Science Cheerleader

From Dr. John: To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internets, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the role of social networking in communication, team building, and group mobilization. The challenge is to be the first person to submit the locations of 10 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States.

Here’s how it works: The red balloons will be deployed on Saturday, December 5, in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads. Teams and collaborators will have approximately 9 days, until 12:00 PM (ET) on December 14, to collect the locations of the balloons and submit their entries.  All locations must be submitted in latitude and longitude coordinates. The event is open to individuals of all ages irrespective of nationality or residency (except Federal employees and their spouses and dependents), but first you must register your team on  the DARPA Network Challenge website.

Find the red balloons. Win $40,000. Do you have what it takes to be the next Balloon Boy/Girl?

Here’s Stephen’s report on the growing trend to bridge natural and social sciences.

The National Humanities Center sponsors On The Human, a collaborative project that brings together humanists and scientists to explore the shifting relationship between “persons and the quasi-persons who surround us.”  By “quasi-persons” they don’t mean our own social deviants or oddball neighbors — instead, they refer to non-human animals and even “machine-based virtual life.”  Now, even if you find some of the wording peculiar, hopefully we’ll agree that On The Human serves a valuable and timely purpose. (more…)

May I share something with you? Don’t tell anyone, ok?  When it comes to the gossip see-saw, I’ve been on top, crashed to the bottom and had to balance very carefully right in the middle at times. All three on any given day, come to think of it. So it was with great relief and a bit of amusement that I read this Scientific American article, by Frank McAndrew: The Science of Gossip: Why We Can’t Stop Ourselves. (more…)