For those searching for a (very) warm weather weekend activity, tipster Emma Jacobs suggests heading to Fulton Ferry Landing to check out the enormous Telectroscope. The artist/inventor/mad scientist behind the creation is Paul St. George, who explains that original blueprints for the device purport to allow New Yorkers and Londoners to wave to one another via some sort of forgotten magical Trans-Atlantic tunnel. Tenuous science non-withstanding, the thing is only around until June 15th, at which point it will evaporate, along with Paul St. George, back into the fourth dimension from which they came.

Photo on left by Emma Jacobs, photo on right via Telectroscope site

Tipster Michael Wymbs alerted us to last night's episode of the Colbert Report, on which Physicas Professor Brian Greene was a guest. Greene was promoting the World Science Festival (of which he is host), which will take place this weekend in all over the city. As part of the festival, Greene will be a panelist in an "Invisible Reality" lecture (moderated by favored West Wing Republican Alan Alda.) Check out the Festival's full schedule here.

The Festival's Street Fair will take place on Saturday in Washington Sq. Park and will feature a 12-foot tall animatronic dinosaur and a real-life version of the Magic School Bus. Bwog will see you there.

Bwog likes to report the occasional celestial phenomenon, so Stephanie Quan sends along this tip:

The 2006-07 school year has contained multitudes. In fact, it may just be the most eventful year Columbia's had since... well, the year before. Remember Matthew Fox? The Chung-Diamond "scandal"? "Don't Be a Pussy"? "Epilogue to Our Crime & Punishment: A Petition"? Bwog certainly does, so step into the Wayback machine - you're about to relive nine months of Columbia in a single post.

August

First-years move in. Orientation yields a legendary (to Bwog's mind, at least) week-long burst of posting. Addison Anderson went to a bunch of bars in the name of "journalism." Most literary post: "And now for some disorientation," which reads like early Bret Easton Ellis, if he knew about Koronet's. Orientation week was the best.

September

Facebook went literally insane. Then calmed down somewhat. Harvard abandoned ED; Columbia did not. Columbia Football had as-yet uncrushed high hopes, later crushed. Seth Flaxman declared victory. Best villains: Zuckerberg! Murphy! Ahmadinejad! You know, one of those.

October

Everything was coming up roses for Mark Modesitt. 1968 spirit was invoked by Jim Gilchrist. The fallout was immense - shady disciplinary letters, "news" coverage of all sorts (Jon Stewart, Fox News). Even Bwog had an opinion. But October wasn't all about relevant television coverage of Columbia issues with high production values - we also had "The Gates"!
Best correspondence to Bwog: "Subject: terrorists. your worse then the mooselums who flew the planes into the buildings"

CTV's got Core review sessions for Lit Hum (with Mark Cohen) and Frontiers (with Darcy Kelley), with Music Hum to come tomorrow at 6PM on Channel 37!

Also having to do with recorded stuff, except things that you actually want to listen to, Spec has a web-only story about the RIAA's latest shenanigans: they've thrown the book at 13 Columbians, bringing the grand total to 60.

Someone calling herself Reni Laine (the suspicious name was not found on Facebook nor the Columbia Directory, her name's there Bwog just can't spell) sent Bwog a music video, about, of all things, Frontiers of Science. "Sexy ladies, get out your calculators...we're gonna do a little thing called a...back of the envelope calculation."

Though it was most obviously filmed against the cinder blocks of a Carman double, Bwog commends the sophisticated lighting techniques -- flashlights and Christmas decorations.The sexy fadeout of Frontiers lecturer Darcy Kelley's sensuous voice may just keep you awake in class on Monday.

UPDATE: Reni has a myspace, apparently she tours and just released a CD. Also, Bwog consulted a first-year--apparently the video is the product of an extra credit assignment, in which the tykes had the option to express themselves "artistically" about everyone's favorite science requirement.

Frontiers of Science lecturer Professor Darcy Kelley, on raising abandoned baby bats:

"So I asked my friend how she carried her bats around, and she said she hung them from her bra: it's warm, it's wet..."

Download the Frontiers podcast if you don't believe us. Who says this class doesn't teach first-years useful information?

The Core has frequently inspired as much acrimony as intellectual curiosity, and no one class has borne so much controversy as the disproportionately-loathed Frontiers of Science. From amid the tepid grumblings of the meekly subjected, however, comes the roar of the freshman class, taking a stand - where else? - on Facebook. Sports, science, and general "file under S" categories correspondent Christopher Morris-Lent reports from the front lines of first-years' quarrel over David Helfand's brainchild.

Few topics outside the quality of food at John Jay can arouse the sort of passionate vitriol or resigned apathy amongst freshmen that Frontiers of Science does. With half of Columbia College's Class of 2010 already subjected to the insidious doctrine of climate change, astrophysics, and other infinitely complicated concepts such as bar graphs and standard deviations, the CC '10 Student Council has devised another way to pretend that it does something constructive, creating under the guise of a Facebook "event" a sort of forum where the disillusioned can air their frustrations and the contented can defend the third nipple of the Core, either on the wall of the event itself, or by sending mail to Academic Affairs.

Barely four hours into the proceedings, a lively rhetorical boxing match has already began to explode on the wall, with those who thought Frontiers bit the proverbial big one comprising one side, and those who thought it was merely mediocre forming the other. The administrators, composed of the aforementioned CC '10 apparatchiks and a groupie or two, are collectively playing the roles of both the impartial referee and Don King.

A blow-by-blow, after the jump!

This year's second crop of freshmen should be finishing up their Frontiers of Science exam right about now, which Bwog learned was administered on 18 single-sided pages per test taker (not including Blue Books). Those familiar with Frontiers will bear with us for a little back of the envelope calculation:

There are approximately 1,000 students in the freshman class, so figure 500 taking the exam. 18 pages apiece = 9,000 total sheets of paper. At 8,333 sheets of paper per 40-foot, 7-inch diameter tree, that exam by itself took the life of a larger-than-average lodgepole pine. Pretty great for a course that talks so much about how global warming will see us underwater in a few centuries.