Well, it looks like this fall I’ll be part of the Canadian Chamber Choir as it conducts workshops and tours out of Vineland, Ontario. Very exciting–I haven’t had the chance to sing with a top-notch choir since my last year in the University of Regina Chamber Singers, then conducted by Kathryn Laurin, and that was …
Today’s CBC Web column… ******* Once upon a time, a computer programmer named Ward Cunningham visited Honolulu, where a Honolulu International Airport counter employee told him to take the a particular shuttle bus line between terminals, nicknamed the “WikiWiki” line: wiki is a Hawaiian-language word for “fast.” I don’t know whether Cunningham took the WikiWiki …
Computer scientists at the University of Alberta have solved the ancient game of checkers: After 18-and-a-half years and sifting through 500 billion billion (a five followed by 20 zeroes) checkers positions, Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer and colleagues have built a checkers-playing computer program that cannot be beaten. Completed in late April this year, the program, Chinook, …
From a CBC.ca arts story this morning (here’s the link, but I would suspect this will be corrected soon, which is why I’ve appended the screen shot below)*: Vancouver writer Ivan E. Coyote, Moose Jaw, Alta.-based poet Daniel Scott Tysdal and Victoria’s Bill Gaston have won ReLit awards. Moose Jaw, Alta.? The whole town up …
More photos here.
It’s generally believed time travel into the past is impossible. Only…nobody can quite figure out why it’s impossible. So just maybe, it isn’t. John Cramer’s experiment to see if it’s possible to detect an effect before a cause is going ahead: University of Washington physicist (and science-fiction author) John Cramer is moving forward with his …
More photos here.
A universal ‘flu vaccine is in the first stage of human tests: This vaccine is intended to provide protection against all ‘A’ strains of the virus that causes human influenza, including pandemic strains.***At the moment, Phase I clinical trials on humans are underway – that is, the candidate vaccine is being administered to a small …
This could do wonders for space tourism (although the focus is on exploration). Not to mention science fiction movies. Called the BioSuit, and under development at MIT, it’s… “…a revolutionary departure from the traditional model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the astronaut’s body to protect it from the vacuum of …
No, I’m not announcing my candidacy for anything–although it certainly looks like I am, doesn’t it? Actually, this is a photo of me presenting the Willett Choral Award at the Western Christian College and High School graduation last month. It’s taken from the latest issue of the Western Christian Messenger.
It’s not easy to find the perfect topic for a mid-summer science column, when people are more interested in getting to the lake, swimming in the pool, or barbecuing in the backyard than– Wait, wait. “Barbecuing in the backyard…” I think I’ve got it–the perfect summer science topic! Thanks to Robert Allgeyer, whose definitive paper …
Would you like to be greeted at an office by one of these? Apparently these Mitsubishi-made robots, called Wakamaru, are being hired out as receptionists in Japan for $1,000 U.S. a day or $25,000 a year. According to Gizmodo: It turns out these goofy-looking yellow droids are pretty good at the job, recognizing faces and …
