#method quarterly

[principleofplenitude]

In 1984, the German journal Zeitschrift für Semiotik (Journal of Semiotics) published a dozen responses from academics speculating on how to communicate across 10,000 years. The proposals range from the mundane to the bizarre and fantastical. One respondent proposes making the storage barrels impossible to open without great technical skill. Another involves creating a series of warnings in concentric circles that would expand as languages evolve. Thomas Sebeok is in there, elaborating on his system of rituals around an atomic priesthood and their rituals. But a pair of semioticians, Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri, take the germ of Sebeok’s idea for a nuclear folklore to a singularly strange conclusion. Their solution is “ray cats,” creatures bred to change color in the presence of radiation—like walking, purring, yarn-chasing Geiger counters. But this is just the first part of the proposal. Alongside the cats, Bastide and Fabbri propose that we invent a body of folklore, passed on through proverbs and myths to explain that when a cat changes color, you better run.

“The Cat Went Over Radioactive Mountain” from Method Quarterly

[boldsignalspodcast]

01.09 Mentors and Mentees with Zuri Sullivan

If you are interested in being a guest for Bold Signals Season 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer (I’m still work-shopping the title), drop me an e-mail or check out this page. Thanks in advance!

This week's interview is with Zuri Sullivan. Zuri is an immunology graduate student at Yale University and is the co-editor of Because-Science. In the interview we talk about doing science in different settings and at different levels of distance from human disease and the benefits of being both a mentor and a mentee.

Then, in the informationist segment, I spend a second defining cognitive neuroscience.

Want more info about Zuri?

Zuri on Twitter | Zuri on PubMed  | Zuri at Because-Science  | Zuri at Method Quarterly

Want more info about John and Bold Signals?

Bold Signals on SoundCloud | Bold Signals on iTunes | Bold Signals on Stitcher | Bold Signals on Twitter

John on Twitter | John on About.Me

Production Notes:

The intro is taken from the infamously terrible 1994 film adaptation of Fantastic Four. You can currently subject yourself to the entire film via YouTube.  Spoiler alert: It’s so bad it’s worse. 

The term “impostor syndrome” was first used in this paper by Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. This paper is a good place to start if you’re looking for a thorough review of the research that’s been done on the topic.

For more on the microbiome, check out episode 01.04: Subway Science. Despite the hype, it’s still very early days for research into the link between the microbiome and mental illness.

Zuri is involved with an impressive number of science and science communication projects. In addition to co-editing Because-Science and contributing to Methods Quarterly, she’s also a member of the Yale Science Diplomats and Women in Science at Yale.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has a nice profile of the  Increasing Diversity and Education Access to Sciences (IDEAS) initiative and Dr. Richard Losick on their website.

The canonical story of how Michael Gazzaniga and  George Miller is described in the first edition of the “Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience”.

As always, the intro music is “Enterprise 1″ by Languis. Additional music includes “Pack Your Bags We Are Leaving” by The Fischermen and  “Prud'Hommes” and “City Night Line” by Cobra (avec logo panthère).

This week’s song recommendation is some old new age from the Pacific Northwest: “Monica's Had a Change” by Sweet Madness.