Photo by: Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Corbis

By Ian McEwan from the Guardian

In June 1858 a slender package from Ternate, an island off the Dutch East Indies, arrived for Charles Darwin at his country home in Down, Kent. He may well have recognised the handwriting as that of Alfred Wallace, with whom he had been in correspondence and from whom he was hoping to receive some specimens. But what Darwin found in the package along with a covering letter was a short essay. And this essay was to transform Darwin’s life.

Wallace’s 20 pages, so it seemed to their reader on that momentous morning, covered all the principle ideas of evolution by natural selection that Darwin had been working on for more than two decades and which he thought were his exclusive possession – and which he had yet to publish. Wallace, working alone, with very little in the way of encouragement or money, drew from his extensive experience of natural history, gathered while sending back specimens for collectors. He articulated concisely the elements as well as the sources familiar to Darwin: artificial selection, the struggle for survival, competition and extinction, the way species changed into different forms by an impersonal, describable process, by a logic that did not need the intervention of a deity. Wallace, like Darwin, had been influenced by the geological speculations of Charles Lyell, and the population theories of Thomas Malthus.

To Read More…

By David Frank from NPR

What is learning for if it doesn’t lead to wisdom?

That’s a question worth asking in light of an ongoing cosmological street fight being waged (remarkably) in broad media daylight. The rumble tumbled into the public eye with Lawrence Krauss’ new book A Universe From Nothing. But before the scathing New York Times review and an acerbic rebuttal in The Atlantic, this physics vs. philosophy smack-down was brewing in academic back alleys for decades. At stake is a critical question living deep inside the heart of modern foundational physics: What are the limits of science?

To Read More…

From infosthetics.com

Bloom Studio, which includes people like Ben Cerveny and Tom Carden, has just released its latest pop-cultural data expression. Biologic [bloom.io] is a (free!) iPad appthat promotes the playful exploration of the activity streams of your friends on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Here, Bloom has chosen a metaphor of biological cells, to graphically and dynamically convey one’s social network and the activities that happen inside of it. As a result, it’s graphical style is unique, to say the least.

In terms of visual representation, each ‘cell’ in Biologic represents a unique person. People who have posted more content recently have bigger cells. Each glowing ‘particle’ inside a cell represents a recent update from that respective person. The more a particle is moving around, the more retweets/favorites/likes it has.

To Read More…

Le Bateau Ivre – Friday 16 November – 18:30 – 20:30, $75USD

Located seven blocks south of the UC campus on the corner of Telegraph and Carleton, join Aging  Conference colleagues, speakers and friends for a French-inspired 3 course conference dinner, including wine, at Le Bateau Ivre Restaurant, Cafe and Coffeehouse, a Berkeley landmark. Established in 1972, Le Bateau Ivre was originally a residence built in 1898 by a French architect. Enjoy the warm and comfortable ambiance of a French home and good conversation at a time when many of our speakers are able to come together for more intimate conversations over great food and wine. To register for the dinner, log into your CGPublisher account or contact support at support@science-society.com

A flea from Robert Hooke's Micrographia

By Phillip Ball from The Telegraph

It is only in recent years that science has become, in publishing terms, popular and attractive. But long before Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould, Primo Levi had sought to make science accessible to the layperson in his 1975 literary-scientific commentary, The Periodic Table. A lapidary integration of chemistry and autobiography, the book continued a tradition of writing from Galileo to Darwin which vanished in the 20th century following academic specialisation. Philip Ball, like Levi, displays a polymath’s enthusiasm for knowledge of all kinds, and writes of science with humility and intelligent generosity.

Ball’s new book, a readable survey of the role of curiosity in science, is a good example of what the French call haute vulgarisation – high-class popularisation. In pages of limpid prose, Ball brings difficult ideas down a level. Until the early 17th century, when pretty well anything of human concern was fit for study, curiosity was seen as dangerous and condemned as such. The view has never quite gone away. Even Karl Marx was shocked by Darwin’s materialist view of nature as bleak survivalism in On the Origin of Species (the book was a “bitter satire”, Marx reckoned, on human progress). Beneath Darwin’s bleak vision, however, was a childlike sense of wonder at the mysteries of the natural world and a delight in extracting order out of chaos.

