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Posted By Peter Bentley
Last Monday I hosted this month's RI Cafe Scientifique, this time on the new science of complexity with Prof Eve Mitleton-Kelly. It was a fascinating event which I think everyone enjoyed. You can listen to it by visiting the webste:

http://www.rigb.org/contentControl? action=displayContent&id=3036


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
A few weeks ago I was interviewed for the iphone online magazine "iphone kung fu." I was slightly critical of the policies used in the App Store so I wasn't sure if they'd print it... but they have, so that's nice. You can read it here:

http://www.iphonekungfu.com/general/5-questions-for-peter- bentley-the-undercover-scientist/


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
I was asked two or three months ago to write an article about Darwin, evolution and computers for the schools science magazine Catalyst. Took a while to come out, but I've just been sent a copy. The style is deliberately aimed at our cynical teenage audience, hopefully some of them will find the ideas of interest; you can read it by clicking here.


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
Just got back from doing a debate at the London Science Fiction Festival. The theme was "Life, but not as we know it." I was on a panel with chemist George Attard and Rachel Armstrong. I showed a series of videos illustrating some of the ALife work we do in my group, including some nice models by my PhD students Udi Schlessinger (who's now completed his doctorate) and Erwan Le Martelot. Not a lot of new ground covered, but I guess the science was new to the science fiction fans. Quite nice talking in the posh Apollo Theatre, Regent St, though.


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
I'm now the official host of the Royal Institution's cafe scientifique. Each month on the third Monday we have a new speaker to chat to anyone who wants to come along. It's a nice informal way for people to discuss science with some of the world's leading experts in comfortable surroundings. Last Monday we had Prof Robert West, one of the governments advisors and world experts on education and medicine. He specialises on tobacco and described the ways that governments, health guidance, and education can save more lives than just medical care. The RI is preparing a recording of the event so I'll link to it when it's done. Next month we have Eve Mitleton-Kelly from LSE talking about complex systems.


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
Phew! It's hard to keep up with the media fuss over the book Why Sh*t Happens. Yesterday an interview with me was published on Time.com - this one was quite hard work as the journalist asked me lots of questions about all kinds of things. It was apparently on the front page of Digg today - spotted by one of my students. You can read it by clicking here.

The book was the book of the week on the Skeptic Friends Network, you can check it out by clicking here.

There was also a quickie review in Discover Magazine, see below. I even did an interview for Dutch radio yesterday and yet more radio interviews to do tomorrow.


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
Another day and another radio tour of USA for the book Why Sh*t Happens. Today being Friday 13, I found myself describing lucky and unlucky events. As before, the hosts of the shows found themselves in a dilemma about how to say the book title. In fact in the last interview they played a little trick and pretended we were live on air and then actually said the title of the book, followed by all kinds of swearwords. I was slightly taken aback! We then spent the whole of the actual interview talking about sheep. "Oh Sheep!" I figure if the audience numbers for all the shows are accurate I've been heard by nearly 10 million Americans in the last 3 days. Poor people, yes that's right. These were the shows I was on today:

Cleveland, OH. WMJI-FM “Lanigan & Malone Morning Show” Listen to the interview here!

Tri Cities, TN. WJCW-AM “Thinking out Loud”

Portland, OR. KEX-AM “The Morning Update”

Miami, FL. WIOD-AM “South FL’s First News”

New York, NY. WCBS-AM “WCBS News”

Minneapolis, MN. KQRS-FM “Bob & Tom Show” Listen to the interview here! (This was the only interview where I actually got cut off - we were running late for the next show but by co-incidence the line went horrible at the end. Listening back it seems to have triggered quite a conversation!)

Cleveland, OH. WEOL-AM “Les in the Morning”

Colorado Springs, CO. KCMN-AM “Tron Talk”

Springfield, MA. WAQY-FM "The Bax and O'Brien Show"

Poughkeepsie, NY. WBWZ-FM “Mark Bolger in The Morning”


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
Yesterday I spent most of the day on a "radio tour" of USA appearing on 8 different radio shows to publicize the release of the book Why Sh*t Happens. The funny thing about US radio is that they can't say the title of the book. The solutions used by the hosts of each show were kinda funny. They called it "Why Shtuff Happens," or "Why ess-aitch- asterisk-tee Happens," or even "Why Shaaaaah Happens." The hosts of one show had a long discussion with me about it, saying they preferred the European title "The Undercover Scientist." Well, it remains to be seen if Rodale's decision on the title is a good one, but it's certainly attracting attention. These are the shows I've been on so far; I'll be on another bunch tomorrow.

National. ABC Radio Networks syndicated Talk “It’s a New Day”

New York, NY. WLNA-AM “Good Morning Hudson Valley”

Atlanta, GA. WDUN-AM “The Bill and Joel Show”

Minneapolis, MN. WFMP-FM “Ian and Margery” Listen to the interview here!

Philadelphia, PA. KYW-AM “KYW News”

Rochester, NY. WHAM-AM “WHAM Morning News”

National. All Star Radio Networks Syndicated Talk “All Star Minute”

Chicago, IL. WLBK-AM NPR “Walking on Air with Betsy and Sal” Listen to the interview here!

Cincinnati, OH/National WLW-AM/XM Radio Channel 173 “The Scott Sloan Show”


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
Nearly a year ago I was quoted in New Scientist, commenting on some Microsoft research which auto-creates average-sounding backing music to somebody singing. At the time I said "I suspect musicians will argue that this is another step towards homogenised elevator music for all... But I see a big market for this, whether it's liked by musicians or not." Click here to read that original article. Frankly I was being polite, although my prediction seems to have come true for reasons I didn't guess.

Since then, this research has been turned into a product called SongSmith which is getting quite a cult following, but for all the wrong reasons... Microsoft in their wisdom created perhaps the worst on-line advert ever. The Jury is still out on whether it's a deliberately ironic video or whether it's just terrible. Probably the latter. But it's sorta worth watching just for the cringe- factor. Is Microsoft really completely incapable of turning even potentially good research into a fun and cool product..? Seems so...

You can watch that awful video here.

And some people have been ruining existing songs to hilarious effect using the software.

I'll stick with my Mac, I think. (And ironically it appears that a Mac was even used in the video for this PC software, although it was covered in stickers to disguise it.)


 
Posted By Peter Bentley
In this week's New Scientist they're doing a special issue on evolution to celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday. They have a silly headline on the front cover, but inside they have a pull-out poster showing evolutionary art and other research. The editor called me a few weeks ago about this and I suggested William Latham's art, so this features heavily on the poster. They also mention some of my old work evolving formula one racing car setups. You can download a pdf version of the poster by clicking here. (It's about 1Mb in size.)