REVIEW: First in Space

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Juliana

Hey everyone, my apologies for not having posted a museum review in a while. You see, I’ve been interning at the Nashville Zoo and haven’t had a chance to scope out to other institutions. The good news is that in the downtime between interviewing visitors, I’ve managed to read some awesome books and comics about science, so that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

First in Space

Writer: James Vining
Artist: James Vining
Publisher:  Oni Press

$9.95/96 pages/Black and White

All summer long I’d been hearing about chimpanzees in the media, so now that the weather’s changing, it seemed fitting to close out the season with one of the greatest chimp stories of all time. As one might expect from a book titled “First in Space“, this is the tale of the first living being in space, a chimpanzee with the rather unassuming name “Ham”. I know, I know, just one letter off… In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was lagging behind the USSR in the Space Race. The Soviets had already launched Laika (a story also available in comic form) into earth orbit, and the Americans were looking to jump ahead by successfully launching a creature into space — and successfully recovering the live specimen.

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Ben’s Science Sort of manifesto.

Posted on September 20, 2011 by ben

written for Patrick, who wanted to know what i thought of SSO, based on an earlier claim that i thought SSO’s mandate is to socialize science.

My friends, Science is not something we DO, it’s something we are.
If you play video games, you are not necessarily a gamer.
If you answer phones for a living, you are not necessarily a receptionist.
But if you have been trained in the sciences, you are a scientist.

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Comic ‘The Big Lie’ Delivers Just That

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Ryan

When I first heard there was a comic coming out about the “truth” behind the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th, 2001, I was upset. I thought How could Image Comics publish such nonsense? Such disinformation? But the more I thought about it the more I was reminded that my philosophy on such matters is that free speech means people can espouse nonsense, and the answer to that shouldn’t be censorship, but more speech. So I decided to read the book, give it a fair shake, and see where we wound up.

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REVIEW: The Book of Ice

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Ryan

The Book of Ice

Written by Paul D. Miller

$29.95 / 128 Pages / Full Color

Mark Batty Publisher

People complain about marketing, advertisements, and all that jazz, but sometimes they really pay off. There I was, simple podcaster trying to put together show on Antarctica and an e-mail pops up in my inbox proclaiming the publication of The Book of Ice by Paul Miller. So I replied. “Hey, I was just thinking about that continent…” and thus I wound up with a copy of the book.

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REVIEW: Robopocalypse

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Ryan

Robopocalypse: A Novel

Written by Daniel H. Wilson

$25.00 / 368 Pages

Doubleday

 

 

See Science… sort of – Episode 95 for our interview with the author!

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Moneyball: Sports, Markets, and Statistics

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Patrick

I’m not exactly early to the party on this one. Michael Lewis’ book, Moneyball, came out in 2003. I’m a bit of a Michael Lewis fan but I ignored Moneyball for years because I’m not really much of a baseball fan. The bottom line is that you don’t need to be a baseball fan to get something (I would argue a lot) out of this book. If you like baseball, you’ll probably like Moneyball, if you like math/stats/science you’ll probably like Moneyball, if you like business you’ll probably like Moneyball.

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EVENT RECAP: Adventures with Food at the ASC

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Juliana

Juliana, our science-illustrating museum-loving friend, is back after another event! Here’s hoping her guest postings become a regular feature because this one sure left me hungry for more! (yuk yuk) – Ryan (the photographer)

When I wrote about the Exploratorium’s Iron Science Teacher Competition, I confessed that I’d never seen an Iron Chef competition before. Which is kind of odd because — another confession! — I’m a bit of a foodie. Not in the “raw food is the only food” way or the “I own every gadget from Williams Sonoma” way, but in the “I’m doing science and it’s delicious” way. Thankfully, the local Adventure Science Center (ASC) in Nashville had a food-based program this weekend so I could get my foodie fix.

Step one of any cooking endeavor: get a spiffy apron

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Podcast Q & A

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Ryan

Every so often people write into us assuming we know a thing or two about podcasting. All I can say is we do our best and I’m flattered people would approach us with questions and I’m happy to try to answer a few recent ones.

If you’re looking for more about the narrative for why we started the show in the first place I’d suggest listening to Patrick, Charlie and myself when we were the guests on Podcast Squared a few weeks back.

Podcast Squared #53 – Crazy Science

I also wrote a somewhat more snarky and narrative post on how the podcast get’s put together each week which I posted on this blog awhile back. It’s not as helpful in a technical sense, but may illuminate some of the other hurdles of running a weekly show.

Another Manic Monday: How the Sausage Gets Made

Today’s questions were submitted by Dayna and are great things to think about for anyone wanting to get started with a show.

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GUEST POST: Iron Science Teacher Competition

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Juliana

Now for a little Tuesday treat we have a guest post from a dear friend of the show, current science illustrator and future museum evaluator Juliana Olsson! She wrote us up a post about her experience as the Iron Science Teacher competition held on June 25th, 2011. Enjoy! – Ryan

I have a confession: before attending the Iron Science Teacher competition at the Exploratorium a few Saturdays ago, I had never watched any “Iron [Fill in the Blank]” activity. It’s not that I discriminate against element 26, I just have a hard time reconciling the competitive nature of such events with the subjective topic: if each entry is good but in different ways, how do you choose the “best” one? Thus I was somewhat wary watching high school science teachers duke it out in front of a live audience to determine which one could come up with the best experiment and lesson plan on a given concept. Would this be a ferociously ferrous nerd bloodbath?

I shouldn’t have worried. It was awesome. There were chemicals and beakers and flames and muppet music. Things were learned, fun was had by all, and I approved of the winner. There was even a glowing pickle. Watch the webcast yourself, or read about the experiments after the jump.

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Kelly’s Parasitology Lectures: THE MONOGENEANS!

Posted on June 30, 2011 by weinersmith

Lectures on Monogeneans! As usual, please feel free to leave a comment to tell me how I could improve my lectures, and to correct any inaccuracies.

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