Jascha Hoffmantag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2010://12010-01-21T23:31:37ZWriter and editor.Movable Type 3.33Sundance 2010tag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2010://1.1052010-01-21T22:02:15Z2010-01-21T23:31:37Z At this year's Sundance Film Festival, many of the science-related films are concerned with disaster scenarios, both real and imagined. There are documentaries about nuclear proliferation, climate-change refugees and invasive Australian toads, not to mention fiction films about vicious human-animal hybrids, post-apocalyptic Kenyan botany, and an encyclopedia of obsolete things that may eventually include the human race... [pdf] [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com At this year's Sundance Film Festival, many of the science-related films are concerned with disaster scenarios, both real and imagined. There are documentaries about nuclear proliferation, climate-change refugees and invasive Australian toads, not to mention fiction films about vicious human-animal hybrids, post-apocalyptic Kenyan botany, and an encyclopedia of obsolete things that may eventually include the human race... [pdf] [text]]]>
Mental Snapshotstag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.1042009-12-22T07:30:24Z2009-12-22T08:18:10Z Frustrated by the lack of attention to everyday experiences in the field of psychology, Russell T. Hurlburt has devised an unconventional method to investigate the mental lives of his subjects. In Describing Inner Experience?, he presents the case of Melanie, a young woman who was fitted with a beeper that randomly prompted her to record everything in her awareness several times a day... [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com Frustrated by the lack of attention to everyday experiences in the field of psychology, Russell T. Hurlburt has devised an unconventional method to investigate the mental lives of his subjects. In Describing Inner Experience?, he presents the case of Melanie, a young woman who was fitted with a beeper that randomly prompted her to record everything in her awareness several times a day... [text]]]>
Perfect Rigortag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.1022009-12-13T07:46:02Z2009-12-13T08:00:33Z In 2002, a Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture, a problem that had resisted proof for a century. But soon after he gave up mathematics and retreated to his mother's apartment in St. Petersburg. Why did Perelman turn his back on the world? This question haunts Masha Gessen’s “Perfect Rigor,” a dogged portrait of an elusive man... [text] Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com In 2002, a Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture, a problem that had resisted proof for a century. But soon after he gave up mathematics and retreated to his mother's apartment in St. Petersburg. Why did Perelman turn his back on the world? This question haunts Masha Gessen’s “Perfect Rigor,” a dogged portrait of an elusive man... [text] ]]>
Killer Earthtag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.1032009-12-12T05:10:30Z2009-12-13T08:45:05Z The Gaia hypothesis states that life preserves the conditions for its own survival. But Peter Ward, a paleontologist who specializes in mass extinctions, takes a dimmer view of life on earth. Seeing a tangle of organisms that have evolved to starve their competitors and pollute their surroundings, he argues that for billions of years the biosphere has been its own worst enemy... [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com The Gaia hypothesis states that life preserves the conditions for its own survival. But Peter Ward, a paleontologist who specializes in mass extinctions, takes a dimmer view of life on earth. Seeing a tangle of organisms that have evolved to starve their competitors and pollute their surroundings, he argues that for billions of years the biosphere has been its own worst enemy... [text]]]>
The Space Entrepreneurtag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.1012009-10-15T02:47:13Z2009-12-13T08:50:58Z As his animated feature Quantum Quest — made with real footage from the Cassini spacecraft — is previewed at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York, space exploration consultant Harry Kloor shares his thoughts on manned space flight and the use of prizes to motivate adventurous science... [text] [pdf]
Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com As his animated feature Quantum Quest — made with real footage from the Cassini spacecraft — is previewed at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York, space exploration consultant Harry Kloor shares his thoughts on manned space flight and the use of prizes to motivate adventurous science... [text][pdf]
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An Ear for the Pasttag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.1002009-09-17T13:55:34Z2009-10-15T03:34:12Z
Engineer Duncan Miller has spent decades reviving the lost art of acoustic recording to wax cylinders, a technique pioneered by Thomas Edison. His Vulcan Cylinder Record Company has combined sleuthing and modern chemistry to craft a new repertoire for the hand-cranked phonograph... [pdf] [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com
Engineer Duncan Miller has spent decades reviving the lost art of acoustic recording to wax cylinders, a technique pioneered by Thomas Edison. His Vulcan Cylinder Record Company has combined sleuthing and modern chemistry to craft a new repertoire for the hand-cranked phonograph... [pdf][text]]]>
