al-mofhariz

A couple weeks ago, while I was in the Bay Area for archival research, I ran into our very own Joanna on Berkeley's campus. She was there to participate in a two-day conference called " The Reinvention of Time: Articulations of the Past and Future in the Scientific Present ," and invited me to tag along for her paper and a keynote (and the reception, naturally). We decided, when we parted ways, that it might be fun to write up a few of the many tantalizing threads from the weekend's conversation. So, what follows is a continuation of our "interview" series, wherein Hank (a relative outsider who saw a fraction of the proceedings) poses questions to Joanna (a relative insider and a participant-observer over the weekend) about what made the event so exciting. The conversation recaps the conference, goes into detail on some of its thematic highlights, and goes on to address temporality, periodization, interdisciplinarity, and other topics of interest to...

FEAST YOUR EARS . . . Waves of sound travel through the air at about 760 mph. But what happens when they reach the human ear? Our ears process information 1,000 times faster than our eyes, and our sense of hearing is so discriminating we can distinguish more than 300,000 sounds. In fact, if our ears were any more sensitive, we would hear the random motion of air molecules bumping against our eardrums. World-renowned sensory neuroscientist  Jim Hudspeth has revolutionized our understanding of how biological and neural networks process auditory inputs. Over the last three decades, his research has demonstrated how thousands of microscopic cells in the inner ear sway with vibrations, starting a cascade of neurotransmissions to the brain—translating sound waves into everything from Beethoven to Lady Gaga . Dr. Hudspeth asks: What do we know about the sense of hearing , and how did it evolve ? How is hearing different among different species? Is there such a thing as a bionic ea...

Since we're clearly relaxing our way into summer (at least on this blog), I thought I'd talk about sports again. But really, I want to talk about statistics. I got to thinking about baseball statistics last month after reading a post by one of the internet's brightest---Tim Carmody at Snarkmarket--- about the origins of Rotisserie/Fantasy baseball and the way we read games as culture . The conversation about fantasy sports often intersects with the story of Sabremetrics---that is, the study of baseball by the numbers, the recent founding of which is traditionally attributed to the baseball writer Bill James and his famed Baseball Abstract . My hunch is that Sabremetrics first erupted into polite culture by way of Steven Jay Gould. In his famous New York Review of Books essay on Joe DiMaggio's streak he wrote: Among sabremetricians 1 —a contentious lot not known for agreement about anything—we find virtual consensus that DiMaggio’s fifty-six–game hitting streak is th...

It's hard to be a scholar of Cold War history and not see all things nuclear as relevant to that enterprise. For that reason, I'm taking this post to share an important teaching resource for understanding the Fukushima disaster in Japan: Teach 3/11 . To quote from the site: 'As an independent initiative spurred by the hope of helping people find answers to such questions more quickly, Teach 3/11 is a participant-powered online project built in the spirit of international cooperation and solidarity that disaster recoveries depend upon, regardless where they occur. In partnership with the Forum for the History of Science in Asia , Teach 3/11 has a simple goal: to help you develop teaching materials with the help of the the collective wisdom of scholars worldwide working at the intersections of history of science and technology and Asia.' I recently ran into one of the contributors, Lisa Onaga, a historian of biology finishing her dissertation at Cornell. She inf...

Yet again , I have the privilege of sharing a conversation between two scholars at different stages in their careers. This one highlights Christine Keiner's excellent first book, raises fascinating questions about the intersection of science and political economy in the US over the last century, and offers a glance into the journey from dissertation to book. I can't thank Anna Zeide, a Wisconsin graduate student and treasured member of our AmericanScience community, enough for engaging Keiner in this conversation and for putting together such an informative interview. I'll let her do the rest of the introducing. But in the meantime, let this serve as a reminder that the FHSA is still seeking nominations for this year's publication prize. For details see here [scroll down]. The deadline is July 31, 2011. A Conversation with Christine Keiner , This Year’s FHSA Book Prize Winner By Anna Zeide At the 2010 History of Science Society annual meeting in Montreal, the Forum for...

Feel the electricity, the vibrations, the friction! Physics has never been this steamy! David Maiullo of Rutgers University brings his traveling physics roadshow to the Secret Science Club for a night of wonder and experimentation. Co-host of the National Geographic Channel’s new series  Humanly Impossible , Maiullo reveals the mysterious forces of the universe , using beds of nails, glasses of wine, liquid nitrogen , and a lab-made cannon. Who knows what forms of potential energy may be unleashed? Don’t miss this physics phantasmagoria . . . Before & After -- Groove to the music of the spheres --Stick around for the quantum Q&A --Try our cosmic cocktail of the night, the Heavenly Motion This edition of the Secret Science Club meets Wednesday, May 4, 2011 @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn, p: 718.643.6510 Subway: F to 4th Ave; R to 9th St; F or G to Smith/9th. Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. FREE! Just bring yo...