SoCal Minds

Net wonders: voyeur video, extreme and inspiring photos...

From Caltech, the Annenberg Space for Photography, the Getty & UCI

Gosh, some days there's just no getting around what the Internet can do, and, while these aren't exactly the highest marvels of the medium, it's worth checking out online wonders such as: from the folks in LaCanada-Flintridge, how about the 'curiosity cam,' a cyber video voyeur's dream glimpse into construction of the next Mars Rover? Course, also gotta hand it to the folks in Century City for the, as planned, hugely entertaining online video presentations on the photographers involved in the recently opened 'Extreme Exposure' photo exhibit. The final shots on display, of course, are artistic and technical marvels. But as experiences go, the backstory videos with the shooters rates up there, too.  If photography's the thing, by the way, it's worth checking out a blog post from the folks in that ginormous institution up on that Westside hill, as they offer a curator's choice of available documentaries 'inspired' by great photojournalism. And speaking of idiosyncratic takes on the world, try out the intellectual skew from a physics prof and sci fi writer in Irvine who finds much to mine about the zeitgeist in decades of predictions about the future recorded in the pages of Popular Science.

*A TEDx program to honor a memorable Richard

From Caltech

Long before there was Ted, there was Richard -- and he surely saw the powerful potential in sharing ideas in talks transmitted in totally new ways. In keeping with the legacy of that Richard, as in Feynman, the folks in Pasadena have jumped aboard a plan to bring a TED local conference to their campus as part of ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of their pathbreaking physics colleague and the famous clear, accessible, novel and popular explanations of science he gave back then. His He's noted for his pioneering approaches as in his 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom' talk, and, of course was part of the Nobel Laureate's offered his legendary 'Feynman on Physics' lectures, the spirit of which was captured and spread in the then-new medium of videotape, as can be seen in the Tuva project's high-tech rendering of some 1964 Feynman lectures. The school is now recruiting speakers and volunteers and participants for their slice of the internationally renowned Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, which, because it is a local effort gets an X designation to distinguish it from its founding father form. The TED conferences, as enthusiastically noted here, are devoted to 'ideas worth spreading' and the nonprofit organization not only provides a scintillating series of concise talks with some of the globe's best minds for swells who can afford the pricey programs, the group also makes these widely public in some terrific online presentations that are always worth any time invested in their viewing.

*[Updated 10-20-2010 to correct erroneous suggestion that 'Room at Bottom' or 'Feynman on Physics' lectures  videotaped but showing prof was a pioneer in using broadcast and video to get out ideas about science, as seen in Tuva project online enhanced offering of his BBC Cornell talks.]

Click here for TEDx Caltech site, information

 

National Medal of Science bestowed on 2 SoCal scholars

From Caltech & Chapman

Sure, it may seem as if the White House sometimes hands out coveted kudos like some kind of intellecutal candy, but there's still special cachet to be honored as among the nation's top 10 eminent researchers in science, engineering and invention. And in 2010, two of the National Medal of Science recipients come from Southern California. In Pasadena, Amnon Yariv, a professor of physics and electrical engineering (shown at left), becomes the 55th member of the distinguished faculty to receive one of his profession's highest accolades. He's a pioneer in the field of optoelectronics, a speciality in which researchers employ electronic devices to source, detect and control light. In Orange, Yakir Aharonov (shown at right) was named a Medal of Science recipient for his work in theoretical physics, especialy his explorations in the foundations of quantum physics and its implications. The school repeatedly has termed his pioneering work in his field as putting him on a sure path to a Nobel Prize. Previous esteemed scientists honored with the medal include Arnold Beckman, Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, Charles H. Townes, Edward Teller, James Cronin, Hans Dehmelt, Herbert Friedman, Willis E. Lamb and Berni Alder.

In Pasadena, Amon Yariv honored

In Orange, Yakir Aharonov honored

A geek-out over Iron Man 2 and a G-rated gender gap

From Caltech & USC

Never can forget that Los Angeles is the movie capital of the world and that inescapable reality extends even to the whiz kids in Pasadena who, at 8 tonight, get to geek out, boy style, with a free, open and public panel with the thinly academic-sounding title about the 'science behind Iron Man 2,' the Marvel Studios movie starring Robert Downey Jr. (shown at right). The session, moderated by the always terrific Geoff Boucher of the Times, will feature physics and computer science profs (right, right) as well as the macho movie's conceputal illustrator and the 'physical suit effects supervisor' and, of course, an uber Hollywood suit -- a studio SVP. Wonder how the draw for this program will be as compared with the campus watch-in last night of the Meg and Jerry show?

