Learning to love science films

Posted on by admin

Nature, November 3, 2010

Link

For two years now I’ve judged science films for the Imagine Science Film Festival, a week-long celebration of the genre that runs each October in New York City. It’s a peculiar job, I confess, because I’m often underwhelmed by science on the screen. But the more I watch, the more hopeful I feel.

My association with the festival came out of an argument with Alexis Gambis, then a graduate student at Rockefeller University in New York. Over a cup of coffee, Gambis explained that when he wasn’t slaving over fruitfly cells, he made movies. He also runs the Imagine Science Film Festival (of which Nature is a sponsor). Continue reading “Learning to love science films” →

Help a science teacher, o mighty hive-mind

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Chris Farnsworth, a seventh-grade science teacher with an awesome tattoo, has a question for which I’d also like an answer…

Do you know of a good place to find popular science writing for middle and high school students? I wind up using the same places, like Discover, or The Best American Science Writing, but I feel like I am in hit-or-miss mode. Any ideas?

Originally published November 1, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

Medieval scrolls and ebooks: Here’s the video of my lecture at the Koshland Museum

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

Thanks to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Society for Microbiology for posting the video of my recent lecture in Washington DC, in which I consider how revolution in books 500 years ago can offer us some guidance in the revolution we’re in right now. Afterwards I had a great talk with the audience and people chiming in on Twitter. Check it out!

Originally published October 28, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.

My new brain column: Tinnitus, from ears to consciousness

Posted on by Matt Kristoffersen

My new column for Discover is about tinnitus, the ringing in the ears that affects a third of all people at some point in their lives. While tinnitus may seem to like it’s in our ears, its source actually lies deep within our brains–possibly spread across the networks of neurons that make us consciously aware of our lives. The better scientists can appreciate its full reach, the better they may be able to treat it. Check it out.

[Update: Link fixed to take you to the first page of the column, not the second.]

Originally published October 28, 2010. Copyright 2010 Carl Zimmer.