Would you like a signed copy of Before the Lights Go Out, my new book about the future of energy?
The book comes out on April 10th and pre-orders have already started shipping. Between now and the end of April, you can earn a fun prize for telling other people about my book.
1) Tell people on your social networks that you're reading Before the Lights Go Out. This applies to Facebook, G+, or Twitter. When you talk about it, be sure to tag me in the post—@maggiekb1 on Twitter, Maggie Koerth-Baker on Facebook and G+—so I know that you mentioned the book.
In return, I'll send you a sticker with my signature and personal thank-you. You can put it in your printed book and create an instant signed copy. Or, if you're an e-book reader, you can put the sticker on ... something else. Maybe your e-book reader. Maybe your pet/baby. Either way, it's yours!
UPDATE: I had another part to this, offering cookies to people who would write reviews of the book. It was meant to be fun. But, talking to a few people, I think that cuts too close to bribery. So I'm canceling that part of the contest.
This is one of those questions that is harder to answer than it first appears. Alan Alda, the man behind this contest, asked his teacher that question when he was 11. Her answer, "It’s oxidation," meant nothing to him. So this contest isn't just about accuracy, it's about communication.
I often hear people complain about journalists and science popularizers "dumbing down" the science. And I suppose that's something reasonable to complain about, if what you mean is that those people are getting the science grossly wrong.
But that's not usually what "dumbing down" means. In fact, most of the time, when somebody is complaining about a dumbing down of anything, I've found that what they mean is that the topic has been made accessible and entertaining to a broad audience. Dumbing down means taking the information beyond the experts and enthusiasts, and convincing people that this is a topic they should be interested in. That's not a bad thing. It just means that there are different ways to reach different people with the same information.
To me, that's what this contest is about. Explain a flame—without using jargon—and make the science behind it capture a kid's imagination. That's not easy. It will take some dumbing down. But I think some of you can do this. And I'm excited to see the results.
Entries can be turned in as text, video, audio, or graphics. But they're due by April 2, so get to work!
Jaroslaw Lipszyc sez, "Modern Poland Foundation organizes crowdfunded contest for the best work on the Future of Copyright. Idea is simple: the bigger the prize, the more attention contest will get and more participants will be attracted. All works participating need to be published on the web under free license, so we can all use them as we wish. Independent jury under head of prof. Michael Geist (well known copyright scholar from Canada) and Piotr Czerski (of We, the Web Kids manifesto fame) will decide, who gets the money. All supporters will receive e-book consisting of best works created for the contest, with personalized 'Thank you!' note on the first page - and much more if they pledge more than minimum $5 to the prize. Together we will help society to get more creative ideas on the Future of Copyright. Now it's your turn to show your support and make this contest bigger than Nobel."
This is simple. If you want to take part in the contest, publish the work on the Internet and mail us at contest@nowoczesnapolska.org.pl. Just follow these general rules:
1. On topic
The work may be of any kind (text, video, audio), and of any genre (i.e. legal analisys, dystopian or utopian story, educational video – sky is the limit here), but it must address the general subject of the Future of Copyright. Your work has to be in English or you need to provide an English translation.
2. Limited size
The size of the work is limited to 20,000 characters for text or 15 minutes for audio and video.
Small print: we will accept only first 500 works. Sorry, but we are unable to process more.
3. New and original
We accept only original works prepared specially for this contest. You must have all the rights to the work. Team work is acceptable. If your work is a remix, you need to provide the source for the works you re-used.
gmoke sez, "Post an Instructable on how to turn a virtual item into a tangible object by April 30, win $100,000 in 3D printing tech and supplies. Examples include 3D printed objects, laser-cut files, and even printed decals using an inkjet printer."
— Cory
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Remember the contest to rename the Very Large Array? (I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that it resulted in one of the best BoingBoing comment threads ever.) The good news: A name has been chosen! The bad news: It's not "Emily". But it's still nice. Starting March 31, the Very Large Array will become the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, in honor of the father of radio astronomy. (Thanks Tim Heffernan!)— Maggie
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Rex Walheim is an astronaut. He's gone to space three times, including on the last flight of the space shuttle. He has spent an accumulated 36 hours outside the ISS on spacewalks. He has tweeted from 240 miles above sea level.
Walheim reached those heights the old-fashioned way: Air Force test pilot school (plus a masters in industrial engineering). But his isn't the only path to the stars. Today, NASA has Walheim chatting with lots of different news outlets about the astronaut recruitment process and what it takes, in the modern world, to have the right stuff. I got to talk to him this morning. Walheim was kind enough to answer five questions, submitted by BoingBoing readers, about astronaut training, the astronaut selection process, and how the Earth-bound can recreate some of the astronaut experience in our daily lives.
On Friday morning, I'll get 10 minutes to talk to astronaut Rex Walheim about the astronaut recruiting process—how candidates are chosen, who should apply, what happens to you at different levels of the process ... all that good stuff.
Ten minutes ain't much. I'm normally tearing through an interview if I can get it done in 20 minutes. I'll probably have time to get through two questions with Walheim before he's on to the next reporter. So I wanted to do something fun. I'm going to ask him your questions. What do you want to know about how astronauts are recruited and chosen? Now's your chance to find out.
Here's how this will work: You've got until Thursday at 2:00 Central to submit your questions in the comment section of this post. Thursday night, I'll pick the two best questions—via wholly subjective methods. Those will be the ones I take to Walheim, and I'll post his answers here on BoingBoing.
