herself to a series of genetic tests by 23andme. The Routes website tracked Katherine's progress as a video documentary.
• The site featured community challenges and flash based games based on genetics. Taking part allowed users to amass points. The highest scorers each week were entered into a prize drawing for a chance to win a gaming console.
• A corresponding fictional murder mystery intertwined with the documentary. Eight 4-5 minute episodes aired online and on Channel 4. The audience could delve deeper into the mystery through character video blogs, images from the "investigation" on Flickr, and SMS/text clues.
• Live promotional events included a launch event and comedy show.

**A special thanks to Alistair Jeffs from Oil whom we Skyped in during the panel to talk about the details of the Routes project.

Agency Credit: Oil

The Lush List: 9/27/09

THE LUSH LIST
An irregularly posted list of SciCultureTech that makes me go ooh! 

1. It's all about the ring(s)
Nothing says "I love you" like the perfect diamond, and Saturn's rings are the gem of the solar system, inspiring deep devotion around the globe. The Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn for the last five years, has a prime view of the rings right now due to their particular tilt. The resulting shadows have brought the rings' features into stark relief, allowing for some pretty amazing pics.

Here's just one of the many incredible shots from JPL's Cassini Equinox Mission page:

The unique geometry of equinox has thrown into relief small moonlets within the rings and the structures they create around them. Propeller-like features, a few kilometers long, centered on and created by the action of small embedded moonlets only about 100 meters across, were discovered early in the mission (see PIA07792 and PIA07790). These previous findings constituted the first recognition of the presence in Saturn's rings of bodies bigger than the largest ring particles (about 10 meters, or 30 feet, across) but smaller than the 8-kilometer-wide (5-mile-wide) ring moon, Daphnis, in the outer A ring.

For more on the mission, read The New York Times' profile of Dr. Carolyn Porco, a senior researcher at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO and the leader of the camera team on the $3.4 billion Cassini mission.

2. An AIDS Vaccine? Maybe Not.
Earlier this week the news was all abuzz with stories of a potential AIDS vaccine based on the results of a 16,000 person U.S./Thai trial. But a closer look reveals that perhaps there's not much there to celebrate. The Lay Scientist offers a dissection of the results.

3. Swimming on the Moon
Widespread but small amounts of water have been discovered on the surface of the moon. MSNBC.com reports:

While the findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, don't mean there are pools of liquid water sitting on the moon, it does mean that there is — entirely unexpectedly — water potentially tied up or mixed in the minerals that make up the lunar dirt.

The new observations from India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite, NASA's Cassini spacecraft and NASA's Deep Impact probe challenge the previous assumptions about the make-up of the lunar surface. Suddenly, a trip back to the Moon begins to look a lot more interesting...don't forget your snorkel.


4. Rock Stars of Science
The band Aerosmith doesn't usually conjure images of research labs, but the "Rock Stars of Science" (Rock S.O.S.) campaign is attempting to change that. Created by GEOFFREY BEENE GIVES BACK®, Rock S.O.S is a public education campaign to create awareness and support greater funding for medical research across diseases. It pairs celebrities with leading scientists to highlight the “rock star” genius that drives scientific innovation.

On September 24th, Rock S.O.S. presented an event on Capitol Hill featuring Aerosmith's Joe Perry and some of the nation’s top scientific minds, including Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Rudy Tanzi, Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University. The event was moderated by Terry Moran of ABC News and included panel discussions and interviews with a focus on promoting cures and improving therapies for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, HIV/AIDS and PTSD.

Not Your Daddy's Science Fair: World Science Festival in NYC

What do you get when you put a whole bunch of Nobel laureates, award-winning science writers, policy makers, Alan Alda, Glenn Close and The Abyssinian Baptist Church Choir all together for a weekend? The World Science Festival, which is taking place from June 10th - 14th in New York City.

The event was co-founded in 2008 by Brian Greene, Columbia University professor of physics and mathematics and author of the bestseller The Elegant Universe, and Tracy Day, Emmy Award-winning journalist and producer. It aims to bring science out of the laboratory and into the streets, theaters, museums, and public halls of New York City.

The Festival has a whole mess of fantastic seminars, many of which use pop culture as an entree to scientific issues. For example, "WALL-E’s World: Designs for an Invisible Footprint" looks at strategies for a sustainable future, and cast members from Battlestar Galactica will join roboticists on a panel that looks at cybernetic technology and intelligent machines. There are also a number of events aimed at families, including the World Science Festival Street Fair, which will take place on Sunday 6/14 from 10am - 6pm in Washington Square Park. 

Sadly, I could not make it to the Fest itself, so I'm trying to get my fix online. Here's a slide show from "Watching Wilson and Watson...and the Future of Life on Earth", in which actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith (one of my favorites) melds journalism and performance to create one-woman vignettes depicting two of the most influential scientists of our day – Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of DNA, James Watson, and "father of biodiversity and sociobiology" E.O. Wilson. Her performance was followed by a conversation with Charlie Rose, Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus and head of NOAA Jane Lubchenco in an exploration of the impact Watson and Wilson have had on modern life and how their work will profoundly shape the future.

