Sunday Science Poem: We live in the casts of our imaginations

Wallace Stevens’ ‘Description Without Place’

779px-William_Blake_-_Isaac_Newton_-_WGA02217Science works by making models of the world. We need models, because the data rarely speak for themselves.

As individuals, we also work by making mental models of of the world, both at the automatic, neurobiological level where the brain assembles representations of the world from the neural impulses transmitted by our sensory organs, and at the conscious, conceptual level, the level where we consciously try, with limited information, to decide what’s going on in the world around us. Models mediate between us and reality.

Continue reading “Sunday Science Poem: We live in the casts of our imaginations”

Science Caturday: A Triumph of Applied Physics

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photo via joyreactor.com

The Art of Science: Insectopia in Paris

A pied-a-terre for the six-legged
A pied-a-terre for the six-legged

A pair of Parisian designers has one-upped Brandon Ballengée’s Love Motel for Insects (featured here last year) by building  snazzy condos for some lucky French bugs. The Insectopia installation, by Quentin Vaulot and Goliath Dyèvre, consists of tightly-packed wooden “houses” for insects, mounted on poles in parks in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. From a distance, they resemble trees; closer up, they look a bit like Laputa, the flying island from Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky.  Vaulot and Dyèvre say that their intention was both to foster urban biodiversity and to “provoke an emotion” in people who interact with the art, by drawing attention to a world that is largely invisible but in constant motion. No word yet on which lucky insects have moved into Insectopia, or if the quiet, hardworking ants are complaining about the noisy cicadas upstairs.  If any of our readers are in Paris, please go look and report back with photos.

Photo: Vaulot & Dyèvre, HT to Inhabitat

Ernie Allison’s “Staycation”

Ernie Allison is a grandfather and nature writer who drags his family on nature hikes and camping trips year round.

Jump Creek Canyon (Photo Credit: Greg Harness, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Jump Creek Canyon (Photo Credit: Greg Harness, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Vacations are a much anticipated time in most people’s years. That one or two week span where we get to take a temporary break from our daily lives and experience something fun and exciting for a prolonged period of time. For decades my family and I have ventured to the more exotic locations available for our yearly vacations. As a result my wife and I took yearly vacations all over the globe. Just me, her, and exotic locales. What is the point of taking a vacation and sitting at home? That was my father’s perspective and as it became my own. It wasn’t until my later years that I learned the true value of a vacationing at home, aka The Staycation. Continue reading “Ernie Allison’s “Staycation””

Stars: Holding On & Letting Go

Editor: Marie-Claire Shanahan is a bit busy taking on her new job as the new & first Research Chair in Science Education and Public Engagement at the University of Calgary; but she was not too busy to make a Song of the Week pick.

Not sciency at all…But here’s the song I wanted to post. New video from one of my favourite bands, about love and being yourself in love and seems appropriate for the particular moment in time.