Chances are, there will be lots of good questions and I'll have a hard time choosing. Luckily, I've got a stockpile of awesome BoingBoing stickers and Jackhammer Jill pins. So the two winners, and four runners-up, will all receive a sticker and a pin.
Scientific American and YouTube are offering teenagers a chance to participate in real science. It works like this: Think up a question that can only be tested via an experiment performed in space. Make a video about your idea and submit it to the contest by December 14.
The two best ideas will actually be tested in space. That's right. If you win this, an experiment you designed will be performed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. And you'll get some cool stuff—like a zero-G flight on board the "Vomit Comet" now, and, when you turn 18, actual cosmonaut training in Russia. Yeah. For real.
Oh, and Stephen-freaking-Hawking will be one of the judges.
This whole thing is a little insane.
If you're between the ages of 14 and 18, and you live on Earth, you can enter. Do it. Seriously. There are grown-ups who want to live vicariously through you.
College student bloggers from across the United States are currently competing to win a $10,000 scholarship. You can vote for the winner. And you should consider voting for David Shiffman, one of the ocean science bloggers who writes for Southern Fried Science. If he wins, he has pledged to adopt a satellite-tagged shark in the name of his blog's readers, hold a contest to name said shark, and provide regular blog updates about what the shark is up to. My suggestion: Vote Shiffman, because sharks are awesome. — Maggie
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You are invited to participate in a design competition for development of sustainable technologies and their components for printing on open source 3-D printers!
The goal of the contest (organized by Queen's University Applied Sustainability Lab and Michigan Technological University) is to facilitate an open exchange of 3-D sustainable technology designs that can be printed to meet various needs in the context of sustainable and self directed development.
3-D printers such as RepRap and open sourced innovation hold great promise for development of technologies to help millions of world's poorest communities reach a better standard of living. Designs will be judged on the technical printing viability, feasibility and functionality of the innovation, as well as ecological, economic and social sustainability.
Anyone can enter the competition however the contestants must post their digital designs on Thingiverse under an open license (e.g. CC-BY-SA). The contest is funded by the Queen's Applied Sustainability Group and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Competition closes February 1st 2012.
Top prize is CAD1,000, second is CAD500, and there will be three runners up who get a satisfied glow. All winners also get a copy of my novel Makers, which is pretty flattering, if I do say so myself!
Yesterday, I asked you to submit your physics questions for a chance to win either VIP tickets to see Brian Greene tonight in New York City, or a DVD set of Greene's new NOVA series. I did the drawing this morning and the winners are:
• Kevin Harrelson — Proud new owner of a DVD set of Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos!
• r matt — You're going to see Brian Greene live tonight in New York!
Both of you need to contact me to claim your prizes. You can reach me by email at maggie (dot) koerth (at) gmail (dot) com.
Remember: Not being chosen as the winner of the drawing doesn't mean your question won't make it into Brian Greene's hand. I'm sending on all the great questions from yesterday's thread to the fine folks at the World Science Festival. Watch the live stream tonight, starting at 10:00 pm Eastern, to see if your question made it!
Image: Dark and ordinary matter in the Universe, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from argonne's photostream
Tomorrow night at 9:00 pm Eastern, physicist Brian Greene will be speaking in New York City about ... well ... life, the Universe, and everything. He'll be joined via live link by theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, and 2011 Nobel Prize winner Saul Perlmutter. It's part of the launch of Greene's new PBS series: NOVA: Fabric of the Cosmos. You can watch the NOVA episode anywhere. The live event will be streamed online starting at 10:00 pm Eastern.
Want to see the live event in person? You can't. It's sold out already. EXCEPT, here's the thing. The World Science Festival, which is cohosting the event, has a pair of confirmed VIP tickets set aside for a special BoingBoing reader.
How do you become special? It's easy. As part of the live event, Brian Greene, Leonard Susskind, and Saul Pearlmutter will be answering questions about all the weird and wiggly concepts that make physics so much fun, from dark matter, to the multiverse, to time travel. To get a crack at the VIP tickets, all you have to do is submit your question. Just post it here, in the comments, along with a mention of whether or not you live in the New York City area. I'll get the questions to the folks at the World Science Festival, and I'll pick one commenter (at random) to receive the free VIP tickets.
Don't live in New York City? Me, neither. That's why I'll also be drawing a second winner who'll receive a Fabric of the Cosmos DVD set.
You'll have until 10:00 pm central tonight to submit your questions.
Winners will be announced tomorrow morning, bright and early.
The Very Large Array is a spectacular piece of a scientific equipment with a less-than-compelling name. Located in New Mexico, you've seen this radio observatory pop up in the background of movies, album covers, and on Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
This year, the Very Large Array, which has been around since the 1970s, got some much-needed electronic upgrades and now the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which runs the Array, would like to rename it. Ideally, the new name should sound less like a Best Choice product and/or something produced by the Dharma Corporation. (We've got your "Canned Peas", your "Potato Chips" and your "Very Large Array".)
This image of a tiny crustacean called a copepod is one of the winners of this year's Nikon Small World photography competition. At Deep Sea News, blogger ParaSight explains how the photographer, scientist Jan Michels, got the shot:
That right there is one gorgeous copepod, one of the bigger and more important groups of planktonic crustaceans. It looks huge but is actually tiny; probably 1-2mm. You can see how much richer and more detailed the image is (although the colour is stained flouresence, not natural). That particular image uses a technique called confocal microscopy, which uses lasers and clever optics to achieve great depth of field (where everything is in focus).
