Science Cheerleader

Here’s a piece I wrote for Discover Magazine.com yesterday about a pharmaceutical ice cream–called ReCharge–New Zealand is producing to counter side effects of chemotherapy. I learned about this in The Scientist. The most important ingredient: Lactoferrin, a protein found in milk that possesses the power to impede tumor growth and improve intestinal immune response. Wow.

Really doesn’t have much to do with the dino sculpture my son created, next to the THANG  on our family’s fireplace matel. But I bet Carl Zimmer has a guess. I recall the time I brought this heavy THANG into HIS office at Discover. Back when HE had a windowed office and I did not. Cut me a break, HE was 28, I was still young…and, oh yeah, there was that AAAS award he won for “God-like writers under the age of 30″.

I asked, genuflecting upon entering his office, as we all did: “Carl, what do you think this is? My father-in-law found it in a local, Long Beach Island, NJ, fishing shop.”

HE said: “Looks like a Mastodon tooth, maybe a molar. Probably a young one because it’s not worn down too far. You should take this to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly, near where you live,  and I bet they can tell you more.”

So I did. I pulled the THANG out of my baby’s diaper bag, and asked the resident paleontologist: “What do you think this THANG is?”

He replied: “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT? DID YOU STEAL THAT?!”

I spent the next hour ’splainin’ the situation. Hey, Carl, back then, they never heard of YOU. The best thing I had going for me was the real baby in the real baby stroller…and two, twenty dollar bills.

But I digress.

I never did learn more about the origins of this tooth. Who knows more about this tooth? Closest to the tooth-truth earns a Tshirt. And now that I FINALLY have some street-cred with the National Academy of Sciences, I know I can find the answer there if you all fail.

I’m here in Pittsburgh, PA, at Carnegie Mellon University where Discover Magazine, in partnership with the National Science Foundation, is producing a panel discussion on the future of robotics! The event takes place tonight and highlights will be featured in a subsequent issue of Discover, while recorded interviews will appear on NSF.gov, the Research Channel, and DiscoverMagazine.com
Thought it would be fun to share with you all that goes into producing one of these events.
Each panelist (described here) is interviewed on camera. The screen in the background is plain now, but using “green screen” technology, the editor will drop in some cool backgrounds. Here’s MIT’s Rodney Brooks being interviewed. When asked “what would make robots better?” he replied: “Give robots the visual object recognition capabilities of a 2-year-old child; the verbal comprehension of 4-year-old; the manual dexterity of a 6-year-old; and the social understandings of an 8-year old. That’s it.”

And, here’s Robin Murphy being interviewed about her search and rescue robots.

Then Discover’s photographer take portraits of the panelists and the moderator for use in the magazine. Here’s the moderator, Discover’s editor Corey Powell, preparing for his portrait.Discover’s director of photography, Rebecca Horne, is calling the shots from the back there.

Here’s the video producer, Dan Agan, with Discover’s marketing director, Tricia Gately, talking through the on stage line up (while panelists Rodney Brooks and Javier Movellan look on).

Oh, and here’s Tank, the Roboceptionist who greeted me when I entered CMU’s Gates Building where this event will take place this evening.

Guests will start arriving at the Rashid Auditorium around 6:30 pm. Show time is 7pm!

Stay tuned for the feature article in Discover!

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Pittsburgh, PA, to prep for another Discover Magazine roundtable discussion. This time, the topic is on the future of the machine: How will robots transform industry, health care, and warfare? And will they ever be our equals? This is part of a multi-year series of Discover panel discussions sponsored by the National Science Foundation and hosted by a number of awesome institutions including: The Franklin Institute, CalTech, The Exploratorium, and Capitol Hill. This year, we’ve got Carnegie Mellon University, the South-by-Southwest Festival/Austin (see Discover’s abstract here!) and a yet-to-be finalized host.

Here’s some more information on Thursday’s event at Carnegie Mellon University:

Date: January 28th, 7pm.

Panelists:
Rodney Brooks, MIT

Javier Movellan, UC San Diego

Robin Murphy, Texas A&M University

Red Whittaker, Carnegie Mellon University

Hosted by Discover Magazine’s editor in chief, Corey Powell.

I’ll post highlights here!

