Video game developers are using crude experimental psychology and behavioural economics to make simple games that get you hooked. One professor used satire to fight back, but not everyone got the joke. This week’s guests: Ian Bogost, Jason Tanz, Adam Scriven, Nicholas Lovell, Ramin Shokrizade, Jamie Madigan, James Ivory, and Richard Smith. To check out this episode’s bibliography, go to here. Credits: Produced by: Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn. With research and production help from: Sophie Comyn, Amy Do, Mel Resoso and Rebekah Parker, Kamil Somaratne, Jane Young, Cherrie Lam, Eric Bing, Hailey Froese and Kerria Gray.
The Science Creative Quarterly
From archive
THE MYSTERY OF THE JAR
This is a collaborative poem written by Grade 4 and 5 students on the contents of a “jar.” This jar was a prop that was used to discuss poetry and science, as well as segue into a DIY cloud chamber activity for detection of sub atomic particles. – – – What is in the jar? Anything? Air is in the jar. What is in the jar? A million bucks! What is in the jar? A unicorn? I think oxygen is in the jar. I think Gummies are in the jar. The molecules of the jar. And the mind. There is…
PRELIMINARY PHYLOGENY OF MAGICAL AND ORDINARY CREATURES: EVIDENCE OF A RECENT DIVERSIFICATION
Annals of Praetachoral Mechanics (2016). Vol 2. Advanced online publication. download pdf ABSTRACT We use phloygenetics to accurately describe the relationships between various taxa and elucidate patterns in evolution that leads to the great diversity of life we experience today. The events of “first contact” with the wizarding world has led to a stunning variety…
FEARBOLA AND THE ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACTS GLOBAL HEALTH AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
The emergence of social media has drastically changed how people share and receive information. It has also altered how we learn about current events; keep in touch with family and even how we make healthcare decisions. In recent times, social media has also been seen to have a profound impact on global health and scientific research. In 2014, the third and fifth most searched for trending terms on google globally were “ebola” and the “ALS ice bucket challenge” respectively. Both of these events brought science into the spotlight and much of their exposure can be attributed to tremendous discussion over…
FIDELITY
(with thanks to Ariel Gomez) “Justus quidem tu es.” – Gerard Manley Hopkins Minus one gene, cells that swing red or green— fascia or hormone— should groan, cease, dissolve to cell-ghost and bone. When staying true would have meant giving death’s due, instead they became something new. When faithfulness to what we knew about what they need would have meant a fatal bleed, cells knew better, needed less— were simple, simply were, and let themselves have happiness.
DARWIN: BEWARE OF JUMPING THE SHARK
Happy Birthday Darwin! In case, you weren’t yet aware, you’re currently caught in a year for scientific giddiness. A year where a collective hurrah can be heard from those who make it their business to hypothesize, analyze, and formulize. 2009 is the year of Darwin. It’s a double whammy – his 200th birthday, and also the 150th anniversary of the publishing of the “On the Origin of Species.” Both celebratory events because, if you remember, Darwin is the dude that said we were descended from apes, themselves descended from this and that creature, and so on, and so on –…
LIVING ON THE BOUNDARY: EXPLORATION AT THE EDGE OF PHYSICS
Why do we explore? Joel Hutchinson speaks about using the “holographic principle” as an interdisciplinary tool to provide insight into how science and nature actually works together. He believes that by incorporating these innovative approaches to science education, it makes it easier to get people interested in how science impacts the world around them. Filmed at TEDxTerryTalks 2014 on October 25th, 2014.
THE ANNALS OF PRAETACHORAL MECHANICS VOLUME NO. 1 NOW AVAILABLE.
The Science Creative Quarterly is pleased to release its first volume of both a print offering of collected works, AND the much vaulted Annals of Praetachoral Mechanics. This is over 200 pages of creative science writing, including works of fiction, creative non-fiction, a play, humour, poetry, as well as an impressively large section on Wookiees…
THE LOVE SONG OF J. APIS PRUFROCK
Let us go then, you and I, when the fields are spread with neonicoti(noids) like a bee displayed upon a needle. Let us go then, through certain half-deserted rows of corn that rustles, grows from corporate seed catalogs (all for low-end restaurants with soda and hot dogs). Bees that follow with a tedious hum but insidious poison may lead them to an overwhelming population crash. Oh, do not eat high fructose syrup! Let us ban neonics in Europe. In the fields, the honeybees come and go trying to pollinate the rows.