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| Topic: Science |
8:52 am EDT, Sep 17, 2007 |
From Joshua Davis, writing in Wired. They can see your eyes, your nose, your mouth – and still not recognize your face. Now scientists say people with prosopagnosia may help unlock some of the deepest mysteries of the brain.
This essay appears in The Best American Science Writing 2007. Face Blind |
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| Topic: Science |
8:52 am EDT, Sep 17, 2007 |
From Matthew Chapman, writing in Harper's. In the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, eleven parents sued to remove intelligent design from the curriculum. The defendants brought in some of the leading lights in the intelligent design movement to defend it as science and elucidate the gaps in evolution. The plaintiffs brought in experts on evolution to explain it and refute intelligent design. That's the basic story, but if you think you know everything there is to know about this, you are wrong. Only I know the truth.
This essay appears in The Best American Science Writing 2007. God or Gorilla |
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Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery |
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| Topic: Science |
3:14 pm EDT, Sep 16, 2007 |
From DISCOVER Magazine. When this shy paleontologist found soft, fresh-looking tissue inside a T.rex femur, she erased a line between past and present. Then all hell broke loose. ... Schweitzer scoffs at visions of dinosaur parks. If anyone ever finds dinosaur DNA, she says, it will be fragmented and incomplete. In the unlikely event that scientists could reconstruct a complete dinosaur genome, she doubts that any modern animal could produce an egg capable of growing a dinosaur embryo. And even if that hurdle could be crossed, a viable dinosaur might not last long in 2006: "As far as we know, the way the lung tissue functioned, the way the hemoglobin functioned, was designed for an atmosphere that's very different than today's."
Truth is, Schweitzer hasn't even bothered to look for DNA. She has simply hunkered down to work in her characteristic way: keeping her eyes and her attitude wide open. "So many things are coming together that suggest preservation is far better than we've ever given it credit for," she says. "I think it's stupid to say, 'You're never going to get DNA out of dinosaur bone, you're never going to get proteins out of dinosaur bone, you're never going to do this, you're never going to do that.' As a scientist, I don't think you should ever use the word never."
This essay appears in The Best American Science Writing 2007. Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery |
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Annals of Mathematics: Manifold Destiny |
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| Topic: Science |
3:14 pm EDT, Sep 16, 2007 |
From Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber, writing in The New Yorker. A legendary problem and the battle over who solved it. ... Mikhail Gromov, the Russian geometer, said that he understood Perelman’s logic: “To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness.” Others might view Perelman’s refusal to accept a Fields as arrogant, Gromov said, but his principles are admirable. “The ideal scientist does science and cares about nothing else,” he said. “He wants to live this ideal. Now, I don’t think he really lives on this ideal plane. But he wants to.”
This essay appears in The Best American Science Writing 2007. Annals of Mathematics: Manifold Destiny |
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| Topic: Science |
3:14 pm EDT, Sep 16, 2007 |
From Esquire. For a hundred years, physicists have been scraping away at the strange and complicated phenomena obscuring the true face of our universe. Finally, a few brilliant young thinkers may be on the verge of getting the first real glimpse.
This essay appears in The Best American Science Writing 2007. The Theory of Everything |
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A Summer Camp for Grown-Up Geeks |
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| Topic: Science |
2:31 pm EDT, Sep 16, 2007 |
This is the first installment in a new series from Science Magazine and AAAS. When I was 11 years old, I went to summer camp for geeks. It was my first time alone, away from home and family. By day, we learned how to program computers. By night, we fought epic shaving-cream wars, flirted, scarfed down pizza, set traps in bunk beds, and made friends for life. ... I was surprised to learn that grown-up geek camps are mushrooming across the summer landscape ... What do you get out of the ultimate growing-up experience when you're already grown up? What sort of grownups go back to summer camp anyway? And would there be a shaving-cream war?
From SummerCon, to SummerCamp, a week-long event ... a massive inter-networked road trip caravan, from DC to SF ... A Summer Camp for Grown-Up Geeks |
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Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information |
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| Topic: Science |
2:31 pm EDT, Sep 16, 2007 |
For recent research, see here. "Information foraging is the most important concept to emerge from Human-Computer Interaction research in the last decade." --Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, and author, Designing Web Usability "This is a wonderful and exceptionally interesting book." --Marc Mangel, Professor and Fellow, John Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz "... a significant achievement in both science and engineering ... It will be a classic ... a deep and substantial body of work, conveyed with clarity and erudition." -- George W. Furnas, Professor and Associate Dean, School of Information, University of Michigan
You might begin with an early technical report on IFT, from 1999: Information Foraging Theory is an approach to understanding how strategies and technologies for information seeking, gathering, and consumption are adapted to the flux of information in the environment. The theory assumes that people, when possible, will modify their strategies or the structure of the environment to maximize their rate of gaining valuable information. Field studies inform the theory by illustrating that people do freely structure their environments and their strategies to yield higher gains in information foraging.
Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information |
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