Bwog has noticed that over the next week or so there will be a smorgasbord of learning opportunities for those who are not going home to spend their magnificent four days of fall break. Whether you are interested in theater, bioethics or academic freedom, there's something going on that's right up your alley.

Human Genetic Complexity: What We Know--Legal, Historical, and Evolutionary Perspectives
October 29th at 8 pm
417 IAB

This talk features philosophy professor Phillip Kitcher, biology professor Robert Pollack and NYU law professor and Nation columnist Patricia Williams (who is no stranger to this campus). While the discussion supposedly will center around themes from the Core, expect philosophy more contemporary than CC and science more general than Frontiers.

While deadly pathogens like avian flu are circulating around the world, Columbia Medical Center's Department of Ophthamology has come up with a way to safely stiffen your eyeball.

No, this has nothing to do with one of our other illustrious alumni but rather a solution to the blinding disease of keratoconus and possibly even glaucoma and myopia. The researchers found that sodium nitrite in a buffered balanced salt solution stiffens the cornea and prevents the eye from bulging too far. All the gory details are in the patent application.

Here are some more activities to keep Mom and Dad busy because Bwog loves you and your parents and because Bwog has secret tour guide aspirations....

Wallach Art Gallery

Columbia has its own mini-museum in Schermerhorn! Who knew? The Wallach Gallery's classy digs will undoubtedly impress your parents. Maybe you'll even impress them with your Art Hum skills. Except the gallery is currently exhibiting Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj, which doesn't fall into the masterpieces of Western Art category. But it's free and that's always a crowd pleaser.

Inwood Park

If you're going to the Baker Field for the football game, be sure to pass through Inwood Park on your way back. Located just beyond the stadium, Inwood Park is a lovely copse-filled plot of land on the very tip of Manhattan island. The northern edge of the park offers views of both the Hudson and Harlem Rivers and makes a great place for a picnic. For additional fun, try to spot the Columbia boathouse and the big 'C' rock.

Geneva, SWITZERLAND -- This just in from CERN Research Center: It was the culmination of thousands of physicists and engineers working for over a decade in what has become the greatest scientific project the world has ever seen. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is built to hurl thousands of tiny particles at speeds approaching that of security kicking you off of South Lawn.

Scientists ran a test of the finalized machine with just spinning protons and were displeased to find out that they did not create a quantum vortex enveloping all of Earth and, indeed, the entire solar system, into a black hole.

But fear not, according to the source of all knowledge, the real fun happens on October 21, when they begin high-energy collisions. Also, for those looking to put one together using their ROLMs and duct tape, CERN published the entire manual for the LHC, totaling over 1500 pages.

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

Two Columbia-related articles of interest in the New York Times recently: First up, an op-ed from physics professor/Colbert Report interviewee Brian Greene sent to Bwog from tipster Lucy Tang. In a piece currently #1 on the Times' Most Emailed list, Greene recounts receiving from a letter from a soldier stationed overseas from whom Greene's book (the immensely readable and enjoyable The Elegant Universe) was "something of a lifeline. [...] It speaks to the powerful role science can play in giving life context and meaning. At the same time, the soldier's letter emphasized something I've increasingly come to believe: our educational system fails to teach science in a way that allows students to integrate it into their lives." Greene goes on to lucidly and convincingly argue for a "cultural shift" that would emphasize the philosophic importance of science.

Next up, via tipster Ian Corey-Boulet, a piece which focuses the on Sisters Colleges' (your strong, beautiful Barnard College among them) initiative to recruit more students hailing from the Middle East. According to the article, admissions deans from the Sisters believe that their schools' emphasis on encouraging women to engage in science and math-related fields, in addition to providing a less-jarring transition from single-sex high schools, would make them an especially appealing option for prospective students from places like Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.

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.

