QUEST Science Blog
-
The Movement of Informal Science
Posted by Cat Aboudara
on May 14, 2008
Over a
weekend in June, Boston will host a very provocative conference. The first annual US Science Café hosted by NOVA scienceNOW
will bring together producers of Science Cafés for the first time in the United States to network and share best practices.But what is a Science Café? It is a simple and compelling concept with an international history. A group of people interested in science meet monthly in a café setting to listen to a speaker for 20 minutes and then ask questions and launch into a discussion about the topic at hand. Across San Francisco, and the greater nation, Science Cafes are bringing science to the masses over a glass of wine or a piping latte.
For example, a local café called Ask a Scientist is presenting topics ranging from Ancient American Astronomy to How Computers Look at Art. Ask a Scientist, along with a great number of San Francisco Science Cafés, are also now in close communication. A San Francisco umbrella organization was set up to keep café producers appraised of interesting topics and available speakers. The conference is working on the umbrellas concept by bringing together a large community of producers to network and sharing ideas. Its aim is to create solid support to these independent cafes in order to keep the momentum going.
Although this is the first conference in the United States, Science Cafes have a longer, international history. Café philosophique was the first inkling of a science café. It was a grassroots forum for philosophical discussion, founded by philosopher Marc Sautet in Paris, France in the 1990’s.
This concept was applied to café scientifique in 1998. Duncan Dallas, café founder, got the idea for the scientific forum from reading the obituary of Marc Suatet. He set up his first meeting in a wine bar in Leeds, England. Café scientifiques started popping up all over England and they were able to secure funding from the Welcome Trust because of their success. Now café scientifique is a recognized international movement linking those interested with cafes not only in England but through the rest of the world. Café scientifique provides seed funding to cafes in England and also provides resources and expertise to make forums successful in other countries.
Café scientifique has already led two conferences to bring producers together from around the world and Duncan Dallas has spoken at numerous conferences in the United States as well. Science Cafes are the American version of this movement and are closely tied to café scientifique. They have been a wonderful forum to inspire the public to think more about science in their daily lives. In much the same way as in England, individuals are starting these cafes on their own and then finding a huge network and support system to pool from. The conference in Boston is just one step towards informal science in the United States becoming part of a larger movement.
If you are interested in cafes and discussions near you, check out one of the many cafes in the area. A list of prominent Science Cafes in the San Francisco Bay Area and their website are listed below:
Café Scientifique Silicon Valley
To find a café outside of San Francisco ? search café scientifique.
Cat Aboudara
is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the
public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her
experience in working with native California wildlife.
Tags: california academy of sciences, KQED, Science, science cafe
Related posts:
Permalink - Comments
-
Producer's Notes: Cool Critters: Owls
Posted by Joan Johnson
on May 13, 2008
The day was hot, the owl was angry… we shot this really fast. It’s not Olivia the owl’s fault,
it was just one of those days. As we all know, owls are nocturnal creatures, and we happened to be filming Olivia during
the hottest, brightest part of the day. If your eyes were that big and we made you perform for us on camera at high noon,
you’d be squinting and hissing at us too!But the greatest disappointment, in the end, was that I did not have enough time in this segment to tell our audience about all of the amazing adaptations that this creature has. Their claws are enormous and powerful, they have excellent hearing, and fantastic vision in low light. But perhaps one of the coolest things about the Great Horned Owl is that they can fly almost silently due to “fringes” on their feathers that help to break up the sound of air passing over their wings.
The other thing people might not know is that the famous “hoo-hoo-hoo” sound that we make when we are imitating owls comes from the Great Horned Owl. People tend to think all owls sound like this because the male GH owl’s call is often used in Hollywood movies, no matter what kind of owl is being depicted on screen.
Olivia and her ilk are well adapted, formidable hunters, and truly gorgeous to look at… go and see for yourself at the Oakland Zoo.
Watch
theCool Critters: Owls story online, as well
as find additional links and resources.
Joan Johnson is an Associate Producer
for QUEST on KQED Television.
Tags: cool critters, Great Horned Owl, KQED, oakland zoo, owls, TV
Related posts:
Permalink - Comments
-
Producer's Notes: Ugo Conti's Spider Boat
Posted by Chris Bauer
on May 13, 2008
I first met Ugo Conti a number of years ago when we discussed
an inflatable boat he had designed to sail from the San Francisco Bay to Hawaii. This adventure was born from Conti’s
passion for the sea and was somewhat of a follow up to the round-the-world sailing adventures he took with his young family
decades before. I think it takes someone with a lot of self-assuredness to quit their job, buy a sail boat, load up their
family, and sail off into the big blue with relatively limited sailing experience.The funny thing is, Mr. Conti actually claims to be a “coward.” He even named that first boat “Phobos” after the god of fear. He quickly adds, though, that the fear he felt was actually one of the things that kept him safe. He approached sailing around the world from the perspective of an engineer… and then he over-engineered the situation to be doubly or triply safe. As Mr. Conti told me, “If you go at sea, and with other things in life too, either you are an expert, or you’re scared. If you are both, it’s even better. If you’re not one of those two, any sailing endeavor becomes very dangerous. If you’re scared, or you’re so worried about everything, then you’re very careful. And so you can go into difficult situations because you are careful. If you’re not scared and you’re not an expert, if you go to sea you’ll get clobbered, and maybe even die.” He continued, “but by going through that, you face, but not conquer, fear. They say it’s a courageous person that goes on despite the fear, not somebody that is not fearful. Because that person is an idiot.”
I have been lucky to meet many unconventional thinkers who have changed the world by “thinking outside the box.” That term has become a cliché. But when I spoke with Mr. Conti, I saw a person who has never seen “the box.” It seems as though each of his projects starts with a clean slate and he borrows little from collective engineering standards. He designs boats but does not claim to be a marine engineer. One thing he told me that I found very interesting was how someday “someone is going to invent a powerful engine, something that runs on water, air or some unlimited resource and makes no pollution. This will kill the combustion engine and every car, boat, train, airplane and power-plant will be generating power in a completely clean way. The person who invents that machine will not be someone from the car industry or anyone who studied combustion engines or conventional engineering.” True groundbreaking progress comes from outsiders who don?t follow the pack.
Watch the “Ugo Conti’s Spider Boat”
TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources.
Chris Bauer
is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.
Tags: boat, Boats, Engineering, KQED, ocean, Proteus, QUEST, Ugo Conti, WAM-V, Wave Adaptive Modular Vehicle
Related posts:
Permalink - Comments
Sponsored by:
-
Former Justice Asks Congress for Alzheimer's Aid
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor testifies Wednesday before the U.S. Senate's Special Committee on Aging about her husband's struggle with Alzheimer's. It is the first time O'Connor has spoken publicly and at length about the disease. She urges Congress to speed research on finding a cure. Her husband's diagnosis was the main reason she stepped down from the court in 2005. She says he is "not in very good shape."
-
Hospital Overwhelmed by Quake Victims
In the city of Chengdu, China, there is a shortage of trained doctors, but plenty of unskilled volunteers. Despite the chaotic scene, workers at Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital are eager for more survivors, even though the hospital is over capacity. Makeshift wards are set up in the parking lot.
-
Relief Agency Plans for Second Cyclone
Amos Avgar, executive director of the International Development Program of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, just left Yangon, Myanmar. He discusses the devastation he saw in the town hardest hit by Cyclone Nargis.