Science Lush

2014 Science Lovers Gift Guide (with a STEAM twist)

Christmas lights are up, menorah lights are flickering and far too many of us are scrambling for last minute gift ideas. If you've got a science lover on your hands, here are a few suggestions for STEM-related presents with an artsy, S'Lush-style twist. 

 

FOR THE KIDDO: SCIENCE & LIT

Rachel Poliquin over at Science Friday has recommended "Five Books Guaranteed to Make Kids Love Science." I'm betting these inventive picture books will be just as enticing to the parents who purchase them.  

 

• Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, by Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman (Flying Eye Books): "Both modern in its scientific spirit and with a sensibility modeled after the delightful mid-century children’s books from the Golden Age of space exploration, it tickles young readers — as well as their space-enchanted parents — into precisely that “palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos." (Brain Pickings) 
  
  
• Shackleton’s Journey, by William Grill (Flying Eye Books). One of the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2014. "This is a book that will appeal to adult art lovers, picture book fans and history buffs (of which, I fall into all three categories), children and adult alike. The book’s large format gives ample space for detailed colored pencil illustrations and the perfect pacing for such a fascinating journey." (The Eric Carle Museum)
  
  
• Animalium (Welcome to the Museum), by Katie Scott and Jenny Broom (Candlewick Press): "Designed to mimic the experience of visiting a natural history museum, this elegant, eye-catching volume explores the animal kingdom through gorgeously detailed pen-and-ink illustrations that resemble vintage taxonomical plates. ... It’s easy to imagine these exquisite images hanging in the gilded hallways of a museum, but unlike a museum, readers can take this experience along with them." (Publisher's Weekly review)
  
  
• Infographics: Human Body, by Peter Grundy and Simon Rogers (Candlewick Press): Complex facts about the human body are reinterpreted as stylish infographics, which astonish, amuse and inform by turn. Researched by the Guardian's Datablog expert and designed by the father of infographics, Peter Grundy. (Amazon description)
  
  
• The Worm, by Elise Gravel (Tundra Books): The second in a series of humorous books about disgusting creatures, The Worm is a look at the earthworm. It covers such topics as the worm's habitats (sometimes they live inside other animals), its anatomy (its muscle tube is slimy and gross), and its illustrious history (worms have been on earth for 120 million years). (Amazon description)
   

DECK THE WALLS: SCIENCE & ILLUSTRATION

Deck the walls with these fun illustrated prints from Rachel Ignotofsky! Her pieces feature whimsical takes on everything from the anatomy of cells to lab equipment. My favorite set is probably her "Women in Science" collection, which currently features Marie Curie, Valentina Tereshkova, Jane Goodall, Patricia Bath and Rosalind Franklin. 

On her site, Ignotofsky says of the collection, "I wanted to celebrate the accomplishments of these women and hope to inspire curiosity in young women to ask questions about the world we live in and be the one who finds out the answers." 

You can find the Women in Science prints here, and browse the rest of her collection through her Etsy shop. 

 

RING IT IN WITH BLING: SCIENCE & DESIGN

Although it hasn't been scientifically proven that jewelry is the way to a woman's heart, a li'l shiny shiny for the holidays is almost guaranteed to bring a sparkle to the eyes of the recipient. 

Love this handmade copper bracelet with etched periodic table from Hardware Designs! Additional design options include circuit boards, as well as an aluminum cuff featuring binary numbers (via PopSugar). 

 
Anatomology's science-inspired jewelry includes earrings and necklaces inspired by DNA, synapsing neurons and the molecular structure of caffeine (seen above).  

 

DRAMATIC GIFTING: SCIENCE & THEATER

Give a friend or family member something to look forward to in 2015 with tickets to a technology or science-infused theater production. 

Constellations
Playwright: Nick Payne
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
New York, NY
January 13 - March 15, 2015

"A change in font equals a change in universes." 

If you're a sucker for love and physics (and the latter as a metaphor for the former), this is a show you'll appreciate. Playwright Nick Payne's play premiered at London's Royal Court and is now in New York City playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club. Oh, and it's starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson (THE AFFAIR), which means if you're interested, try to get tixx asap.  

