This week:
– Space X launch,
– Dangers of overselling vaccination ,
– Canada’s endangered scientist,
– Austerity: does it work (Part 1 of 3 interview with Seth Klein).
Download the episode here!
Topics:
Space X Launch
Space X successfully launched the Falcon 1 rocket carrying the Dragon cargo capsule to restock the International Space Station.
Find out more:
Dangers of overselling vaccination
New research shows that overselling vaccination causes people to be less likely to get their children vaccinated.
Find out more:
- When Pro-Vaccine Messaging Backfires
- Debunking Vaccination Myths: Strong Risk Negations Can Increase Perceived Vaccination Risks
Canada’s endangered scientist
We discuss the Harper governments budget cuts and the extreme harm they are having on Canada’s scientific community and research. We focus on the Experimental Lakes Area.
Find out more:
- Scientists lash Harper government for pulling plug on Experimental Lakes Area
- Harper and the environment are like oil and water
- 99 stupid things the government spent your money on
Austerity: does it work
Don’s sits down with Seth Klein in the Radio Free Thinker virtual studio and discusses austerity: what it is, does it work and is our governments following the austerity bandwagon.
Seth Klein is director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives for BC.
Find out more:
- Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative
- Federal budget drags Canada into age of austerity
- Euro RX – the alternatives to austerity
2012 Best Illusion of the Year Contest
The contest is a celebration of the ingenuity and creativity of the world’s premier visual illusion research community. Visual illusions are those perceptual experiences that do not match the physical reality. Our perception of the outside world is generated indirectly by brain mechanisms, and so all visual perception is illusory to some extent. The study of visual illusions is therefore of critical importance to the understanding of the basic mechanisms of sensory perception, as well as to cure many diseases of the visual system. The visual illusion community includes visual scientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, and visual artists that use a variety of methods to help discover the neural underpinnings of visual illusory perception.
Illusions of note:
Floating Star – Where when you look at a static image of a ‘blotty’ star on a blotty background, the star appears to be moving.
TBA – When you look at two moving dots directly they move in straight lines but when you look at them with your peripheral vision, they appear to be moving an arch.
The Flashed Face Distortion Effect – When you are looking at two images of faces with a small space between them. You are to focus on the central point while the images on each side are exchanged with other faces. All the images are normal people…however the effect is ‘horrific’.
2012 Best Illusion of the Year Contest
In Search of a Better World: The Utopian Imagination
Another Philosphers’ Cafe forum where Tiffany Werth of SFU asks if what we imagine can shape what is possible.
When: May 23 at 7pm
Where: Waves coffee shop at 900 Howe
Cost: Free
Canadian Copyright Law for Composers
MusicBC’s Bob D’Eith will give a workshop on navigating Canadian copyright laws.
When: May 25 from 2-4pm
Where: CMC BC Creative Hub – 837 Davie
Cost: Free
E-volving Democracy: Online Voting Public Dialogue
This is the first in the “E-volving Democracy” dialogue series highlighting current issues related to technology, democracy, and the theory and practice of collective decision-making. This event is designed for anyone who wants to make change happen – including democracy and social justice activists, open source coders and hackers, philosophers and academics, facilitators, convenors and skeptics.
The session will include a panel discussion featuring Andrew MacLeod (legislative reporter, The Tyee); Steve Wolfman (Computer Science, SFU) and Fathima Cadre (UBC Law and anti-online voting advocate). In small group discussions, participants will identify and prioritize conditions they believe a proposed online voting system would have to satisfy before it could be used in good conscience in a public election.
When: May 26 from 2-5pm
Where: The Hive Vancouver – 128 W. Hastings
Cost: by donation
slutTALK: The (Un)Conference
In-depth conversations about rape culture, victim-blaming, and sexual stigma. Speakers will include representatives from Women Against Violence Against Women, the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, and the F Word Media Collective.
When: May 26 from 1-4pm
Where: WISE Hall – 1882 Adanac
Cost: by donation