Science Lush

Marvel's Ant-Man Micro-Tech Challenge

I love it when creative, imaginary life supports STEM action in real life! Last week I talked about the new scholarship named for The Big Bang Theory established to support low-income students at UCLA pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This week, I'm excited to spread the word about another entertainment entity encouraging STEM education: Marvel's Ant Man Micro-Tech Challenge.  

The contest is designed to inspire and encourage scientifically-minded young women, and the winners will receive a trip to the Hollywood premiere of Marvel's Ant-Man, meetings with innovators from Walt Disney Imagineers, and a tour of the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA, as well as a leadership role in a local workshop focused on building their creation.

Want in on the action? Here's more information from the contest site: 

MARVEL, DOLBY LABORATORIES, VISA, and RASPBERRY PI are looking nationwide for girls – just like you – ages 14-18 in grades 9-12 to create and share micro-technology based DIY projects they have built using readily accessible and found materials. Upon completion of the contest, build instructions for the winning projects will be provided to a STEM based girls program in the winners’ home community. Each winner will have the opportunity to lead a workshop in building her project for the selected program in her community.

Each MARVEL’S ANT-MAN: MICRO-TECH CHALLENGE applicant will design and build a DIY project using at least one inexpensive and readily available micro-technology component of her choosing. Projects can be utilitarian, artistic, or just plain fun.

After completing their projects, applicants will be asked to submit a short video demonstrating the projects and explaining how their projects will inspire other girls to pursue interests in science, technology, engineering, or math.

While the trip to LA is super-cool, one of the things I really love about the way this contest is structured is the hometown community element, where each winner's project will be featured in a local girls' workshop. There is a lot of talk about the "leaky pipeline" when it comes to girls and their interest in STEM, as they gravitate away from STEM education and careers at different stages of their lives. In "Fixing the 'Leaky Pipeline' of Women in Science and Math," Suzanne Bouffard looks at Nilanjana Dasgupta and Jane Stout's research on the topic. She writes: 

During childhood and adolescence, girls internalize stereotypes from parents, peers, and the overall culture that STEM courses and careers are for boys. It is telling that boys are more interested in STEM activities than girls by age 10, well before performance differences emerge, because the pattern suggests that interests drive the performance differences, not the other way around. Studies show that girls tend to value communal goals like collaboration, altruism, and social problems, and they often don’t see the many ways that STEM careers can target these goals.

Dasgupta and Stout recommend that schools, community institutions, and parents:

• Make STEM activities more personally meaningful to girls’ lives
• Show links between STEM careers and communal goals
• Expose girls to more female role models through museums, after school programs, and summer camps.

Kudos to Marvel's Ant-Man Micro-Tech Challenge for attempting to patch up the pipeline in several ways, including engaging high school girls in a project about which they are personally passionate, creating a community of winners with the group trip to LA, and turning the girls themselves into role models for other young women when they return home and lead their project workshops.

Applications will be accepted until 9:00pm PDT, June 11th, 2015. For contest rules and requirements, head over to www.ant-manchallenge.com. 

H/T: Superherohype.com

 

 

 

The Lush List: National DNA Day, Warhol and the Commodore Amiga, Net Neutrality

NATIONAL DNA DAY

Friday, April 25th is National DNA Day, which commemorates the completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003, and the discovery of DNA's double helix. The National Human Genome Institute (NHGI) has all kinds of ways to celebrate and participate on their website.

One of the highlights is the American Society of Human Genetics Essay Contest. The 2014 winner is Rachel Gleyzer, a 10th grader from Hackensack, NJ, who wrote about the role genetics and the environment play in absolute pitch, "a person's ability to accurately and instantly identify a musical tone's pitch." As a recovering musical theater major who struggled through music theory classes, I'd love to finally have something besides my bad ear to blame for my difficulty with sightreading.

I love that her biology teacher, Carol Zepatos, emphasized the fact that "It's very important that good scientists are good communicators." Along with my fellow Scirens, I'm participating in the LIVE CosmoQuest Hangoutathon this Saturday at 12pm PDT to raise money for the virtual research center whose goal is to provide anyone with an interest in space the opportunity to partner with scientists using NASA data to explore the Solar System. One of the things we'll be talking about are communication skills and ways that scientists can better use the media for both education and outreach to the general public.