From The New Yorker's review of the London run: 

Here, under a canopy of white variegated helium balloons that look like a galaxy of stars, Payne conjures the notion of a “multiverse” where “several outcomes can coexist simultaneously,” as Marianne (the petite, piquant Sally Hawkins) says. She happens to be a theoretical physicist who is in the process of being seduced by Roland (the charming Rafe Spall). She goes on: “In the quantum multiverse, every choice, every decision you’ve ever made and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.” “This is genuinely turning me on,” Roland says. 

 

Mr. Wolf (World Premiere)
Playwright: Rajiv Joseph
South Coast Repertory
Costa Mesa, CA
April 18-May 3, 2015

Mr. Wolf (Image: South Coast Repertory)

Theresa is 17 years old, and she can map out the solar system. She understands the universe—how and why it came to be. She owes all that to a man named Mr. Wolf. Now the only life she has ever known is coming to an end. She’s being taken away—turned over to people who are strangers to her. How can they possibly understand her needs, when they seem to be lost, too?

 

stop. reset.
Playwright/Director: Regina Taylor
Goodman Theatre
Chicago, IL
May 23 - June 21, 2015

As e-books and digital technologies transform the literary world, Chicago businessman Alex Ames must confront the likely demise of his long-standing African-American book publishing company. While his employees fret over losing their jobs, Alex finds unlikely inspiration from a mysterious teenager, whose inventive, forward-thinking ideas may provide the solution to preserving Alex's legacy. 

 

 

 

 

 

Science Online 2013: Science Comics

One of my favorite sessions this year at Science Online was the session moderated by Maki Naro (@sciencecomic) and Kate McKissick (@beatricebiology) on Distilling Ideas: Communicating Science With Comics. The discussion ranged from creative issues to copyright scandals to suggstions of work to check out. And in true Science Online fashion, the entire room became involved in the discussion, offering suggestions and commentary.

In a conference that focused a lot on words, it was a change of pace to talk about how a limited word count can actually help get an idea across. Tom Swanson, who did physics cartoons when he was in grad school, pointed out that this is something he often needs to explain when people pitch him ideas. After all, if it takes someone a full two minutes to explain an idea, it's going to be too complex to work in a short comic. However, when the just right words are paired with a specific image, science comics can be an efficient, powerful way to deal with hot button issues such as climate change.

Videomaker Henry Reich from Minute Physics said that he loves getting suggestions for things to explain, but not how to explain them. He said, “My job is figuring out the how part.”

And that's where the fun comes in. The majority of science comics tend to fall into two distinct categories: inside jokes for those scientists and those that educate or explain scientific concepts or ideas to the general public. Naro said that he gets inspired by everything from Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweets to articles to social issues, although most of his comics end up being about biology and space because that’s what he’s interested in.

At a time when it takes just a second to copy something and post it, all the artists in the room expressed the importance of getting permission to use their work and proper crediting. McKissick has a very clear policy posted on her blog about people using her work: 

Can I use your stupid drawings and say they're mine?

No, you can't do that.  However, you can share my stupid drawings as long as you credit me and this website. 

Wait, why do you say your drawings are stupid?

Either I'm a connoisseur of self-deprecating humor, or I'm horribly insecure. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

However, she recently found that her “Amoeba Hug” comic had been posted elsewhere, and someone else had been given credit for it. She got in touch with the site and asked that it share her original piece and properly credit it. Because someone at the site had essentially redrawn her comic, they did not have the same view of copyright and at first refused to remove it. Eventually, they took down the erroneously credited piece, but not without a lot of effort on McKissick's part.

Here's the first panel of McKissick's original:

And here's the "original" posted by the site without permission and with erroneous crediting. As you can see, it's pretty clear it's a copy of McKissick's work. 

Reich has had similar experiences with people downloading his YouTube videos, and then re-uploading them onto their own channels so that they could make money off of the advertising placed in the videos. One extreme example includes someone in Germany actually redoing his drawings and the voiceover in German with zero attribution.

Something else that became clear as we all were furiously scribbling down suggestions of work to take a look at was that there’s a need for some sort of science comic aggregator. There are certainly lists and blogrolls, but these aren’t really an efficient way to discover and browse science comics; a more robust database that the public can contribute to and that can be sorted by topic would be ideal. Any volunteers out there? Anyone need a challenge for a hackathon? 

