Interesting Reading: 12/4
How Comics Can Save Us From Scientific Ignorance
http://www.wired.com/culture/education/magazine/16-12/pl_print
"What's the solution to America's crisis in science education? More comic
books. In December comes The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics
and DNA, a remarkably thorough explanation of the science of genetics,
from Mendel to Venter, with a strand of social urgency spliced in. "If
there was ever a time that we needed a push to make science a priority,
it's now," says Howard Zimmerman, the book's editor and, not
coincidentally, a former elementary-school science teacher. "Advances in
treatments for disease cannot take place in a society that shuns science."
Zimmerman works with the New York literary publishing house Hill and Wang,
which discovered Elie Weisel and has been creating a new niche for itself
as one of the premiere producers of major graphic "nonfiction novels" like
the war on terror primer After 9/11 and the bio-comic Ronald Reagan.
Stuff of Life is the first in a series dedicated to the hard sciences. The
author is Mark Schultz, a DC Comics veteran and creator of the
postapocalyptic classic Xenozoic Tales. The 160-page work, illustrated by
Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon (improbably, no genetic relation), covers
the regenerative processes of DNA, human migratory patterns, cloned
apples, and stem cells. In a rapidly changing field, it's as up-to-date
and accurate as possible."
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Copper Thieves Threaten U.S. Infrastructure, FBI says
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/copper-thieves.html
Copper thieves, sometimes acting as "organized groups," are threatening
what the FBI said is "critical" U.S. infrastructure, from electrical
sub-stations, cellular towers, telephone land lines to railroads and
crops, the agency said in an unclassified report unveiled Wednesday.
The report, Copper Thefts Threaten US Critical Infrastructure, said
bandits are taking advantage of unprecedented high prices for copper, an
almost 500 percent increase since 2001 as measured earlier this year.
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Stores Clueless About Mobile Barcode Scanning Applications?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/stores_clueless_about_mobile_barcode_scanning_applications.php
"With the rise of app-laden smartphones like the iPhone and Google's
Android OS, now on T-Mobile's G1, many penny-pinching shoppers have
downloaded barcode scanning applications onto their mobile devices. These
apps allow consumers to compare the prices of merchandise on a store's
shelf to competing stores in the area just by taking pictures with their
smartphone's camera. The prices are instantly retrieved and displayed on
the mobile phone so consumers can know before they buy if they're getting
a good deal."
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A Design-Oriented National Endowment for the Arts
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=38859
"The National Endowment for the Arts should embrace design and innovation
as a means to fulfill the larger agendas and programs of the Obama
Administration. The choice of the NEA Chairman is an important opportunity
to shape the contribution of the NEA in coming years.
Impactful NEA initiatives already exist to support the literary and
performing arts: what's missing are solutions and innovations that could
come from additional emphasis on the arts in a troubled economy, a nation
struggling with environmental crisis, a country that needs its entire
infrastructure rebuilt (and the resultant jobs that would come with the
challenge).
These are precisely the times when a design-oriented NEA could most
effectively benefit the nation with practical solutions, progressive
thinking and citizen-oriented improvements affecting all aspects of civic,
cultural and artistic life."
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New York Cheat Sheets
http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/new-york-cheat-sheets/
Too Funny! This is Visual storytelling well done. I think every New
Yorker has these little cheat sheets rattling around in our heads. The
fact that two of his (Fairway supermarket & the Dumbo Playground) coincide
with my own makes me think a lot of us New Yorkers cope in similar ways.