Of course, my favorite hero of DNA Day is Rosalind Franklin, whose research was crucial to the discovery of the helical structure of DNA. Sadly, she did not win the Nobel Prize in 1962  along with James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, as she passed away at the young age of 37 in 1958. The Nobel Prize can only be awarded to the living; had she been alive at the time, one can only hope her work would have been recognized. For more on Franklin, check out the following books and plays:

-Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
-Rosalind Franklin and DNA by Anne Sayre
-Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler

 
COMMODORE AMIGA'S 15 MINUTES OF FAME
Back in the mid-1980s, Andy Warhol created a series of images, doodles and photos on the Commodore Amiga home computer. Until now, the only record of these were was an image of Blondie's Debby Harry that's part of a collection at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

But then YouTube came to the rescue!

New media artist Cory Arcangel saw a clip of Warhol from 1985. In the video, Warhol is at the Commodore Amiga's promotional launch event where he's working on the image of Harry.

As described in the press release from the Andy Warhol Museum:  

During Arcangel’s November 2011 visit to Pittsburgh for his exhibition Masters, at Carnegie Museum of Art, he followed up on this topic with curator Tina Kukielski.  Kukielski, who was also a co-curator of the 2013 Carnegie International, subsequently joined the Hillman Photography Initiative at CMOA.  Kukielski and Arcangel reached out to CMU’s Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, run by Golan Levin, who connected them both to the CMU Computer Club, which is a student organization known for their comprehensive collection of obsolete computer hardware, as well as their prize-winning retro-
computing software development.

In 2011, Matt Wrbican, chief archivist at The Warhol, was approached by Arcangel and Kukielski to discuss the possibility of searching for files on the disks which he first saw in Warhol’s former New York City studio in 1991.  Having himself been an Amiga user, he shared their enthusiasm for the hunt for images.

Andy Warhol. Venus. 1985. Courtesy of the Andy Warhol Museum.

In a statement, the Warhol’s Director Eric Shiner said, “Warhol saw no limits to his art practice. These computer generated images underscore his spirit of experimentation and his willingness to embrace new media – qualities which, in many ways, defined his practice from the early 1960s onwards.”

[Initial Source: The Verge]

NET NEUTRALITY UPDATE

I hope you like reading my posts. Wouldn't it suck if it took forever for my page to load in your browser, or if the videos that I shared with you took too long to play? Well, that could be the new harsh reality because of this week's decision by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to allow companies to essentially purchase a pass to the fast lane on the Internet.

Basically, it means that if a company has the money, they can pay for their content to get to consumers faster. Which pretty much puts an end to a free, open and democratic internet. Because we're all busy and impatient, which means that if something takes too long to load, we click away from it. There's no way the little guys can compete against huge corporations that have the dough to purchase their fast pass. It also means that the costs for those fast passes may make their way to the consumer. 

Or, as explained in this piece in The Guardian:

Consider: an ISP like, say, Time Warner Cable, tells, say, Google that its YouTube videos won't reach us at the, say, "gold package" speed we've already paid for ... unless Google, too, pays a gold-standard fee. That is nothing short of a protection racket, run by a company that has little or no competition. In an actually competitive market, an ISP couldn't conceivably get away with such a thing.

Not everything about the proposed rules, as leaked, is awful. Forcing ISPs to be much more transparent about the level of service they actually provide, for example, is highly useful. Getting them to comply honestly, given their record, is another story.

As an independent content creator, this is an issue that is extremely important to me. I'll continue posting thoughts and information about it. And if you need some background or want to take action, a good place to start is the article quoted above, which breaks down the situation and recommends several things to do in response.

The Lush List: Sundance 2014 Edition - Science & Technology Films

The slopes are empty and the theaters are full in Park City, Utah, which can only mean one thing - it's time for Sundance. The 30th anniversary of the festival kicked off on January XX with 121 feature films, plus a plethora of shorts, panels and events. Nestled mong the gritty relationship dramas, star-studded character pieces and international gems are always at least several films that riff on or are inspired by science and technology. Here's a look at this year's crop, which includes stories across a wide variety of genres ranging from romantic drama to a Western to documentary film.

**Descriptions for the films and events have been taken from the Sundance Film Festival Guide.

 
I ORIGINS
Screening in Premieres
Dir: Mike Cahill


Ian Gray, a PhD student studying molecular biology with a specialty in eye evolution, leaves his lab to go to a party and has an intense, but fleeting, encounter with a mysterious, masked model who escapes into the night. With only a picture of her stunning and iconic eyes, he tracks her down, and they fall in love. Their fundamentally different beliefs about life only serve to intensify their connection, and they vow to spend forever together. Years later, Ian and his lab partner, Karen, make a stunning discovery with profound existential implications. He must risk his life's work and his family to travel across the world to find the truth behind what he has found and what it may mean.