If you’re interested in checking out more science comics and comic-oriented publications, here are some of the suggestions that came up during the session. If you want to search for more nuggets from the session on Twitter, look for #sciencecomics.

-Lauren Redniss’s graphic biography Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. From The New York Times review: 

The electricity in “Radioactive,” however, derives from the friction between Ms. Redniss’s text and her ambitious and spooky art. Her text runs across and over these freewheeling pages, the boundaries between word and image constantly blurring. Her drawings are both vivid and ethereal. Her people have elongated faces and pale forms; they’re etiolated Modiglianis. They populate a Paris that’s become a dream city.

-xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

-Trinity: A graphic history of the first atomic bomb.

-Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. From the Amazon description:

This exceptional graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein. But his most ambitious goal—to establish unshakable logical foundations of mathematics—continues to loom before him. Through love and hate, peace and war, Russell persists in the dogged mission that threatens to claim both his career and his personal happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity.

-odd todd's animations for an NPR story about carbon and climate change.

 

 

The Lush List: 12/4/12 Curiosity Video, End of the Universe and Space's Neighborhood Watch

STILL CURIOUS?

If you've forgotten just how inspiring the Curiosity Rover and those responsible for her journey are, take 5 minutes to watch this lovely piece created by director/photojournalist Dan Winters, editor John Aldrich and sound designer/composer Shervin Shaeri. With narration from key members of the MSL team, including Adam Steltzner, Miguel San Martin, Ann Devereaux and Allen Chen detailing their personal feelings about the rover, it's a lovely, visual journey through the life of Curiosity thus far.

Here's my favorite quote from the piece, which encapsulates the sense of connection between the engineers and scientists who birthed Curiosity, but now only get the occasional phone call or pic from their kiddo far, far away:

"We get to see her in images that she takes of herself, but we won't ever touch again and we won't ever be able to fix her again." 

Mars Rover Curiosity from Mutant Jukebox - Music & Sound on Vimeo.
Photography Credits: NASA JPL, Dan Winters, David Robertson, Travis Smith

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH FOR SPACE?

NASA has a little problem...there are about 500,000 pieces of hazardous space junk orbiting the earth, and there's no trash collector scheduled for the route anytime in the near future! This debris includes spent rocket stages, defunct satellites and fragments from other spacecraft that are the result of erosion, explosion and collision, and it threatens current peacekeeping and combat satellites, as a collision between a piece of the space trash and a satellite could release more than 20,000 times the energy of a head-on auto collision at 65 mph.

So what's a government agency to do?

DARPA has created SpaceView, "a space debris tracking project that provides amateur astronomers with the means to make a difference....The vision behind the SpaceView program is to provide more diverse data to the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), a U.S. Air Force program charged with cataloguing and observing space objects to identify potential near-term collisions. SpaceView hopes to achieve that goal by engaging U.S. amateur astronomers by purchasing remote access to an already in-use telescope or by providing a telescope to selected astronomers. When a telescope that is provided by the program is not in use by the SpaceView program, DARPA will provide its use for astronomy and astrophotography." 

So in other words, if you're located where they need you to be, you might get to time-share some equipment, qualify for some fancy upgraded hardware or even receive some minor financial compensation. And of course, there's that satisfying undercover-superhero-feeling that comes from quietly saving the Earth!

Interested astronomers may learn more about the program and sign up at www.spaceviewnetwork.com. Participants will be selected based on geographic location and access to a permanent site for a telescope, among other criteria.

COLBERT'S INTELLECTUAL HYDROPLANE: BECOMING MASSIVE!

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll hungout with Stephen Colbert last week while promoting his new book THE PARTICLE AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE: How the Hunt for Higgs Boson Leads us to the Edge of a New World.

In between Colbert's jokes about jetpacks and teleportation, Carroll attempts to explain what exactly the Higgs Boson is and why it's important.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sean Carroll
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

 

The Lush List: 7/23/12 - Age of Miracles, deGrasse Tyson at ComicCon and RIP Sally Ride

Pages: The Age of Miracles

I just finished reading Karen Thompson Walker's THE AGE OF MIRACLES, a lovely, pensive book about what happens when the Earth's rotation begins to slow. Yep, that's right, another book I love about the end of life on Earth as we know it! One day I'll figure out why I'm addicted to stories about the worst possible versions of our future...

