Pale Blue Dot

Earth from six billion miles out.  Image Credit - NASA - from Voyager 1 ~1990.

A long time ago in a grad school far far away I watched a you tube video that changed my life. The you tuber who posted the video went by the name Silverseer and the video consisted of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot monologue overlaid by Enya's "Boadicea." The video was just a series of Ken Burns moves with the original pale blue dot photograph. I loved that video so much, I must have watched it at least a hundred times. Eventually it was taken down; probably due to a copyright claim by Enya's record label. But today, after years being deprived of my Voice-of-the-Sagan induced spine tingles something similar has been produced! I give you a new window onto the world through the voice of Sagan, the sounds of Hans Zimmer, and the vision of Adam Winnik.

Pale Blue Dot - Animation from Ehdubya on Vimeo.

Rebecca Skloot on science journalism

During a 2010 visit to her alma mater - Colorado State University - Rebecca Skloot gave a series of seminars on communicating science to the public. I asked her what she thought about the role of science journalism in a world where more and more scientists are communicated directly to the public. Here is her answer.

World Science Festival 2011

Hello from New York City. For all you faithful Tom Paine's Ghost readers out there you may have noticed a marked decline in my actual written-word of late.  Apologies as I was composing my dissertation and being distracted with flowering aloe plants good music and LOVE all at the same time.  Having defended my dissertation and driven a few thousand miles I am here in New York City to live-blog the 2011 World Science Festival.

I am a big fan of the overall mission of this festival which is...

"The Mission of the World Science Festival is to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future."

Keep your eyes here at Tom Paine's Ghost and catch me blogging for the official WSF blog over the next few days!

PS - please excuse grammatical and spelling mistakes for the time being. I am of the philosophy that content is more important than the frame it is presented in. I promise I will  go back and tidy it up after I come up for air sometime next week but for now you get my thoughts raw!