Seed Media Group: Blog
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
ResearchBlogging Receives Academic Kudos
By Seed’s Joy Moore
An independent analysis of ResearchBlogging.org data by researchers Paul Groth at VU University in Amsterdam and Thomas Gurney at the Rathenau Institute has shown that, at least when it comes to coverage of the chemistry literature in the blogosphere, the use of social media is starting to positively contribute to scientific discourse.
Groth and Gurney presented their paper, “Studying Scientific Discourse on the Web Using Bibliometrics: A Chemistry Blogging Case Study” at the 2010 Web Science Conference, the second in a series of conferences that brings together both computer and social scientists around studying the Web as both a social and technical phenomenon. Their study comparing scientific discourse on the web to traditional scientific discourse using Researchblogging.org was well received. In particular, the attendees appreciated the fact that the effort combined both computer science and social science approaches. Additionally, their presentations sparked discussion on what Researchblogging.org and science blogs in general could be used for in terms of studying the process of science. Finally, Researchblogging.org was recognized as an invaluable resource for the science community as a way to link both traditional and new science communication.
From Groth: “In our paper (Studying Scientific Discourse on the Web Using Bibliometrics: A Chemistry Blogging Case Study), we used a combination of biblometric and webometric techniques to study the relationship between blogs on chemistry and the scientific literature they cite. We found that scientific discourse on the web is more immediate and more more contextually relevant than traditional academic literature. It focuses on the non-technical implications of science using high quality science as backup. Science bloggers connect what’s current in the scientific literature to what’s impacting society and science today.”
For more thoughts from Groth about Web Science & WWW, and links to his slides, see http://thinklinks.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/two-themes-from-www-2010/
Monday, May 10, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
Sunny Memories
This week we’re heading to the Center for Architecture to check out the Sunny Memories exhibition that merges solar technology (specifically solar dye cells) and industrial design.
Led by the EPFL+ECAL Lab, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Sunny Memories was actually a series of workshops that took place in collaboration with the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL), the California College of the Arts (CCA), the Royal College of Art in London (RCA) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle in Paris (ENSCI). Students began their projects with the following challenge: how do we use energy to record our memory, heritage and knowledge? How can we employ solar energy to preserve history, while increasing autonomy, mobility, and sustainability?
Professor Michael Graëtzel of EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) is credited as the source of this solar innovation when he began to use molecules from colorants to transform the sun’s light into electricity. Inspired by photosynthesis, he developed an award-winning technology that allowed solar dye cells to take on varied shapes, colors and forms.
The exhibition showcases the 28 projects that were chosen. It’s on view from May 13 - June 5 at the Center for Architecture in New York.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
What We’re Reading
This month, Seed editors pored over new releases that traced our modern obsession with bottled water, the birth of quantum theory, and the elusive quest for absolute silence (hmmm…). Check out the Seed reviews here.
I’ve personally been reading the new book Bounce to and from work these days. It’s similar to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers but it’s actually authored by someone that’s personally experienced the concept of success through circumstance—not talent. As he looks back at his professional career, Matthew Syed (once the number one table tennis player in Great Britain) illustrates how practice, circumstance, and perseverance contributed more to his success than innate mental strength, agility, or reflexes. The implications of this newfound power of perseverance may very well change our education system in the years to come. A book worth reading! Read the Seed review here.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
Design Criticism
Next Friday we’re headed to the D-Crit Conference, a first-of-its-kind event held by The School of Visual Arts. Heavyweight moderators include Kurt Anderson, host of Studio 360; John Thackara, founder of Doors of Perception; and author Peter Hall. We’re particularly interested in the session on the convergence of biology and design as well as the session on design and smell by Seed friend Amelia Black. For all those that have the Friday off, the conference is free to attend - just RSVP on their site.
For more info, visit D-Crit Conference
Monday, April 12, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
Human Pop-Ups
As we had our lunch today in Madison Square Park - a few blocks from the Seed office - we noticed large human sculptures standing atop the buildings around the park. Yes, it was eerie but somehow really fun to start picking out how many you could see in a 2-block radius. It’s actually the Manhattan version of Event Horizon - acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley’s famed art installation. Gormley, a 1994 Turner Prize winner, is known for his abstractions of the human body, usually his own.