The Philosophical Babytag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.982009-08-27T08:38:09Z2009-08-27T08:49:54Z In her provocative new book, developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik argues that babies are in some ways “actually smarter, more imaginative, more caring, and even more conscious than adults are.” [full text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com In her provocative new book, developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik argues that babies are in some ways “actually smarter, more imaginative, more caring, and even more conscious than adults are.” [full text]]]>
On the Rockstag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.972009-08-06T18:28:18Z2009-09-06T05:51:39Z It would be easy to mistake Guillermo Rosales' The Halfway House for a novel about the plight of Cuban immigrants struggling to adapt to life in America, or a novel about the inhumanity of mental institutions. But the book does not fit easily into either category... [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com It would be easy to mistake Guillermo Rosales' The Halfway House for a novel about the plight of Cuban immigrants struggling to adapt to life in America, or a novel about the inhumanity of mental institutions. But the book does not fit easily into either category... [text]]]>
A Fresh Take on Foodtag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.962009-06-18T21:36:26Z2009-08-07T09:10:58Z "What's in the fridge?" may not seem a weighty question. But food is one of our oldest and most advanced technologies. Over the centuries, armies and empires have stood and fallen on the strength of their provisions. And as two new books and a documentary film show, we all have a stake in what we eat. [pdf]
[text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com "What's in the fridge?" may not seem a weighty question. But food is one of our oldest and most advanced technologies. Over the centuries, armies and empires have stood and fallen on the strength of their provisions. And as two new books and a documentary film show, we all have a stake in what we eat. [pdf]
[text]
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The Technology of Illusiontag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.952009-06-12T14:39:45Z2009-06-12T15:33:29Z Magic is not limited to the tricks performed at children's parties. It can refer to anything that resists explanation, from cognitive illusions to high-tech wizardry. This broader sense of magic was in the air in Lima, Peru, earlier this spring, when engineers and artists converged to explore the intersection of magic and technology, with awe-inspiring results... [pdf] [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com Magic is not limited to the tricks performed at children's parties. It can refer to anything that resists explanation, from cognitive illusions to high-tech wizardry. This broader sense of magic was in the air in Lima, Peru, earlier this spring, when engineers and artists converged to explore the intersection of magic and technology, with awe-inspiring results... [pdf][text]]]>
Watching Wilson and Watsontag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.942009-06-04T20:28:01Z2009-06-05T19:25:09Z "I don't understand exactly what happens when a word enters my imagination," said documentary playwright Anna Deavere Smith as she prepared to portray biologists Edward O. Wilson and James Watson at the World Science Festival in New York... [text] [pdf]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com "I don't understand exactly what happens when a word enters my imagination," said documentary playwright Anna Deavere Smith as she prepared to portray biologists Edward O. Wilson and James Watson at the World Science Festival in New York... [text][pdf]
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The Exhibition Designertag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.932009-05-22T16:52:27Z2009-05-22T17:09:58Z"If you put a bucket of water in front of a child, they will play with it forever," says Edwin Schlossberg, who has conceived museum installations for NASA and the Catholic Church. "I try to design like that." [pdf][text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com"If you put a bucket of water in front of a child, they will play with it forever," says Edwin Schlossberg, who has conceived museum installations for NASA and the Catholic Church. "I try to design like that." [pdf][text]]]>
Senselessnesstag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.922009-05-06T19:11:45Z2009-05-06T21:38:58Z A number of Guatemalan authors have imagined exiles returning to confront the bloody past. Horacio Castellanos Moya, a Salvadoran journalist who now lives in Pittsburgh, tells a narrower story in his intemperate seventh novel Senselessness... [pdf]
[partial text]
Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com A number of Guatemalan authors have imagined exiles returning to confront the bloody past. Horacio Castellanos Moya, a Salvadoran journalist who now lives in Pittsburgh, tells a narrower story in his intemperate seventh novel Senselessness... [pdf] [partial text]
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Fiction beyond the Gravetag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.912009-04-29T22:07:05Z2009-04-29T22:37:32ZWhen our bodies fail, our minds go with them, and the game is over. Or is it? A new book gathers 40 playful sketches of what an afterlife might hold for us, from expanding into a nine-dimensional cloud to working as an extra in other people’s dreams... [pdf]