Writer/director Mike Cahill returns to Sundance (Another Earth screened at the Festival in 2011) with a new, enthralling exploration of the connective tissue between love and science. He casts Brit Marling again, as well as Michael Pitt and Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, and utilizes their onscreen chemistry to vigorous effect. As emotionally moving as it is intellectually stimulating, I Origins solidifies Cahill’s position as a distinctive cinematic voice.

 
YOUNG ONES
Screening in Premieres
Dir: Jake Paltrow

Water is running out. Land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. Not long from now, the hardened survivors of the loss of Earth’s precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm, played by Michael Shannon, lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome and Mary. He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary's boyfriend, Flem Lever, played by Nicholas Hoult, has grander designs. He wants Ernest's land for himself, and he means to get it.

Grounded by pitch-perfect performances, writer/director Jake Paltrow's sophomore effort reverently strips down genre tropes, inventively layering Greek tragedy over an ethereal narrative that’s steeped in the values of the American West. With a visceral application of cinematic and theatrical shorthand, and a passionate storytelling sense, Young Ones quickly establishes a distinct, fully realized universe and never lets go.

ALIVE INSIDE: A STORY OF MUSIC & MEMORY
Screening in U.S. Documentary Competition
Dir: Michael Rossato-Bennett

Video from the director from the film's Kickstarter campaign

As dementia continues to affect millions of elderly Americans, Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory reveals a remarkable, music-based breakthrough that has already transformed lives. Spearheaded by social worker Dan Cohen and captured on camera over the course of three years by filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett, we learn that songs from a patient’s past can awaken memories and emotions that have been asleep for years, sometimes decades. Within a moment of hearing “I Get Around” by the Beach Boys, Alzheimer’s patient Marylou jolts back to life, dancing around the living room and expressing a euphoria her husband hasn’t witnessed since her illness took effect. Countless instances in Alive Inside provide proof that music stimulates activity in dementia-affected parts of the brain and transforms the quality of life of those often left to languish in silence.

Through revealing conversations with renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks and musician Bobby McFerrin, as well as powerful firsthand experiments conducted by Cohen in nursing homes, this groundbreaking documentary demonstrates how connecting the elderly to the music they love not only combats memory loss but also supplements a broken health-care system often indifferent to interpersonal connections.

DINOSAUR 13
Screening in U.S. Documentary Competition
Dir: Todd Miller

On August 12, 1990, in the badlands of South Dakota, paleontologist Peter Larson and his team from the Black Hills Institute unearthed the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found. It was the find of a lifetime—the world’s greatest dinosaur discovery. They named their dinosaur Sue.

Two years later, when the FBI and the National Guard showed up, battle lines were drawn over ownership of Sue. The U.S. government, world-class museums, Native American tribes, and competing paleontologists became the Goliath to Larson’s David as he and his team fought to keep their dinosaur and wrestled with intimidation tactics that threatened their freedom as well.

Dinosaur 13 chronicles an unprecedented saga in American history and details the fierce battle to possess a 65-million-year-old treasure. With consummate skill, filmmaker Todd Miller excavates layer after layer, exposing human emotion in a dramatic tale that is as complex as it is fascinating.

The film has been acquired by Lionsgate and CNN Films.

THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY: THE STORY OF AARON SWARTZ
Screening in U.S. Documentary Competition
Dir: Brian Knappenberger

As a teenager, Aaron Swartz was a computer-programming prodigy with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. After emerging as a pioneer of Internet activism, education, and politics, he was indicted on multiple federal charges in 2011 and 2012, setting off a complex chain of events that left the Internet community reeling. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 26, Swartz was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Brooklyn apartment. His family, friends, and supporters immediately blamed the prosecutors of the case, who aimed to put him in jail for 35 years and brand him a convicted felon for life. Swartz was persecuted for the very rights and freedoms for which he stood, and that ultimately broke him.

Weaving together home video footage and anecdotal interviews from his closest confidants, Brian Knappenberger creates a dynamic portrait of a precocious boy who grew up to lead the Internet community into a new age of data sharing and free speech.

 
COOTIES
Screening in Park City at Midnight
Dirs: Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion

Elementary schools have given birth to great thinkers, innovative scientists, and inspiring leaders. They are also malignant cesspools, teeming with grime and disease.

Directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion’s first film, Cooties, focuses on the virulent underbelly of grade school. Except this time, the bug that’s going around is transforming the student body from spazzes, tattletales, and brats into deranged, cannibalistic mutants. After an uncharacteristically blood-soaked recess, the surviving teachers and students band together in a desperate attempt to leave the building without being permanently dismissed.

This appealingly preposterous scenario comes together in a hilarious script by cowriters Leigh Whannel (the creator of Saw) and Ian Brennan (the creator of Glee). The strong ensemble cast includes Elijah Wood as a failed writer-turned-underwhelming substitute teacher, Alison Pill as his childhood crush, Rainn Wilson as a mustachioed gym teacher, and Jorge Garcia as a drug-addled crossing guard. Nasim Pedrad and Jack McBrayer are welcome additions to the roster.


THE SIGNAL
Screening in Park City at Midnight
Dir: William Eubank

Nick and Jonah are MIT freshmen with a passion for hacking. While driving cross-country through Nevada with Nick’s girlfriend, Hailey, they follow rival hacker Nomad’s clues to a location 180 miles away. After a terrifying confrontation with Nomad in the middle of the desert, the trio regain consciousness in captivity. Struggling to comprehend the true nature of their confinement, they discover they are part of a plot much larger than themselves.

With his second sci-fi feature, William Eubank continues to prove that grand scale can be achieved on any budget. Starring up-and-comer Brenton Thwaites as Nick and Laurence Fishburne as his stoic captor, The Signal is a contemporary genre film with heart and imagination to spare. Beautifully shot and energetically directed, it lets the circumstances behind the trio’s imprisonment slowly unravel, leading to an epic and mind-blowing conclusion.

 

TO BE TAKEI
Screening in Documentary Premieres
Dir: Jennifer M. Kroot




TK Note: While technically this isn't a film about science or technology, I couldn't leave a film about Takei off of this list. Between his iconic role in Star Trek and his use of social media, he occupies a unique place at the intersection of art and science.

George Takei doesn’t shy away from digging into his remarkable career and personal life in Jennifer Kroot’s delightful and incisive film To Be Takei. As a child forced into Japanese-American internment camps, the actor-turned-activist reveals the ways that racism affected him well into his early acting career, where he played stereotypical Asian stock characters in film and television shows. Even after landing the iconic role of Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek, Takei’s sharp eye, coupled with his wicked sense of humor, continued to challenge the status quo well into the twenty-first century.

Now at 76, nine years after formally coming out of the closet, Takei and his husband, Brad, have become the poster couple for marriage equality, highlighting homophobia through television interviews and hilarious skits, many of which have gone viral and garnered widespread attention. Whether dishing on William Shatner or parodying the now-infamous comments made by Tim Hardaway, Takei proves time and again why his presence in popular culture remains as fresh and necessary as ever. - H.V.

 

LOVE CHILD
Screening in World Documentary
Dir: Valerie Veatch

In 2010, a South Korean baby named Sarang died of malnutrition. The death of a child is always horrific, but the circumstances leading up to this one were even more shocking: Sarang died because her parents were playing games online. Ordinarily, this would be a clear case of negligence, but Love Child takes a different approach by looking at what led to the parents’ gaming addiction and how their child became a secondary concern. The film then expands from this tragedy to examine the way that South Korea’s place as the world leader of Internet infrastructure has adversely affected its communal society.

Director Valerie Veatch skillfully weaves a story of personal tragedy together with social commentary. Instead of merely condemning the parents, she shows how embracing technology can have unforeseen negative consequences. By interjecting footage from the game the parents loved to play into the film, Veatch vividly conveys how intoxicating these games can be and shows how easily the lines between real life and virtual reality can blur.

WEB JUNKIE
Screening in World Documentary
Dirs: Shosh Shlam, Hilla Medalia

China is one of the first countries in the world to label overuse of the Internet a clinical condition. To combat what authorities deem the greatest social crisis for youth today, the Chinese government has created treatment facilities to detox and cure teenagers of their addictions to online life.

But what starts out as an already-fascinating look at ways that technology may be destroying the lives of Chinese youth quickly becomes something more. As the unorthodox psychological sessions continue and the teenage boys begin to share with their parents the reasons why they feel more connected to disassociated voices in cyberspace than to their families, Web Junkie chronicles the results of a nation going through one of most drastic transformations in human history. In honest and wrenching ways that transcend national borders, this film is a thoughtful examination of a society in flux and a technology-addled generation on the precipice of an unknown future.

