Communities Happenings is a weekly post with news of interest to NPG’s online communities. The aim is to provide this info in one handy summary. Listings include tweetups and conferences which we’re attending and/or organising as well as new online tools, products or cool videos. We also occasionally flag up NPG special offers and competitions plus updates about NPG social media activities such as new accounts you might want to follow. Do let us know what you find most useful! Read more
In her latest post, “Would I eat that?” Nature Network blogger, Eva Amsen, has a frank discussion about being a vegetarian and about lab-grown meat. Read more
It’s time to share some details of the latest Science Online NYC (SoNYC). This month’s event will take place on Tuesday 20th March at Rockefeller University from 7pm EST. You can also watch online via our Livestream channel. The topic for discussion is: Setting the research record straight … Read more
Communities Happenings is a weekly post with news of interest to NPG’s online communities. The aim is to provide this info in one handy summary. Listings include tweetups and conferences which we’re attending and/or organising as well as new online tools, products or cool videos. We also occasionally flag up NPG special offers and competitions plus updates about NPG social media activities such as new accounts you might want to follow. Do let us know what you find most useful! Read more
On Thursday evening, we hosted the ninth instalment of the monthly Science Online NYC (SoNYC) discussion series. For this month’s SoNYC we teamed up with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) for a special event for Social Media Week. Read more
Daniel Cressey on the News blog has been talking about a robot equipped with a ‘universal gripper’ which can now fire objects through basketball hoops and play darts:
Researchers from Cornell and the University of Chicago previously demonstrated their ‘gripper’, which consists of a rubber bag filled with granular material instead of the more common articulated ‘fingers’, could pick up heavy items such as car shock absorbers and delicate items such as raw eggs (see: Ground coffee helps robots get a grip). They have now added the ability to shoot objects picked up via positive pressure, as demonstrated in this video. Time to resurrect the Robo-Hoops contest.
Watch the video below demonstrating the gripper’s abilities or continue reading Daniel’s post here.
Chirps and Tweets
Scilogs NeuroCognition Blog features a guest post this week by Burak Yildiz, a post doc at the Max Planck Institute. He is considering the complex vocalizations produced by tiny songbirds and how they may give us hints about how humans learn, produce and understand speech:
Science Online NYC (SoNYC) is a monthly discussion series held in New York City where invited panellists talk about a particular topic related to how science is carried out and communicated online. For this month’s SoNYC we’ve teamed up with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) for a special event for Social Media Week. We’re looking at how social media can be used to communicate science, with the intention of concentrating on how the experiences can have educational value. More details about this month’s SoNYC can be found here. Read more
QRator is a project that allows our visitors to get involved in conversations about the way that museums like ours operate and the role of science in society today. In the Museum are ten iPads which each pose a broad question linked to a changing display of specimens. We are really interested in what our visitors think about some of the challenges that managing a natural history collection brings up, and other issues in the life sciences. They change periodically, but at the moment our current questions include “Is it ever acceptable for museums to lie?”, “Is domestication ethical?”, “Should human and animal remains be treated differently in museums like this?” and “What makes an animal British?” … Read more
On Monday evening, Joi Ito, Internet pioneer and head of the MIT Media Lab, talked to Nature Boston as part of our coverage of Social Media Week. On Thursday, tune into the live stream of “Beyond a Trend: Enhancing Science Communication with Social Media.” The panel, hosted by American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), is the latest in the monthly series organized by Science Online NYC, aka SoNYC. … Read more
Science Online NYC (SoNYC) is a monthly discussion series held in New York City where invited panellists talk about a particular topic related to how science is carried out and communicated online. For this month’s SoNYC we’ve teamed up with the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) for a special event for Social Media Week. We’re looking at how social media can be used to communicate science, with the intention of concentrating on how the experiences can have educational value. More details about this month’s SoNYC can be found here. Read more