Columbia's medical researchers are provoking helpless panic across the country today, but word is, it's good for your cardiovascular health. Scientists here have upended some traditionally accepted wisdom and are now arguing (in some cases) against CT scans and abstinence. Just one more thing to worry about for two of the most lamentable at-risk populations: people who are sick but can't figure out why and 23-year-old virgins!

And in news related to Columbia only through the related post list on the second page linked above: for all you kids who were thinking of giving up sex because you could only think of 236 reasons to keep at it!

Intrepid research correspondent Rahul D'Sa waded through a lot of science jargon to find out what Columbia researchers have been up to in their fancy-schmancy laboratories. Did you know that? Now you know!

Researchers at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health recently published a study that claims rises in the annual average temperature might cause a dramatic increase in heat-related deaths by the 2050s. They project a temperature increase of up to 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit, with summer temperatures rising by as much as 7.6 degrees (Then again, they might only rise as little as 2.5 degrees, or 2.7 degrees in the summer, but either way we're screwed.) When the heat rises, they say, the number of heat-related deaths will too-- setting themselves a wide margin of error, they estimate anywhere between a 47- and 95-percent increase in fatalities.

But wait, there's more. When temperatures rise, urban counties—like, say, New York City—will be particularly vulnerable, according to Patrick Kinney, the director of the study. There, the "urban island heat effect" coupled with a high population density may result in the highest number of heat-related deaths, even though the worst of the heat waves will probably occur in rural areas. Kim Knowlton, the lead author of the study, adds that New York's large population of people over 65, large population of people living in poverty, large population of people with cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, and large population of people living in un-air-conditioned apartments (or in Wien) might actually make the Mailman School's estimates of heat-related deaths conservative.

"Hey! What's up, Chuck? Eh, maybe you don't want to know... it's not pretty!"

"Hey, nice suit! 100% polyester?"

Part of Siemens Science Day at Columbia University.

Reflecting the noble efforts of its students, redefining the known world in experimental breakthroughs and subversive anthropology theses alike, Bwog has recently come upon a couple examples of Columbia's own willingness to fight the dominant paradigm. Follow our earth-shattering eye to...

The World of Pop Culture: According to Metro (New York's #1 newspaper...in contributing to subway litter) Columbia is involved in negotiations to take over TriBeCa's ARChive [sic] of Contemporary Music, a private collection of two million recordings frequented by international DJs, and turn it into the "country's first major center for the study of popular music". The "ARC", like Noah, has collected two of every album made since 1950, including a signed copy of the first Rolling Stones album on which "Keith Richards' autograph is blurred because the original owner kept it in a pile where his dog always went to pee". Sounds like something to finally replace that stage model exhibit that's now been occupying Butler's hallways for years.

The Source of That Nasty Smell: Whoever was in Manhattan on January 8th will recall (willingly or not) the horrific smell that permeated the borough's atmosphere. In Sunday's New York Times, Columbia researchers (with a Barnard associate) proposed what they thought was the answer to the quandary over the stench's source. "The odor was caused by gases released from saltwater marshes in the metropolitan area," the researchers state. The stinky swamps were, of course, in Jersey, which will no doubt give new meaning to the already encouraging nickname "Armpit of America". But wait, there's more - the scientists used "Columbia University instruments on rooftops in Manhattan" to measure the speed of the wind carrying the revolting odor. It all gives a new meaning to the name "Pupin".

-CJS

While you're in Butler cramming — or simply shitfaced at 1020 — your university is actively engaging with that frightening specter beyond the 116th Street Gates: the wide, weird world. Below, Bwog presents some of the most recent (yet unheralded!) findings and goings on from the realm of science and technology to have occurred at Columbia over the last few days.

Seismic Shi(f)t Happens

When some seisometers placed by Lamont-Doherty researchers along the sea floor of the Pacific near the Mexican coast found themselves stuck in fresh lava flows 8,000 feet below underwater, the university's bursars were surely shaking their heads in disbelief that they had surrendered any funds to a project advocated by the curious novelty of an "Earth Observatory" again. That is, until Lamont scientists Maya Tolstoy and Felix Waldhauser discovered that the seisometers were still transmitting, and became the first to closely record micro-earthquakes resulting from underwater eruptions. Good news, especially if it means Columbia research vessels won't be returning to the area to install new devices— and making enough noise to kill whales again.