 

PANELS

EXPLORATORY DETOURS
Part of the Free Fail program

One of the enduring human enigmas is that so many iconic endeavors—from Nobel Prize–winning achievements to entrepreneurial inventions and works in the arts—are not discoveries but conversions, corrections after failed attempts.

Moderated by author, scholar, and curator Sarah Lewis, whose upcoming book The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery explores this theme across myriad disciplines from science to athletics to music and art. Exploratory Detours takes a look at this intriguing issue.

By pulling together science, scholarship, and philosophy, we can better understand the fascinating relationship linking creativity, failure, and mastery that extends far beyond the familiar platitudes. What does it mean to have grit? How does validation work? What can we learn from the way jazz musicians improvise? Our diverse group of panelists look at the ways irreplaceable gifts spring from failure in creative endeavors.

Panelists include: Sarah Lewis (author, The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery), Charles J. Limb, MD (Dr. Limb studies the neural mechanisms behind deep creativity, especially in relation to music and other art forms), Jill Soloway (director, writer, and producer for the film Afternoon Delight, and TV series such as Six Feet Under and United States of Tara), Chris Stone (President, Open Society Foundations), and Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford.

THE COSMIC CROSSROADS

Whether it’s searching for life in the universe or searching for results in a lab, scientists often have a number of theories but are not quite sure what they will find. It’s an enigma that compels filmmakers regularly, but it also brings up an interesting question about process that unites science and storytelling. How do you see what’s not there? How do you form narratives? How do imagination, logic, creativity, and empiricism ally in film’s creative mix? Moderated by Flora Lichtman (multimedia editor, Science Friday, NPR), this year’s group of scientists, Kevin Hand (deputy chief scientist, Solar System Exploration, NASA) and Jill Tarter (SETI Institute), and writers, Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, The Darkest Hour) and Max Mayer (Adam), discuss their work as well as good and bad science-in-film. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

AFTER SUNDANCE: EMBRACING CHANGE
New Frontier panel

Learn from former Sundance filmmakers who have paved their own path in this changing media landscape and embraced new models of business, technology, and content creation at this very special “show-and-tell” panel. Moderator Chris Horton (director, #ArtistServices, Sundance Institute) along with Jill Soloway (director, Afternoon Delight), Tiffany Shlain (filmmaker and founder, The Webby Awards), Jared Geller (producer, hitRECord), and Dennis Dortch (CEO/founder, BLACK&SEXY.TV) share their tales of creation and innovation. You can also get a sneak peak at Soloway’s television pilot Transparent.

THE BEAUTY OF FAILURE
Part of the Free Fail program

How does embracing risk and failure drive the creative process? Creating something new goes hand in hand with the risk of failure, which the New Frontier artists confront with every project. These artists continue to push boundaries and embrace the new in both their work and their lives. Join Aaron Koblin (creative director, Google Creative Lab), Sam Green (filmmaker, Weather Underground), Jillian Mayer (artist/filmmaker, director #PostModem), Nate Mitchell (Oculus Rift), and Mike Stubbs (FACT) as they share what it takes to be on the vanguard of art, film, and technology, and how overcoming failure can lead to some of their best work. Moderated by Ruby Lerner (executive director, Creative Capital).

 

THE STORYWORLD: CREATING INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES THAT WORK
New Frontier Panel

Actively incorporating your audience members gives them permission to become part of the story rather than mere observers. But letting go of authorship can be tricky. How do you create effective, yet compelling, interactive experiences that audiences want to be part of? Join us for a creative, mind-opening, and inspiring conversation as we break free of the linear narrative and discuss the innovative and rich world of interactive storytelling with artist/director Chris Milk (Sound and Vision, Arcade Fire’s Wilderness Downtown), artist and computer scientist Jonathan Harris (I Love Your Work, I Want You to Want Me, Cowbird), game maker Nick Fortugno (cofounder and CCO, Playmatics), Sep Kamvar (professor, MIT), Nate Mitchell(VP Product, Oculus Rift), and transmedia leader Susan Bonds (CEO, 42 Entertainment). Moderated by Charles Melcher (founder, The Future of Storytelling [FoST] Summit and Melcher Media).

HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL ON YOUTUBE
New Frontier Panel

YouTube's top creators, learn the key strategies filmmakers can use for creating successful content on YouTube that keeps audiences engaged and coming back for more. The session explores questions you should ask yourself when developing new online content and provides examples of the way YouTube offers filmmakers the opportunity to have creative freedom and reach a wide audience.

Iron Man Science

Last week I had a blast hosting Marvel.com's Live Red Carpet show for the IRON MAN 3 premiere. The movie comes out on May 3rd in the U.S., so I thought it'd be fun to take a look at some of the science behind the sci fi in the IRON MAN films.

STARK INDUSTRIES TECH

The Marvel Cinematic Universe all begins with the comics, and in this piece on ScientificAmerican.com, E. Paul Zehr goes back to the source with "Iron Man's Top 10 Heavy Metal Moments: Reflections on the First 50 Years of Scientific R&D from Stark Industries." 

Zehr traces the development of Iron Man armor all the way from its "birth" in March 1963's TALES OF SUSPENSE #39, through the suited-up fight scene between Tony Stark and Col. James Rhodes (soon to be War Machine) in IRON MAN 2. Some of the upgrades along the way have included changes in color, a more modular suit that's storable, an waterproof exoskeleton, and a neural interface.

Getting into the suit has become easier as well - the first Marvel IRON MAN film introduced motorized robotic equipment for dressing Stark. And although it's not mentioned in Zehr's "Top 10" list, I was a big fan of the "suitcase suit" in IRON MAN 2.

While Zehr says that, "Right now we don’t even have the technology to safely dress Tony Stark in the Iron Man as shown in the robotics, let alone create the Iron Man armor itself," he points out that there are a few other elements that we're a bit closer to realizing. For example, inventor Phil Nuytten has created "swimmable" Newtsuit and Exosuits that seem to share some design elements with the Iron Man exoskeleton in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #218  “Deep Trouble” (1987), in which Iron Man hits the water.

For a deeper dive into Zehr's take on the reality of creating an Iron Man suit, check out his book INVENTING IRON MAN: The Possibility of a Human Machine.  

 
A REAL IRON MAN SUIT?

Discovery News also attacks this topic with a fun piece - and some nice pics - on the realities of various features of the Iron Man suit. Exoskeleton systems? In development. Head mounted display? Already functional in military and engineering applications. Repulsors? Unfortunately, not going to show up in our world any time soon.

As we know, Tony is proud of his rep as a tinkerer, and loves spending time in his lab...something that causes some problems between him and Pepper at the beginning of IM3. Here's what the piece has to say about Tony's latest additions:

"Iron Man 3" introduces at least one new technology to the Stark armor, although the details are sketchy indeed. Early in the film, Tony Stark is seen experimenting with a substance that he injects into his bloodstream, which then allows him to telepathically summon his armor to him across great distances. Each piece of armor has its own rocket system and latches onto Stark automatically after it flies across the room (or the country, as the case may be).

As a sci-fi conceit, the concept combines ideas of nanotechology, biotechnology and long-range wireless communications. Stark has also developed a system for remotely piloting Iron Man suits from the ground. The suits essentially become unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, a recurring concern in movies these days. In real-world news, just this month the FAA will begin allowing civilian agencies to fly UAVs weighing no more than 4.4 pounds in U.S. airspace.

THE ARC REACTOR

Emory University did a series of videos titled EMORY LOOKS AT HOLLYWOOD featuring faculty members applying their areas of knowledge to some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters. In this 2010 video, Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics, gives his take on the possibilities for a real suit and gets specific on the science behind the power source. 

He, too, suggests that an Iron Man-type of suit is a real possibility in the near (or not so near) future, given the current experimentation with exoskeletons. The military has spent a lot of money building them, and while it'll probably be quite awhile until they cover us head to toe and have a complete neurally integrated sensory system, Perkowitz believes "A walking kind of Iron Man that is stronger than the average soldier, I think clearly that can happen." Sadly, he wasn't so optimistic about the flying part.

A power source is necessary in order for an Iron Man suit to work, especially for the advanced functions. Perkowitz explains that though there are indeed ARC reactors in the real world, their uses are not quite as flashy as what we see in the IRON MAN films.

He says, "As far as I can judge from the film, what Tony's ARC reactor means is a fusion reactor...this idea of making energy by smashing together two hydrogen nucleii and turning them into helium. That's what goes on in our sun. It's a great power source. Physicists have worked on this idea for 60 years. They haven't made it work yet."

