A Lab of Their Own

The sciencing of A League of Their Own  (#ALabofTheirOwn) reminded me a bit of the sciencing of Conan the Barbarian (#ConanthePostDoc). Both films have great scripts, with great lines; but most people only remember one or two. People other than me do not have the scripts burnt into their souls.

That is ok. In fact, it is better than ok. As Jimmy Dugan says to Dottie Hinson:

It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.

It was not easy, but I think we found a few gems that speak honestly to the practice of science now.

Screenshot 2014-12-14 20.58.18

Some of the lines were so relevant that observers mistook them for actually commentary.

One would hope that a movie about women playing baseball in the 1940s would not be relevant to science today.

The #ALabofTheirOwn storify makes up for its lack of quantity with some real quality, but I’m biased.

Spirography

Created by Josh Witten using Inspirograph (by Nathan Friend)
Created by Josh Witten using Inspirograph (by Nathan Friend)

For folks of a certain age (ie, approximately my age), set your “Nostalgia” dial to 11. Nathan Friend has created an addictive, online version of the spirograph called Inspirograph. Enjoy.

According to Friend, a mobile app is in the works.

HT: Brian Kelly and Sheila McNeill

Dignity

There’s one thing that’s real clear to me,
no one dies with dignity.
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow.
–Jason Isbell, “Elephant”

Is “dignity” about maintaining the illusion that the craziness happening around you isn’t happening? If so, acting in a “dignified” manner in the midst of circumstances like impending death or protesting civil rights abuses is the least dignified thing you can do.

“Dignity” also seems to involve self-denial of things that are fun that hurt no one, perhaps in favor of doing things that are not fun, but hurt lots of people. The British Empire was very dignified.

If growing up means
It would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
-“I Won’t Grow Up”, Peter Pan

Also, skipping (aka, bipedal galloping). Skipping is joyous.

skipping
by Josh Witten (All Rights Reserved)

 

The Art of Science: The Not-Quite-3D Christmas Tree

The tree in the center was printed with a traditional 3D printing algorithm, while the others were made with the new pyramid technique
The tree in the center was printed with a traditional 3D printing algorithm, while the others were made with the new pyramid technique

Little plastic Christmas trees don’t really count as art, but the science and math behind this one is pretty interesting, so we’ll let the deeper questions of aesthetics and meaning slide just this once.

Computer Science researcher Richard Zhang of Canada’s Simon Fraser University printed the tree as a demonstration of a newly developed 3D printing algorithm that has potential applications far beyond seasonal tchotchkes.

Michael Byrne at Motherboard explains:

“Zhang is solving a real-life problem: saving waste. Printing an object with overhanging parts, like a tree branch, requires the deposition of extra material below to support the top part through the printing process. At the end, this material is cut away and trashed. The answer, according to Zhang, is in using pyramidal components.”

“Decomposing a complex shape into simpler primitives is one of the most fundamental geometry problems,” Zhang and his team write in a recent paper. “The main motivation is that most computation and manipulation tasks can be more efficiently executed when the shapes are simple.”

And pyramids offer an elegant solution, because, Zhang says, pyramids are 2.5D.  (I’ll give you a second to collect your brain cells from the floor)

Byrne explains:  “Two-and-a-half dimensions is a concept used in machining (and computer graphics, with a different meaning) to describe an object with no overhangs. It only has a top, and can be viewed as a projection of 2D flatness into the third dimension.”

There’s lots more info about the science and math behind the printable pyramids in Byrne’s article and in Zhang’s paper.

Do we still need science journals? What are the functions of science journals anyway?

In my latest Pacific Standard column, I write about Nature Publishing Group’s new read-only access policy, allowing subscribers and select media outlets to share links that tunnel through the paywall. I argue that it’s time to get back to basics: We need to ask, why do we have science journals, and do we still need them in the 21st century?

Ever since their inception, science journals have served three primary roles:

#1 They disseminate research findings to the community

#2 They provide quality control by organizing peer review

#3 They serve as a record of priority and research accomplishment

In his Very Short Introduction volume on economics, the economist Partha Dasgupta has a nice explanation of how these functions of a journal were an important innovation of the Scientific Revolution, as a way to provide incentives for researchers to produce and share knowledge as a public good: Continue reading “Do we still need science journals? What are the functions of science journals anyway?”