Stopping by UC Berkeley–one of my all time favorite campuses–to post a quick note from Peet’s…

Thanks to everyone for so many emails with Silence Is The Enemy links, news, questions on kissing, book tour suggestions, and more. It will take a long time to filter through it all, but know Chris and I really appreciate hearing from you.

I’ll be on a red eye east overnight, so expect the blog to pick back up in full force soon!

As Chris says goodbye to Seattle, I’m headed home too after nearly a month living out of a suitcase.  And while I’m excited to be on my own schedule again, Long Beach, California was a wonderful ending to the journey.  This city is vibrant and fun with far more to offer than I anticipated.  Most notably, George’s Greek Cafe, which not only has the most spectacular food, but also the friendliest staff and owner on the west coast.

Thanks so much to the Aquarium of the Pacific for a wonderful week among so many folks with innovative, interdisciplinary ideas toward improving oceans communication.  It was especially fun to hang with Michael Mann off the blogosphere and I’m looking forward to picking up his latest book Dire Predictions, which sounds like a great read.

And with that, I’m off to the airport…

I’m at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific entering the second full day of an oceans workshop. Here’s a glance at my panel from yesterday:

Scientists and Communicators Working Together:  A Panel Discussion to Identify Keys to Success.  (Jerry Schubel, moderator)

VADM Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr U.S. Navy Retired, former NOAA Administrator

RADM Richard West, U.S. Navy Retired, former oceanographer/navigator of the Navy, past president, Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE)

Sheril Kirshenbaum, associate at Duke University and co-author with Chris Mooney; Unscientific America: How Scienctific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future

Edward Maibach, professor, Department of Communications, director of Center for Climate Change Communications, George Mason University

(more…)

The NYAS Two Cultures conference exceeded my expectations… From E. O. Wilson to Dean Kamen, and everyone in between–including our audience–it was a wonderful event! There is so much I can’t wait to share with readers, but this morning I’m in a rush to the airport headed to Long Beach, California, where I’ll be contributing to a new ocean communication initiative.  So while I’ll spend much of the day overhead and offline, I encourage you to check out the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies website where Director Mike Treder did a terrific job live-blogging every session:

Live from New York – It’s Two Cultures!

Live from New York – Two Cultures, Part Two

Tremendous thanks to all who participated!  And with that, I’m off to JFK, but expect lots more on Saturday at NYAS — including photos and video–coming soon…

A lot happened while I was out west. There was a senator’s 250 nm move left and the President’s promise that 3% of the GDP would go to research in science and technology. And you can bet I was elated when the Obama administration overturned Bush’s eleventh-hour rule intended to weaken protections of the Endangered Species Act:

Passed in January 2009, the Bush-era rule lifted the requirement that federal agencies consult wildlife experts with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before taking actions that could harm listed species. The Bush move allowed federal agencies to decide for themselves if their own projects, such as roads, dams and mines, would hurt species.

On a personal note, it’s also been a productive and busy week. I visited Bodega Marine Laboratory and enjoyed volunteering on some fascinating research in Boonville, California where cattle roamed around our field site. I also coincidentally met Mary Roach who is as delightful in person as she comes across on the pages of Bonk.

Today I’m back east in NYC with Chris to plan several upcoming events.  While we’re wandering the city much of the afternoon, here’s a glimpse of the landscape out west I recorded using The Flip:

Today I’m headed to San Francisco, kicking off three weeks of travel.  By early May I’ll hit my hometown for the NYAS Two Cultures conference and then it’s back west for a few days at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.  Posting from me may be patchy at times, but I have full confidence Chris will keep everyone on their toes.  While I’m miles overhead, some odds and ends:

1) Jim Carrey in HuffPo:

In this growing crisis, we cannot afford to blindly trumpet the agenda of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) or vaccine makers.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, for the sake of our kids, parents: do not confuse entertainment with the ability to provide sound medical advice.

2) Recently came across terrific audio from a 2002 episode of This American Life while researching testosterone for my next book.  Griffin Hansbury is a transsexual who asserts that after receiving ‘T’ (testosterone), he became interested in science and understood physics. Perhaps, but I suspect he may also be susceptible to placebo.  Listen and decide for yourself.

3) I’ve just learned coincidentally, that Mary Roach–author of Bonk–is speaking in San Fransisco tonight. Small world.

4) Since I’m headed to Oakland next week, it’s good reason to remind readers that in 21 days, Green Day’s long anticipated 21st Century Breakdown drops!  Today also marks the debut of the first video from a track called Know Your Enemy.  Great expectations for this album…

Today I’m at the University of Virginia where I’ve met some terrific grad students involved in evolution and genetics.  While wandering around, I also can’t help but also notice so many undergraduate women are wearing colorful rubber boots and it got me thinking about cultural evolution. I’ve yet to notice the trend at Duke, although perhaps it’s already making the commute 200 miles south.  All of this makes me wonder about the distribution of popular styles and accessories and how interesting it would be to map the persistence of trends (perhaps using GIS?) over time.  That said, I’ve a hunch that a quick scan of the literature would reveal some kind of related social models given we’re modeling everything these days from fisheries population dynamics to gene expression.  I’ve no doubt the social scientists are on top of this one.

Still, I wonder how a new trend is born and what determines its boundaries.  Surely there are always outliers, but many fads remain relatively localized as we shift latitude and longitude. For example, in Maine I expect to encounter Renys and Carhartts while in DC, long black coats and high heels are the norm. And how do such shifts occur temporally?  What led to the end the Parachute pants phenomenon and how did emo get started and then go mainstream?

I’ve no real thesis with this post, nor the time to search the library here at Gilmer Hall on the UVA campus for data on population demographics.  Yet it’s interesting to ponder on a rainy afternoon while waiting for a 3:30 lecture on plant genetics…

(more…)

(more…)

The Continental Divide runs north-south from Alaska to northwestern South America. It separates waters flowing into the Pacific Ocean from those flowing into the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.

We stopped in New Mexico to document traversing this natural boundary…