Discover Magazine’s Top 100 Stories of 2009 #69: Science Sets Its Eyes on the Prize
Big money awaits innovators who can build rockets, sequence genomes, predict people’s movie preferences, harvest energy from the tides, or explore the Moon.
by Darlene Cavalier
From the January-February special issue; published online December 25, 2009

Last night, I was reading through the January edition of Discover Magazine, which chronicles the 100 Top Science Stories of 2009, when I made quite a discovery (pun intended): a story written by our very own Darlene Cavalier placed #69! Darlene’s piece, “Prize-Driven Research Takes Off,” focuses on the growing number of organizations offering prizes for successful science and technology innovations. The article should be released online in the next few weeks, and we’ll make sure to post it here.

Congratulations Darlene! What an honor!

Here’s a quirky piece I wrote for DiscoverMagazine.com this morning about a guy who got a bit too ambitious in his search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Citizen Scientist Gone Wild.

Happy Friday!

In the news.”Science’s Rah-Rah Gal:
Philly’s Darlene Cavalier Cheers for Discovery”

“A former 76ers cheerleader has taken up the cause for promoting science education among adults, and she is turning the old beauty vs. brains debate into a full-blown marketing campaign.”

That’s the lead-in to a recent feature article in Keystone Edge, a newspaper that “tells the story of the new economy in Pennsylvania–a narrative of creative people and businesses, new development, cool places to live, and the best places to work and play.  Each Thursday, the Web site and weekly online magazine presents original stories, video and photography to tell that story, from Pittsburgh to Philly.” This past Thursday, Science Cheerleader was featured.

Here’s the article, as reported by Rory Sweeney. (more…)

One of the projects I’m working on for Discover Magazine is a four-part energy event series on Capitol Hill, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and two professional engineering societies (IEEE and ASME).

Why energy? In short:

“The future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked to one challenge: energy,” President Obama.

Each of the four Capitol Hill events features a scientist and a policy wonk as they present some straight talk–to Hill staffers, media reps, scientists/engineers, business leaders and the general public–on four key energy topics:

Bio Fuels, Energy Storage, Increasing Efficiencies (coming September 17), and Transitional Technologies (October 15).

The live, dynamic discussions are videotaped and packaged with the speakers’ powerpoint presentations. You can view them here on discovermagazine.com.  I promise, you’ll learn a great deal of important information on specific issues of concern to our environment, economy, security and general well-being of our children. You’ll even learn how Dan Nocera from MIT splits water to make fuel and why he believes the best solar storage is photosynthesis (storing solar power has proven to be quite a challenge). See Energy Storage.

Science Cheerleader reporter, Dr. John Ohab, attended one of the events and has some behind-the-scenes video interviews with the panelists, sponsors and me. We’ll get that posted soon.

It’s not an uncommon question, particularly after a speaking engagement when folks learn this site isn’t underwritten by a secret society of cheerleaders-turned-science advocates or sponsored by Final Net etc. The contributors and I do this because 1) we enjoy it and 2) it’s our personal passion to turn people on to science/engineering, get people involved in citizen science projects, and create novel opportunities for “average” people to weigh in on major sci/tech policy discussions.

We also have “day jobs”:  One of our writers has a PhD and works at the Department of Defense (Dr. Ohab also hosts Armed with Science). Nathan plays a key role in pushing engineering advancements out of the National Academies and into the public sphere. Stephen works at the Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University while Sarah’s about to earn her PhD from UPenn in biochem and molecular biophysics (and she *just* got married!). Georgette, our newest addition, is a senior at UPenn majoring in Science, Technology and Society. We’ve yet to figure out what the skeptical cheerleader, Occam’s Razor, does all day besides daydream about cheerleaders and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last, but not least, is my “project X” partner, Michael, who is a journalist and partner of a firm that helps major science publications transition to the web.

From time to time, I write for Discover Magazine but I spend more time in my role as senior advisor building collaborations to bring science to the public. For example, Discover is wrapping up the first of a multi-year partnership with the National Science Foundation I direct. The NSF sponsors a 7-part series of Discover round tables examining grand challenges of science and engineering, hosted by various museums and universities throughout the country. You can read about them in the magazine and online and view videos here. The NSF and Discover have extended the partnership to include a 4-part series on Capitol Hill titled “The Road to the New Energy Economy” and we’re working with the professional engineering societies IEEE and ASME to make this happen. The first event (June 18) took a sharp look at the scientific, political and economic challenges and opportunities surrounding BioFuels. The next one, July 16, will examine Energy Storage and two more will follow in September and October. I’ll post details here later. These events are free and open to the public. (Contact Events@discovermagazine.com if you’re interested in attending.) If you’re not able to attend the Capitol Hill events, no worries! The (very cool) summaries can be viewed here.

Cheers!