In Pasadena, expert panel tonight will tackle (right, right) 'Science of Iron Man'

Hollywood's 'family' fare found to short-shrift females

While we're on the topic of Hollywood's testosterone fare -- cue the buddy shot and the massive explosions, please -- who wudda thunk this about the industry's so-called 'family' fare, films from 'Bee Movie' to 'You Don't Mess with Zohan:' Trojan researchers say that for women, this broad section of flicks could be a kind of gender G whiz in which females are scarce in front and behind the cameras.  In analyzing 150 G-, PG- and PG-13-rated movies in 14 years, the researchers led by Stacy L. Smith, Ph. D., (shown at left) found more than 5,500 speaking characters, only 29.2% of which were female; scarcer than hen's teeth, too, were women working in family films as directors, writers and producers. The study, in which materials were coded for multiple variables including race, gender and body type, included careful cross-checking and the employ of lots of social science techniques and analysis, which also offered eager student-researchers the opportunity to learn and participate.  The study also found a point for small optimism: a recent uptick in women characters in the G-rated fare.

G whiz: Only 1 in 3 female characters in widest-audience flicks?

Click here to read full study on gender disparity in G-rated movies

 

Where are all the engineers? Tackling 'grand challenges'

From USC

Look around the halls, classrooms and labs across the Southland that normally will be filled with engineers and their aspiring students and hold that mental picture, because all those spaces soon may be deserted and those folks gone. No, it won't be permanent. But for at least a few days this week, downtown and Exposition Park will be packed with a ginormous conclave of some of the top engineers, educators, corporate execs, policy-makers and others who hope to determine, lead, deepen and expand their field. It's part of the national 'grand challenge,' a gauntlet thrown down last year by the engineering national academy and answered, initially, by deans of the Trojan and Blue Devil schools who spearheaded the first summit on the Duke campus. This week a second such event will be here, with a student program already sold out, the added endorsement of the wizards in Pasadena, an address on educators' roles in the field by the top Mudder and RSVPs from a who's who of corporate and academic engineering. Skip the cliches about the slide rule crowd. But those in the field face some formidable labors as they respond to challenges they've been issued in four key categories: health, sustainability, vulnerability (security) and the 'joy of living.' What's all that means? Read deeper into the planned program ...

A who's who in the field gathers in L.A. to answer professional 'grand challenges'

Click here to learn more about the national academy's 'grand challenges'

Take in a 'Grim Sleeper' talk, chess exhibition, print show

From CSULA, Caltech, Chapman & the Huntington

Rumble, rumble, rumble, ka-boom. Yes, there may be rolling thunderstorms, occasional sprinkles and muggy conditions prevailing this weekend. That's all the more reason to keep zipping around town to take in all the stuff going on.

That includes a forum in East L.A. this afternoon on the 'Grim Sleeper,' multiple homicide case and the forensic and DNA issues surrounding it, including the controversies over scanning not just individuals' but also families' genetic materials and records and how scientific advances may affect public crime labs. Or maybe if fun and games are the call, how about seeing a Russian chess master take on all challengers in a simultaneous exhibition in the Rose City this evening; may need to be a member of that super smart institution's official community to actually play. If art's the thing, it may be time for a stroll out to San Marino to take in the opening of an exhibition exploring the 'evolving ideas' of midcentury American printmakers. 

And a head's up on happenings on Monday, too

And, , yeah, they're really going to be part of the next work week. But head's up at least that if a certain kind of humor proves irresistible, alums of the 'National Lampoon' will be downtown Monday night for a free, public program (requires reservations) exploring the institution's big effect on pop culture and how time has left its personalities, ahem, 'drunk stoned brilliant dead.' There will be laughs of a different sort when the Orange County Bar members gather on Monday night hear the annual jousts between law school deans Erwin Chemerinsky and John C. Eastman about the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court term; the barristers also will honor the presiding justice of the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Three, in Santa Ana. And in Orange, starting Monday, for those feel the earth move under their feet (without Carole King singing in their heads), there will be an international, three-day, experts' workshop on electromagnetic signals associated with earthquakes and volcanoes.'

A more straightforward calculation of 'green' conundrums

From Caltech

Let's mix metaphors, wildly, shall we, in an attempt to cut through the fog, sum up the pros and cons, clear the mind of the partisan chatter and get to the bottom of complicated, confusing arguments about what to do about the darn environment: Maybe it's all a matter of the old common denominator, eh? Take off those shoes and count on not just the fingers but the toes, too, for some straight-forward calculation. David MacKay, the chief scientific adviser to the UK's department of energy and climate change -- and a Ph.D. alum of a notable Rose City school (shown in photo at right) -- has a new tome out in which he kicks out of green conversation such baffling measures as petajoules and terawatts and meaningless statistical comparisons. He seeks, instead, to provide a common sense math so every day folk can see and figure energy and sustainability issues plainly. Think killowatt hours and consumption, for example, and his examples come clearer, though to see a fuller argument, it may be a bit of a juggle to read an online, magazine-style exposition. Go ahead, expend the energy.

Does it take a Caltech Ph.D. to offer plainer math on energy, sustainability?