[text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.comWhen our bodies fail, our minds go with them, and the game is over. Or is it? A new book gathers 40 playful sketches of what an afterlife might hold for us, from expanding into a nine-dimensional cloud to working as an extra in other people’s dreams... [pdf][text]]]>
Pursuing the Infinitetag:www.jaschahoffman.com,2009://1.902009-04-23T20:14:20Z2009-04-23T22:41:32Z The authors of Naming Infinity argue that an esoteric Christian sect contributed to advances in set theory in Russia at the dawn of the 20th century. But they reveal a much larger drama: the flourishing of mathematics under the repression of the early Soviet regime... [pdf] [text]Jaschahttp://jaschahoffman.com The authors of Naming Infinity argue that an esoteric Christian sect contributed to advances in set theory in Russia at the dawn of the 20th century. But they reveal a much larger drama: the flourishing of mathematics under the repression of the early Soviet regime... [pdf][text]]]>
At this year's Sundance Film Festival, many of the science-related films are concerned with disaster scenarios, both real and imagined. There are documentaries about nuclear proliferation, climate-change refugees and invasive Australian toads, not to mention fiction films about vicious human-animal hybrids, post-apocalyptic Kenyan botany, and an encyclopedia of obsolete things that may eventually include the human race... [pdf] [text]]]>
Frustrated by the lack of attention to everyday experiences in the field of psychology, Russell T. Hurlburt has devised an unconventional method to investigate the mental lives of his subjects. In Describing Inner Experience?, he presents the case of Melanie, a young woman who was fitted with a beeper that randomly prompted her to record everything in her awareness several times a day... [text]]]>
In 2002, a Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture, a problem that had resisted proof for a century. But soon after he gave up mathematics and retreated to his mother's apartment in St. Petersburg. Why did Perelman turn his back on the world? This question haunts Masha Gessen’s “Perfect Rigor,” a dogged portrait of an elusive man... [text] ]]>
The Gaia hypothesis states that life preserves the conditions for its own survival. But Peter Ward, a paleontologist who specializes in mass extinctions, takes a dimmer view of life on earth. Seeing a tangle of organisms that have evolved to starve their competitors and pollute their surroundings, he argues that for billions of years the biosphere has been its own worst enemy... [text]]]>
As his animated feature Quantum Quest — made with real footage from the Cassini spacecraft — is previewed at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York, space exploration consultant Harry Kloor shares his thoughts on manned space flight and the use of prizes to motivate adventurous science... [text] [pdf]
]]>
Engineer Duncan Miller has spent decades reviving the lost art of acoustic recording to wax cylinders, a technique pioneered by Thomas Edison. His Vulcan Cylinder Record Company has combined sleuthing and modern chemistry to craft a new repertoire for the hand-cranked phonograph... [pdf] [text]]]>
In her provocative new book, developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik argues that babies are in some ways “actually smarter, more imaginative, more caring, and even more conscious than adults are.” [full text]]]>
It would be easy to mistake Guillermo Rosales' The Halfway House for a novel about the plight of Cuban immigrants struggling to adapt to life in America, or a novel about the inhumanity of mental institutions. But the book does not fit easily into either category... [text]]]>
"What's in the fridge?" may not seem a weighty question. But food is one of our oldest and most advanced technologies. Over the centuries, armies and empires have stood and fallen on the strength of their provisions. And as two new books and a documentary film show, we all have a stake in what we eat. [pdf]
[text]
]]>
Magic is not limited to the tricks performed at children's parties. It can refer to anything that resists explanation, from cognitive illusions to high-tech wizardry. This broader sense of magic was in the air in Lima, Peru, earlier this spring, when engineers and artists converged to explore the intersection of magic and technology, with awe-inspiring results... [pdf] [text]]]>
"I don't understand exactly what happens when a word enters my imagination," said documentary playwright Anna Deavere Smith as she prepared to portray biologists Edward O. Wilson and James Watson at the World Science Festival in New York... [text] [pdf]
]]>
"If you put a bucket of water in front of a child, they will play with it forever," says Edwin Schlossberg, who has conceived museum installations for NASA and the Catholic Church. "I try to design like that." [pdf][text]]]>
A number of Guatemalan authors have imagined exiles returning to confront the bloody past. Horacio Castellanos Moya, a Salvadoran journalist who now lives in Pittsburgh, tells a narrower story in his intemperate seventh novel Senselessness... [pdf]
[partial text]
]]>
When our bodies fail, our minds go with them, and the game is over. Or is it? A new book gathers 40 playful sketches of what an afterlife might hold for us, from expanding into a nine-dimensional cloud to working as an extra in other people’s dreams... [pdf]
[text]]]>
The authors of Naming Infinity argue that an esoteric Christian sect contributed to advances in set theory in Russia at the dawn of the 20th century. But they reveal a much larger drama: the flourishing of mathematics under the repression of the early Soviet regime... [pdf] [text]]]>