By Freeman Dyson from Edge

A Cultural History of Physics is a grand monument to the life of its author. Karoly Simonyi was teacher first, scholar second, and scientist third. His book likewise has three components. First a text, describing the history of science over the last four thousand years in a rich context of philosophy, art and literature. Second, a collection of illustrations, many of them taken from Hungarian archives and museums unknown to Western readers, giving concrete reality to historical events.Third an anthology of quotations from writers in many languages, beginning with Aeschylus in “Prometheus Bound”, describing how his hero brought knowledge and technical skills to mankind, and ending with Blaise Pascal in “Pensées”, describing how our awareness of our bodies and minds remains an eternal mystery. Different readers will have different preferences. For me, the quotations are the most precious part of the book. Dip anywhere among these pages, and you will find a quotation that is surprising and illuminating.

To Read More…

By Alan Boyle from MSNBC

An analysis of 36 years’ worth of polling data indicates that confidence in science as an institution has steadily declined among Americans who consider themselves conservatives, while confidence levels have been at steadier levels for other ideological groups.

The study, published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review, provides fresh ammunition for those who complain that conservative views on issues such as climate change are at odds with the scientific consensus.

“You can see this distrust in science among conservatives reflected in the current Republican primary campaign,” Gordon Gauchat, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Sheps Center for Health Services Research, said in a news release from the American Sociological Association. “When people want to define themselves as conservatives relative to moderates and liberals, you often hear them raising questions about the validity of global warming and evolution, and talking about how ‘intellectual elites’ and scientists don’t necessarily have the whole truth.”

To Read More…

We are delighted to announce Stephen Birch as  a plenary speaker for the Fourth Annual Science in Society Conference to be held in Berkeley, CA, 17 – 19 November 2012.

Stephen Birch is a Professor in The Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University in Canada and Chair in Health Economics at the University of Manchester.  He holds honorary or visiting appointments at Universities in Australia, South Africa and Sweden.  He is senior scientist at the WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning at Dalhousie University, Canada and a member of the UK Department of Health’s Centre for Workforce Intelligence.  He has served as a consultant with WHO and the World Bank as well as many national and provincial health departments on health workforce planning.  His main research interests are in the economics of health care systems with particular emphasis on equity, resource allocation and alternative delivery models.  He has over 200 publications in peer reviewed journals and recently completed a 15 year term as Senior Editor for Social Science and Medicine. He has served on various public boards including the Local Health Integration Network and the District Health Council in Hamilton, Ontario, the Health Professions Regulatory Council of Ontario and the Community Health Council for York District Health Authority.

To read more about the plenaries at the 2012 Science in Society Conference please visit the following link.

By Ian McEwan from the Guardian

In June 1858 a slender package from Ternate, an island off the Dutch East Indies, arrived for Charles Darwin at his country home in Down, Kent. He may well have recognised the handwriting as that of Alfred Wallace, with whom he had been in correspondence and from whom he was hoping to receive some specimens. But what Darwin found in the package along with a covering letter was a short essay. And this essay was to transform Darwin’s life.

Wallace’s 20 pages, so it seemed to their reader on that momentous morning, covered all the principle ideas of evolution by natural selection that Darwin had been working on for more than two decades and which he thought were his exclusive possession – and which he had yet to publish. Wallace, working alone, with very little in the way of encouragement or money, drew from his extensive experience of natural history, gathered while sending back specimens for collectors. He articulated concisely the elements as well as the sources familiar to Darwin: artificial selection, the struggle for survival, competition and extinction, the way species changed into different forms by an impersonal, describable process, by a logic that did not need the intervention of a deity. Wallace, like Darwin, had been influenced by the geological speculations of Charles Lyell, and the population theories of Thomas Malthus.

To Read More…

From infosthetics.com

Bloom Studio, which includes people like Ben Cerveny and Tom Carden, has just released its latest pop-cultural data expression. Biologic [bloom.io] is a (free!) iPad appthat promotes the playful exploration of the activity streams of your friends on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Here, Bloom has chosen a metaphor of biological cells, to graphically and dynamically convey one’s social network and the activities that happen inside of it. As a result, it’s graphical style is unique, to say the least.

In terms of visual representation, each ‘cell’ in Biologic represents a unique person. People who have posted more content recently have bigger cells. Each glowing ‘particle’ inside a cell represents a recent update from that respective person. The more a particle is moving around, the more retweets/favorites/likes it has.

To Read More…