Gateway Lab con Stile?

Italian artists Eva and Franco Mattes have two obsessions in life: Andy Warhol is one, the other is the virtual online community Second Life. Bwog has no doubt that if cultural critics had the time, the patience, or the lack of lives these two must in order to have endured a year in this hyper-aestheticised neighborhood of cyberspace, they would fall into paroxysms of glee before scribing fascinating tomes on this binarially-circumscribed subculture. Instead, we're left with Warholesque portraits of the artists' favorite virtual avatars. Oh, and they're going on display at Casa Italiana. We get the Italian connection, but wonder if the location has more to do with Mudd being too crowded with Halo fans?

Not again! Here comes the third of five installments of Bwog correspondent Addison Anderson's travels to the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. In this segment: poignancy, "cooking with gas," the earth's most important room, plate tectonics, and a healthily collaborative working environment!

As we head to the Core Lab, Brusa picks up two bits of Open House balloons off the grass and puts them in his pocket, as there are so few trashcans around. Then he tells me how Lamont became Lamont Doherty. Henry Doherty (1870-1939), a self-taught engineer, made his fortune with Cities Services (now Citgo), figuring out how to get gas into people's homes and persuade people to use it, rather than coal, for cooking. "Now you're cooking with gas!" was originally a factual and congratulatory slogan for having brought Cities Services gas-cooking into one's home, before it came to mean "Now you're doing something notably well!" in popular speech.

In 1969, the foundation Doherty set up gave $7 million to Lamont to help pay for a portion of the top scientists' salaries. Before then, every scientist had to raise whatever was needed for their research, their salaries, and their research staff on their own. As Brusa puts it, "This isn't some bucolic think tank, and it's never been like that. Every scientist had to raise all their money, but by 1969 it was getting to be a problem. The Doherty donation spins off enough money to pay for one or two months of scientists' salaries." The pressure to make up the remainder pushes researchers: "It's enormously competitive...And there's no resting."

"Modern Physics and Ancient Faith": The 2006 Thomas Merton Lecture, delivered by Professor Stephen Barr in St. Paul's Chapel, October 30^th.

"Science and Religion," "Faith and Reason" — buzzword dichotomies for the sound-bite arguments of our polarized political discourse. Given this, the absence of publicity surrounding Stephen Barr's lecture "Modern Physics and Ancient Faith" — a few green paper posters with a blurry photo of the theoretical physicist showed up in Hamilton on Monday — was astonishing. Perhaps the breadth of appeal of Barr's Merton Lecture, which is possibly the most prestigious religious lecture given annually at Columbia (though it is a specifically Catholic event) was not appreciated. Or, perhaps our appetites for anything remotely resembling the stale debate over intelligent design are simply satiated. Regardless, when St. Paul's Chapel filled Monday night, the white robes of Dominicans, and white hair in general, dominated.

Stephen Barr, a professor at the Bartol Research Institute and frequent contributor to the theoconservative journal First Things, has given this speech before. In fact, he published it in a more extensive form as the book Modern Physics and Ancient Faith in 2003. But, despite, or perhaps because of the speech's age, Barr provided something provocative: an impeccably organized account of science's development that challenged many common conceptions about our current understanding of the universe.

Barr began his speech with a familiar invective against materialism; materialism, he argued, is not science but a philosophical view about the nature of ultimate reality on equal standing with religious belief. There are, however, good reasons to think that, in accepting the findings of modern science, one ought to find oneself inevitably viewing the religious outlook as hopelessly anachronistic. Barr disagrees and centered his remarks on two fairly widespread claims with which he takes issue.