If you’re in New York this summer, see if you can spot all 31 nude figures in and around Madison Square Park!
Friday, April 09, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
Science Pillows
Textile designer Heather Lin has reproduced anatomical diagrams using eco-friendly felt for her Science Project pillows. And yes, we’ve now developed a serious case of ‘want’. We only wish she had actually labeled all the different parts of the diagrams…
Via Cool Hunting
Thursday, April 08, 2010 • by Saira Jesani • #
The Lego Sculptor
The lego brick was the ubiquitous childhood toy that spawned engineers, scientists, and all those that loved to break things apart and put them together again. Nathan Sawaya (dubbed the Lego Man) recently binned the lawyer job and went back to lego, choosing to make some curious and inspired sculptures.
Sawaya’s solo show is on exhibit at Agora, till the 13th April.
Via New York
Is he rising or falling?
Tuesday, April 06, 2010 • New • by Saira Jesani • #
Mad Men: The Science Category
As I was mindlessly searching Flickr the other day, I came across an entire collection of science and tech ads from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Bustbright, an after-hours studio based in Los Angeles, has uploaded over 1200 ads culled from the science magazines of yesteryear.
It’s worth checking out
Monday, March 29, 2010 • Noted • by Eva Wisten • #
NatGeo Wins AdWeek’s Website of the Year
ScienceBlogs’ Partner National Geographic.com named AdWeek’s Magazine Website of the Year. AdweekMedia’s picked NationalGeographic.com “for harnessing the brand’s value through top-notch photography intertwined with robust reader interactivity.”
NationalGeographic.com recently went through a redesign.
From the article on AdweekMedia:
Thursday, March 25, 2010 • Events • by Eva Wisten • #
HEADSPACE: on Scent as Design
Today Friday, March 26, Parsons, MoMA, IFF, Coty, and Seed has teamed up to present Headspace: On Scent as Design.
Headspace is a one-day symposium on the conception, impact, and potential applications of scent. It will be a day full of surprises, discussions, more surprises, presentations of commissioned design projects, and - of course - smells.
Read an interview with the organizers on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
Read more about the program and speakers on Headspace2010.com.
Logo and web design by Mike Pick.
Thursday, March 25, 2010 • Announcements • by Eva Wisten • #
Research Blog of the Year
The award for Research Blog of the Year went to “Not Exactly Rocket Science,” by Ed Yong, a British journalist who reports on general science news. Yong also collected the award for Blog Post of the Year, for a post describing research about the mating habits of ducks, which had become notorious among science bloggers for its dramatic videos of duck sex organs.
Seed created the awards to recognize a growing number of blogs that discuss serious scientific research. Their site, ResearchBlogging.org, has aggregated over 10,000 blog posts discussing peer-reviewed research, written by over 1,000 bloggers, often experts in their field. The bloggers themselves voted for awards in 20 different categories and five languages.
Dave Munger, founder and editor of ResearchBlogging.org, interviews Ed Young on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
Over 400 blogs were nominated for the awards. See full list of winners and finalists in categories such as “Blog Post of the year and “Funniest Blog” here.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 • Noted • by Eva Wisten • #
Famous people and their letterheads
The blog letterheady by writer Shaun Usher (who also created the addictive correspondence-collection Letter of Note) collects letterhead design from famous people. If you have one on file you can submit it, or just browse around and see what Ayn Rand and Tomas Edison wrote their thoughts on.
Via Coolhunting
Nicolas Tesla’s letterhead:
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 • Noted • by Eva Wisten • #
Living in bubbles
In 1900, Mary Mallon took a job as a cook in Manhattan. Soon everyone in the family she worked for fell ill, and the laundress died. Mary moved on to the next job, and the next, and in each house she worked, sickness would follow. The longer she stayed around to care for her employers, the sicker they would become.
Mary Mallon is now known as Typhoid Mary, the first known healthy carrier of Typhoid fever. During her career as a cook, she managed to infect 53 people, before she was isolated against her will and died in quarantine.
Typhoid Mary’s last home, along with Chernobyl’s Zone of Exclusion and other bubbles set up to shield either the world inside our outside of them from danger, are the inspiration for the exhibition ‘Landscapes of Quarantine’.