Click here for a fuller, online exposition from 'Engineering & Science'

*The call was fluid, dynamic; now he's a designated 'genius'

From Caltech & Art Center College of Design

OK, so those generous-to-a-fault folks in the Windy City can figure out who's a genius and who is not but they can't Google or use the ol' white pages? Well, not quite. But the MacArthur Foundation did break its usual practices by sending a 'call us' e-mail to a super bright engineer in Pasadena, because they had one-digit wrong in a cell phone number. And so that's how the recipient of that computer message -- John O. Dabiri (shown in a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation photo at right) -- started to get the news that he had received one of the annual $500,000 'genius' grants. Dabiri's a world-class expert and innovator in fluid dynamics. Among his notable efforts: while watching schools of fish move in the water, he noticed that they left whirling vortices in their wake, some twisting clockwise, others counterclockwise. And as naked Archimedes reportedly said on leaping out of an overflowing tub: Aha! That observation led Dabiri and colleagues to suggest a more efficient way to construct turbines for wind farms -- with whirling vertical rather than horizontal blades, thus, saving the land and space the devices normally command because the wind patterns they create can hinder each other. Dabiri, who cannot swim, is studying the formidable ways jellyfish jet through water, which may result in new propeller designs; his examinations of the motion of the most minuscule sea-borne critters may cause a rethinking of how water mixes in the oceans.

A $500,000 MacArthur award for Rose City engineer

*Updated 9-29-2010: The folks over in Pasadena, of course, weigh in to remind that alum Jorge Pardo, a notable L.A. installation artist, also was honored with a MacArthur.  And they point to the foundation video about him:

Tales of addictive nicotine, 'If' for kids and a Trojan spy

From Caltech, the Getty & USC

Here's bully to the folks in Pasadena on at least two scores -- chiefly, for their dogged labors, as always, to decipher the mysteries of how nicotine works in the body, why it is so darn addictive and how the solution of its biochemical secrets might prove useful in treating disease. The intriguing science yarn wouldn't unfold so well for lay readers were it not for the school's struggle to keep alive long-form journalism, which, in plusher times, it publicized and displayed in smart, slick paper-and-ink products that it disseminated to a select, lucky audience. The magazine products disappeared with budget cutting, though they do survive and in some ways have become more accessible in a sometimes balky online format, where, for example, the story unfolds recently of frog eggs, muscle tissue, chemistry and biology and how all these tie into the study of nicotine.

More than a huff and puff about why nicotine proves so enticing

Click here to get to online editions of 'Engineering & Science'

And while we're toasting publications, here's a small salute to what could be termed an institutional classic -- a kids' book that the folks in the ginormous research institution and museum on the hill say is their No. 1 best-seller over the years with the young. 'If,' surrealist painter Sarah Perry's distinctive take on the world, has taken off with young people since its first publication 15 years ago, this even though the grown-ups who actually plunk down the moolah for the colorful work confess that they just don't get it at all. OK, mom and pops, doesn't matter. The young 'uns will get great jollies from idiosyncratic ideas, such as what 'If mice were hair...' (as glimpsed at left). Just keep buying the vivid illustrations in a book that, so far, has sold 100,000 copies.

Vivid, provocative and colorful, 'If' at 15 is a kids' best-selling favorite

So just who was Ignacy Samuel Witczak? Sure, he earned his Trojan B.A., cum laude, in 1942 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa on campus. In 1943, he had earned his M.A. in political science and shortly thereafter he became a part-time instructor in Exposition Park. Did we mention that his real last name was Litvin, and according to an astronautics prof who stumbled on his curious life story, he was a Soviet spy of some importance. What damage did Witczak or Litvin do during the 1940s before he disappeared from a local beach in 1945, only to turn up later, and, in the story now patched together as formerly secret files become public, back in the Soviet Union where his one-time masters mistreated him?

An honors student who turned out to be real-life, Soviet 'Trojan Horse'

2 recognitions of SoCal expertise as masters of disaster

From Caltech & UCLA

While the wags may jest about the Southern California 'seasons' -- of temblors, torrential rains and mudslides, wildfires and, yes, sigh, riots and human uprisings -- the area's experience and expertise as masters of disasters is mattering a lot more. In Pasadena, a foundation gift and a school matching donation program has provided $10 million to set up a new 'terrestrial hazard center.' It will focus on interdisciplinary ways to study, ease the damage caused by and estimate the costs of natural hazards like 'global climate change, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, wildfires, and extreme weather events such as droughts, among others.' The school, noting its abundant expertise in engineering, seismology and an array of applicable other scientific fields, says the center's work could span everything from how best to expedite disaster relief to providing improved systems that offer even the briefest but still beneficial warnings about impending calamites. In Westwood, meantime, the Bruins will join some other high-powered colleagues across the country at the invitation of the Homeland Security folks to help develop guidelines on the health and safety of working firefighters. Among the researchers' key areas of focus will be the fitness and physiological, especially their cardiological responses to the giant stress related to their disaster response. And, meantime, the folks in Santa Monica as part of a continuing push of theirs, report that a recent, top-level group of former military and civilian leaders, scholars and chiefs of National Guard units across the country have urged Congress and the Defense Dept. to consider their recommendations on how the nation must better prepare for domestic disasters.

In Pasadena, $10 million in gifts launches a center on 'terrestrial hazard'

In Westwood, Bruins join in Homeland Security push to set firefighter health, safety guidelines

From Santa Monica, word of top-level warning about need for better U.S. preparedness for disasters