The New York Times Magazine recently put out a piece by Jon Gertner about environmental decision-making and the different social dynamics that are involved. The author discusses several different studies that involve individual and group decision-making. One group doing such research is the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions is an interdisciplinary based at ColumbiaRead More
Category: Society
meteor
What if a meteor hit the planet? I know there have been several movies about this topic, but really, what if? What would happen to the planet and everything on it? Immediately there would be a lot of destruction, but what about later? What are the longer term effects of such an impact? What wouldRead More
Recycle more, and more diversely
I recall the time I spent in China as the hottest and stuffiest days of my life. I was there for a summer study abroad experience, as well as the chance to visit with relatives that I had not seen since I was five years old. At every step of my travels, in the dustyRead More
burn out brighter
I am working on a piece about scientific literacy! This is for a course on writing about science. I sent around this survey to gather a sense of what people in my generation know about science and what they thought about their core science classes. Some of the responses are quite interesting. Here are aRead More
like a rickshaw getting pulled around by another rickshaw
Overheard conversation in class about an assignment to be handed in: A: “Were we supposed to print double or single-sided?” B: “I don’t know.” A: “Well I wasn’t sure, so I did both. I didn’t want to get points off for something silly like that.” Our previous assignment requested that we print double-sided. It wouldRead More
do what you want
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a friend. He is planning his wedding and they recently have been going to Bed Bath & Beyond to add items to their registry. He told me about a few items that he saw while there: containers for a single slice of bread, and containers thatRead More