Argonauts: Organizations of Similar Interest
Over the next few years, the nascent Argonaut Council for Responsible Science recruited heavily from organizations with similar interests such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Institute for a Transhuman Future, the Lifeboat Institute, and the Singularity Foundation. Researchers at government organizations such as the UK’s Bletchley Park and the Chinese Machine Intelligence Directorate quietly subscribed as well. In most cases, these new argonauts kept their original affiliation, gi...
notes Buddhini Samarasinghe: Scientists Should Stick to Science
It is a statistical fact that you are more likely to die while horseback riding (1 serious adverse event every ~350 exposures) than from taking Ecstasy (1 serious adverse event every ~10,000 exposures). Yet, in 2009, the scientist who said this was fired from his position as the chairman of the UK's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Professor David Nutt's remit was to make scientific recommendations to government ministers on the classification of illegal drugs based on the harm they c... notes How Gender Bias Impacts Men
Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.
Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence as a child as much as my mother’s.
I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness unable to ask for help for fear it would make them look less “macho”—in fact in the UK suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20-49 years of age; eclipsing road...
1 The Bilingual Advantage in Computer Programmers
Like bilinguals, expert computer programmers successfully manage two or more separate lexicons, grammars and divergent concepts, avoiding inadvertent transfer between the two. Numerous studies of novice programmers indicate that they struggle to do achieve this division; transfer from natural language creates bugs (e.g. Soloway and Spohrer, 1989; Witschital, 1995). The present study therefore considers whether the “bilingual advantage” in executive control is found in computer programmers... notesManifests in tasks involving executive function, but not in other bilingual tasks. More research needed.
Science is a Relay Race
Indeed, there is a particular problem with finding endings in science. Where do these science stories really finish? Science is truly a relay race, with each discovery handed on to the next generation. Even as one door is closing, another door is already being thrown open. So it is with this book. The great period of Victorian science is about to begin. The new stories are passed into the hands of Michael Faraday, John Herschel, Charles Darwin …and the world of modern science begins to rush...
1 It is difficult to know where to end a story about science, because the discoveries never cease and will continue into the future.
Notes from the "Science Project Showcase" session
No direct quote for this meme. notesNotes from the various online projects presented in this session.
Karen James
Galapagos Live http://galapagoslife.wordpress.com
· Survival Rival – teens compete against each other to make Darwin videos, winner goes to Galapagos.
· Darwin Online: searches against all of darwin’s writings http://darwin-online.org.uk
· Wanted girls who won the contest to recreate Darwin’s experience, taking notes, but doing so online and uploading photos.
NASA STS-133 Launch Tweetup http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup
· Nasa has over 30 twitter accounts, astronauts tweet live from space.
· People sign up for tweetup, 100-200 are selected, and get a front row seat to the launch
· http://justin.tv/nasatweetup VAB - Vehicle Assembly Building
· Commander of Shuttle is husband of Gabriel Giffords
· Follow @nasa and @nasatweetup – will post link to signup
· Follow #nasatweetup
ISS Wave http://isswave.org
· Heavensabove website: give your location and it will tell you where to look to see the ISS in the night sky
· @twist will send you a tweet when the ISS will pass that night.
· Wouldn’t it be cool to coordinate a mass wave at the ISS around the world. Created a map of people waving at the ISS over the holidays.
· ISS goes around every 90 minutes. Need to see it right at sunset to get the reflection of the suns rays.
· Maybe schedule one for Yuri’s night, this year is the 50th anniversary (April ?DATE?)
Sophia Collins
I’m a Scientist http://imascientist.org.uk
· See Stacy Baker’s Presentation
· Students appear to get invested in scientists, rooting for them the way we root for designers on Project Runway.
· Student’s ask scientists any question they want.
· How hard would it be to set this up with Joomla or Drupal?
· Go to website and look at archive from last year: 6,400 students asking thousands of questions.
· Kids get engaged because of the reversal of power, students get to ask the questions and students get to decide which scientists get to move on.
· 60% of students went on the site in their own time at home.
· Scientists got into it, staying up late making videos
· Scientists can come from anywhere, students are primarily from UK, but other schools can apply
· Majority of scientists are academic
Kristi Holmes
· Semantic web platform to highlight scientists areas of expertise and interests.
· 120 people at 7 different institutions working on it.
· So much information, vivo filters down to meaningful results
· Harvests data from verified sources, uses RDF triples
· For collaboration, finding resources in academia,
· Did a search on biomedical informatics, got a list of potential collaborators
· Profile with data from PubMed, coauthorship record
· Each institution maintains their own data, allowing customization to the institution and what’s meaningful to the organization.
· Open Source: see sourceforge
Adrian Ebsary
Peer Review Radio http://peerreviewradio.com
· Interviews with scientists based around a theme, subjects are given questions before hand
· Encourage students into journalism, teach them writing skills, train students in web design and sound editing skills
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