As far as this particular gem goes, Walker draws readers into the devastating scenario through her 11 year-old narrator Julia. Smart, quiet, yearning for acceptance, Julia chronicles "the slowing" (the name given to the situation) against the backdrop of 6th grade - a time when it doesn't take a natural disaster for one's world to turn upside down. The days and nights may be getting longer and longer, but eternity has a different meaning entirely when your best friend deserts you at the lunch table for other, more popular girls. Or when you're trying to think of just the right thing to say to the boy you like who has finally realized you exist.

In an NPR interview, Walker says that she did scientific research to help make the story feel realistic.

"I would lift details from newspaper stories," she says. Reports on strange weather, climate change, extinctions and industrial farming all became fodder for the story.

When it was done, Walker worked up the nerve to show her manuscript to an astrophysicist. "I was relieved at how many of the consequences [of the slowing] he felt were based in real science," she says. "And then he helped me make a few of them a little more realistic."

This got me curious about scientists' answers to the "what if" scenario Walker presents, which includes all of the things she mentions in the interview, as well as changes to gravitational force and the Earth's magnetic field. If you're curious as well, here' are some topical tidbits for ya':

• Over at "Ask the Astronomer," Dr. Sten Odenwald answers the question: "What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?"
• Joelle Renstrom's post on Slate.com: "Could the Earth's Rotation Really Slow Down Like It Does in the New Novel THE AGE OF MIRACLES?", in which she mainly focuses on tidal friction. [FYI, she has a blog called COULD THIS HAPPEN?, where she explores the relationship between science and science fiction. Lots of yummy reading there, and possibilities for S'lush postings...have a feeling I'm going to lose a lot of time to this one...].

Neal DeGrasse Tyson's ComicCon Spaceship Smackdown

Sadly, I was not able to attend ComicCon this year. The only consolation is that because I didn't go, I didn't have to make the difficult decision of which events to actually attend! But apparently one session I would not have wanted to miss was this year's Starship Smackdown panel. As described in the ComicCon program guide:

The must-see panel of Comic-Con, brought to you by the new Geek Magazine, as featured on National Public Radio, returns for another action-packed year as the greatest spaceships in the history of the universe converge in the ultimate cosmic conflagration for the highly-coveted Smackdown title in Comic-Con's most scholarly and erudite panel. Will the Enterprise once again defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer? Can the Serenity make mincemeat out of the Battlestar Galactica? In space, can anyone hear you scream on the Prometheus and can you actually get cell reception in the TARDIS? And what exactly is the "Captain's Courageous" lightning round anyway?

A group of experts debating the merits of competing (fictional) spacecraft? Sign me up!! But what made this year's Smackdown particularly notable was the spontaneous address from audience member Neal deGrasse Tyson. Yep, that's right...when the panelists couldn't make a final decision about which ship was going to take the 2012 title, they turned to the audience for help. And luckily for them, there just happened to be a famous astrophysicist in attendance. Here's what he had to say:

[Source: Seriocity's fantastic, enthusiastic description of the panel,
which I found via THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER].

RIP Sally Ride

I don't remember a time when there weren't female astronauts.
I have Sally Ride to thank for that.

• NASA Tribute: An overview of Ride's accomplishments
• SallyRideScience.com:  The science education company she founded dedicated to supporting children's - especially girs' - interests in science, math and technology.
• Space.com has a number of tributes to Ride. My favorite is a personal memory from X-Prize Chairman/CEO Peter H. Diamandis: "I remember clearly the signs at the Cape during STS-7..."RIDE SALLY RIDE AND ALL YOU GUYS CAN GO ALONG TOO"... All of us rode with Sally on that flight. Her passion and dedication to education and to inspiring women to become scientists and engineers will be sorely missed."
• Related Reading: THE MERCURY 13: THE UNTOLD STORY OF 13 AMERICAN WOMEN AND THE DREAM OF SPACEFLIGHT: Martha Ackmann's book about the women who pre-dated Ride, training in secret in 1961 for the Mercury missions, with the hopes of becoming America's first female astronauts.

ABCNews coverage of Ride's passing, which includes several clips of Ride

Ride talks about her historic flight on NASA's 50th anniversary

 

 

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