The exhibition, currently up at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, is curated by Future Plural, Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley, and is the result of a series of workshops in New York with designers, artists, and architects, exploring the idea of quarantine. The curatorial statement reads:
Quarantine, at its most basic, is the creation of a hygienic boundary between two or more things, for the purpose of protecting one from exposure to the other. It is a strategy of separation and containment—an ancient spatial response to suspicion, threat, and uncertainty – but one that is again relevant in today’s era of globalization, pandemic flu, and bioterrorism.
Through April 17.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 • Noted • by Eva Wisten • #
A spider web as man would build it
With the help from astrophysicists, spider researchers, architects, engineers, and a lot of elastic black rope, Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno has constructed a gigantic version of a Black Widow’s web in Bonniers Konsthall (Bonnier’s Hall of Art) in Stockholm. (The hall is about 400 cubic meters.) The project, called ‘14 Billions’ is inspired by how scientists use the spider web to model the structure and origin of the universe. Along with the exhibition, Bonniers Konsthall is publishing a book with texts from the artist and the involved scientists as well as producing a lecture series with physicists and mathematicians.
Saraceno is Inspired by architects and theoreticians such as Richard Buckminster Fuller, Peter Cook, and Yona Friedman. His main interests as an artist is to explore how scientific innovations can develop new ideas for a more sustainable society and how art may build dreams for the future.
14 Billions is up until June 20.
Tomás Saraceno in front of his web.
Friday, March 05, 2010 • Events • by Eva Wisten • #
Mapping of Science and Semantic Web
Seed’s Joy Moore attended the NSF/JSMF Workshop on Mapping of Science and Semantic Web at Indiana University on March 4 and 5.
Organized by Katy Börner (Victor H. Yngve Professor of Information Science, SLIS, Indiana University and Director, Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center & Curator of Mapping Science exhibit), Ying Ding (Assistant Professor, Information Science, SLIS, Indiana University), and Peter Fox (Tetherless World Constellation Chair, Professor, Earth and Environmental Science and Computer Science,Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), the workshop brought together 35 leading experts in the semantic web and science mapping from around the world.
Some of the participants had collaborated with each other before, some were meeting for the first time, and all came with a wide variety of personal research successes, obstacles, and views on how emerging technologies hold the potential to dramatically improve the accessiblity to and analysis of scientific information.
Day 1: Understanding the landscape, exploring the issues
The first day started with each of the participants giving a brief overview of their own work, providing context for the discussions to follow. Shortly thereafter, Peter Fox chaired a session with more in depth presentations by three of the attendees.
Jim Hendler gave a comprehensive overview of the emergence of the semantic web and raised some provocative points about where web 3.0 might take us. Whereas web 1.0 gave rise to Amazon.com, web 2.0 brought Facebook, web 3.0 is here and its killer apps, using semantic technology to add value to traditional web apps, are still to be developed – huge opportunities lie ahead.
Next, Frank van Harmelen predicted the end of the scientific paper as we know it, what it means for mapping science, and how semantic web makes it possible. His talk focused on data extraction from scientific papers (only necessary because the data had first been buried in the document format! “A journal paper is a state-funeral for your results”). Should we do away with the paper altogether and just publish “facts” in the form of triples, i.e., nanopublications that collectively form a vast web of knowledge? While this would improve access to targeted, structured bits of information, would the context of the findings (and importantly, the experimental conditions) be obscured? What are the practical, useful tools? His talk clearly outlined the challenge of balancing the need to structure, automate, and scale information with the needs of researchers (both as authors and readers).
Katy Börner ended the session with her presentation on interactive maps of science and technology. Maps can help us navigate different areas of science, find collaborators, identify trends, and serve as useful tools for funding agencies, researchers, industry, publishers, and for society. Not only can these maps help people access what we collectively know, forming bridges, they are also quite beautiful and inspiring – see examples here.
The final session was a group Challenges & Opportunities exercise. What can we do next, and what are the obstacles holding us back?
The day concluded with a group dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant. It was noisy, fun, and a great way for everyone to relax and talk in smaller groups. With good food and wine and a roomful of brilliant, enthusiastic people, it’s no surprise that for the next couple of hours ideas were flying and debates ensued, and it’s safe to say that everyone got the most out of the day.
Coming up next, Day 2: Figuring out what can be implemented in the next five years