Part of the issue is size. Perkowitz explains that in reality, the machines that would generate this would be the size of a building. However, Tony Stark has managed to create a device that will do this same smashing together of hydrogen nucleii in something that's about 3 inches in diameter.

The film actually quotes the power level that Tony's ARC reactor puts out, and Perkowitz was intrigued enough to do some calculations. He determined that the reactor puts out somewhere between 1-16 million horsepower. 1 million hp is the equivalent to 2000-3000 Corvettes...so we're talking about something pretty damn powerful coming out of a device the size of a hockey puck.

If one could actually manage to do this, then Perkowitz says that the Iron Man suit could do just about anything, from punching through walls to - yes - even flying! 

The Lush List: 7/5/12: Higgs Boson, Mysterium Tremendum and Internet Celeb Commercials

Higgs Boson Sweetly Explained

Big news in the science community this past week about discovery of the Higgs boson particle [general readers may be more familiar with this as "The God Particle,' a term that raises the hackles of many scientists]. While the folks at CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are being cautious and saying it's too soon to know for sure, the discovery is exciting physicists around the globe.

And just what is this li'l particle that's making them jump for joy? As THE NEW YORK TIMES describes it:

According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass...Without the Higgs field, as it is known, or something like it, all elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light, flowing through our hands like moonlight. There would be neither atoms nor life.

So yes, it's a big friggin' deal!

Still lost?

For those of us who want to know more but don't have a string of letters after our name or spent most of science class flirting with the guy behind us, Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample explains what a Higgs boson is, how Cern physicists are looking for it, and why it matters if they find it. And he does it all with very sophisticated tools: ping pong balls, sugar and a cafeteria tray. After watching, I wasn't sure if I should go bake cookies or dig out my set of paddles and get ready to serve...

 

The Grateful Sounds of the Universe

I am definitely NOT a Deadhead. In fact, my musical taste (or lack thereof) could almost be described as the complete opposite of the Grateful Dead: Jersey rock (think ROCK OF AGES soundtrack), Top 40 dance tunes and Broadway musicals. However, when I read this post on Open Culture about Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's latest project, I finally found a set of tunes for which I'd be willing to take a road trip.

On his new record MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM, Hart used "cosmic sounds" composed in outer space to create the tracks. As described on the site:

To make music like this, you need some unusual collaborators. Hart went to NASA, Penn State, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with scientists like George Smoot, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics with John C. Mather. They helped convert light, radio waves, and other electromatic radiation into sound waves that Hart and his band could put to musical use.

For a sampling of "the songs our universe sings," you can watch below in the recording of the Madrone Studios performance in San Francisco on 4/4/12. Gotta love it when a musician kicks off his set explaining that the piece he's about to play is based on "the sounds of the sun and some very deep star clusters."

Just have to give a shout out to Open Culture, which has the tagline "the best free cultural and educational media on the web."  They constantly point me to coolness that I find myself wanting to share with y'all. If you like what I write about here, they are definitely a site to check out.

 
Internet Celebs in Commercials

As you may remember, I'm a big fan of well-done commercials (especially when I see them online instead of in the middle of my favorite TV programs). All sorts of creatures have been utilized in the selling of things, including scantily clad celebrities, gekkos, and funny ladies with headbands dressed in all white. But lately, internet-age celebs have been cropping up in commercials. And I don't mean YouTube stars - I mean the folks who actually created YouTube.

London agency Albion made this film for Code Club, a startup that teaches children coding after-school. In the spot, three savvy kids interview prospective employees for Code Club, including Tim Berners-Lee, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, Skype's Niklas Zennstrom and Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane-Fox, founders of LastMinute.com, among others. And they're not exactly impressed...

The spot reminded me of the ad from Best Buy which debuted during the Superbowl. It features the inventors and Silicon Valley folk who are behind li'l things like the camera phone, Instagram and Square. It's quite a change from their 2011 Superbowl campaign, which featured Justin Bieber and Ozzie Osbourn. 

 

 

YouTube & NASA Plan Streaming Interview From Endeavour

Head's up - the April 30th deadline is approaching to submit your questions to YouTube for the live broadcast with the crew of the upcoming Endeavour voyage. As detailed on Mashable, NASA and YT have partnered on the interview, which will be streamed from space on PBS NewsHour's YT channel on Monday, May 2nd at 2:15pm, barring any launch delays.

Intrigued? Miles O'Brien, who will conduct the interview, tells you all about the project in this li'l video...