NASA JPL Open House

Argh! So frustrated that once again I'm going to miss the Jet Propulsion Lab Open House! I've been trying to make it to this event for the past several years, but each time something conspires against me. This year it's a trip home to the east coast. Here's the skinny from their Facebook event page in case you happen to be in Southern California:

NASA JPL Open House 2009

NASA-JPL Open House

"One weekend a year when YOU can explore JPL."

The annual NASA-JPL Open House is the one weekend a year that you can come to view all our missions and projects, and talk to the scientists and engineers working on them! Saturday and Sunday, May 2 and 3, from 9am to 5pm both days.

Additional information, plus videos and photos from previous years: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/open-house.cfm .

Can't come in person? Join our virtual open house tour over Ustream.tv on Saturday May 2. Go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl at 10, 11, noon and 1pm PDT for a 20-minute tour stop at different locations.

Are you on Twitter? Follow @NASAJPL and use hashtag #JPLOpen on May 2 and 3. We'll have prizes to give away to followers!

If you plan to attend, wear comfortable shoes and pack a water bottle. Arrive early for best parking and to avoid long lines at some of the more popular exhibits.

Hints: In an effort to make this event more "green" we will not hand out the JPL plastic bags at the entrance. Bring your own bag to collect goodies and handouts at the exhibits.

First Fridays @ the Natural History Museum: Darwin & Plants and Animals

Last night I attended First Fridays, a monthly event at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. A fusion of science and culture, the evening featured DJ’s, discussions and live bands, not to mention booze and tasty vittles.

First stop, the African Mammal Hall, where we ate dinner in front of the antelope display while listening to The Phatal DJ and DJ Kutmah spin in front of the elephants. Definitely a different experience than the cafeteria meals in the basement I was forced to endure on school trips to the Museum of Natural History in NYC!

Next we headed up to the "Darwin's Evolution" discussion with Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent and the forthcoming Crow Planet. She explored the life of Darwin using little known-letters, diaries and notebooks. Cute and peppy, she clearly has a love for Darwin and his birds...so much so that she told us a story about her husband feeling like there were three people in their marriage: Haupt, her husband and the Father of Evolution.

We had mainly come to First Fridays to see Plants and Animals, the Montreal band that would be playing later in the evening (check out the cool pics below from photographer Sal Rodriguez). The Darwin chat was a bonus. Having no idea what to expect from the event, I didn’t know if Haupt would have an audience. Therefore, it was very cool to walk into the Hall (there were more animals, but I don’t remember from which continent or time period), and see a packed room. Not only were all the seats filled, but people were lounging on the floors, drinking wine, totally digging the Darwin chat.

Couple of things Haupt shared which I found especially interesting:

• Darwin’s notes were full of self-deprecating humor. According to Haupt, “Like Charlotte Bronte making fun of herself.” I’ve heard Darwin compared to many things, but never Ms. Bronte...
• It’s a myth that Darwin was the official naturalist for The Beagle, the ship upon which  he sailed to the Galápagos Islands. He was actually invited along as a companion by Captain Robert FitzRoy, who was quite depressed. Being a Captain was lonely business, and the previous captain had shot himself, so FitzRoy thought it best to take along someone to keep him company.
• Darwin was Fitzroy’s fourth choice for the journey (hmmm, I can’t imagine why his first three choices turned him down...2 years on a boat with a melancholy leader...fun!). But according to Haupt, both Darwin and FitzRoy loved Jane Austen, so the Captain couldn’t have been too disappointed.
• The original voyage was supposed to last two years, but lasted almost five. Darwin spent most of his time on land exploring. He actually only spent about 18 months on the boat, which was probably a good thing, given that he suffered from perpetual seasickness.
• Darwin was originally studying to be a clergyman, and started off as a creationist.

We snuck out of the Haupt chat a bit early to head downstairs to find a good spot to hear the band. The sound in the hall was a little muddy, but overall we loved the show. Was great to hear them in such an intimate venue, though petite folk like myself beware: get in early so you can get a spot near the front or else you won’t be able to see anything.

When we emerged back out into the main lobby, the line for the bar snaked all the way around the dinosaur skeleton and people were already waiting to get in for the next band, The Little Ones We ducked into the Gem Hall for a look at the sparkling, shiny crystals and geodes. I’ve always been fascinated by rocks (did I mention I have a sand collection?), so I would have been into the exhibit no matter what, but wandering amidst the gemstones late at night with the sounds of a DJ floating was pretty friggin’ cool. In general, being in a museum at night always gives me a teeny illicit thrill because of reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler a gazillion times as a kid. 

We called it a night at about 9:30pm, but clearly, others were just getting started. So often we bemoan the lack of culture in Los Angeles. First Fridays proved that there are unique cool things to do in LA – you just have to be willing to share your evening with a dinosaur or two.

Photo credit: Sal Rodriguez