Technical Theater: 'Company' at the NY Phil

Usually, when one talks about "tech rehearsals" in the theater, it refers to the chunk of rehearsal time when lights, sound, etc are all being worked out.  However, as detailed in a New York Times article today, a new production of the musical Company directed by Lonny Price is taking the term to a whole different level.

The show, which is gearing up for four performances with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall starting on Thursday, April 7th, 2011, features a cast of A-listers who it's been problematic to get in the same room together. The solution? Technology! For example, Neil Patrick Harris Skypes with his voice teacher and rehearses songs listening to MP3 tracks while driving (and there's always an abundance of drive time in Los Angeles). Jon Cryer relied on the video capability of the iPhone to learn some of his dance routines (and according to the article, has now developed the unique skill of beimg able to hoof it while looking down at his phone). Other cast members include Stephen Colbert, Patti LuPone, Craig Bierko, Anika Noni Rose and Christina Hendricks.

One of the joys of theater is usually working with the other actors, refining and deepening your work through the rehearsal period. It'll be intereseting to see how this process works for the show, as many of the actors come together at the last minute for Thursday's performance. Curious? You'll be able to check it out when Company is shown in movie theaters in June. Yep, that's right...in today's all-screens, all-the-time world, even live theater gets captured by the camera for a larger audience.

The Lush List: 4/30/10 - Cape Wind, BP Oil Spill, Iron Man Science and Music for the Lab

1. CAPE WIND
After nine years of regulatory review, the federal government has finally approved the nation's first offshore wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. According to an article in The New York Times, the approval is just the first step in launching the the project, dubbed Cape Wind, which has been the subject of great debate. Those supporting it include the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Governor Deval Patrick. Benefits cited include the creation of a renewable source of clean energy, as well as the jobs the project would bring to the area.

Those on the other side include Senator Scott Brown (R), environmental groups such as the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the coastal Wampanoag tribe, which requires unobstructed views of the sunrise for sacred ceremonies. Reasons for opposition include increased energy costs to consumers, possible violations of current environmental regulations and concerns about how the farm will affect the beauty of the area and the tourism market. Others are not thrilled that the a private developer, Cape Wind Associates, is in charge of the project.

If you like your story told in images, for more background on the endeavor from a pro-farm p.o.v., take a look at "Cape Wind Project: Everything You Need to Know," on The Huffington Post. If you're a text fan, read the NY Times editorial supporting the project. For a look back at some of the history of the opposition to Cape Wind, read this piece from GRIST, which focuses on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s problems with the project.

2. EARTH DAY OIL SPILL
While the benefits for Cape Wind have stirred debate, no one can argue that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico resulting from the explosion on a BP offshore oil rig last week is a tragedy. The estimated rate of spill was originally estimated at 1,000 barrels a day, but has now been upgraded to 5,000 barrels (more than 200,000 gallons). Here's an update from Democracy NOW! on the situation. One of the saddest lines from the report: "The clean ocean has become a thing of the past in that region for the future."

3. SCIENCE OF IRON MAN
We could really use a superhero right about now to help with the situation in the Gulf, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen. Perhaps the closest we can get at the moment is heading to the multi-plex to catch IRON MAN 2, the latest installment of the Marvel franchise. For a look at the science behind the suit, check out Marvel.com's piece by Ryan Haupt, who holds two Bachelor's of Science in Environmental Geology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-hosts the podcast "Science...sort of."

Shameless plug: I also did some looking into the story of Iron Man, though my exploration was decided less scientific. I had the verrry fun job of hosting Marvel's Red Carpet coverage of the Hollywood premiere of the film. You can check out my interviews with Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, ScarJo, Don Cheadle and more here.  

4. 10 SONGS FOR SCIENCE NERDS
This week for your listening pleasure, Flavorwire has compiled a virtual mixtape for, in their words, "those of you who maybe spent a little too much time in the chem lab, who cheered for Weird Science’s Anthony Michael Hall as if he were one of your own, and who still might have a poster of the periodic table on your bedroom walls." The collection is a mix of usual suspects such as "She Blinded Me With Science" (Thomas Dolby) and "Weird Science" (Oingo Boingo), as well as more obscure choices like performance artist Laurie Anderson's "O Superman (For Massenet)."

'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

The Microsoft Fune: The Latest (?) in Mobile Technology

One of these days I'll do a li'l write up of my drama-filled first month of Palm Pre ownership. Til then, amuse yourself with this vid of the new state-of-the art phone from Microsoft: the Fune.

[Source: Thanks Mashable!]