Being very much into astronomy and cosmology, I have just received this press release from Cosmos Studios (it may not be from the north east, but we're all very much part of the cosmos!!). I hope it is of interest:
STARTS....
Bloggers celebrate Carl Sagan's life
Press Release, provided to me by Cornell University via Cosmos Studios:
Fans and bloggers are planning a worldwide blog-a-thon to commemorate the life and legacy of Carl Sagan -- consummate scientist, communicator and educator -- on Dec. 20, the 10th anniversary of his death. Sagan was Cornell's David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences.
The event, organized by New York City fan Joel Schlosberg, encourages bloggers of all stripes to discuss the Cornell astronomer's influence in their lives. Schlosberg plans to compile a meta-blog -- a blog of blogs -- following the event to link Sagan bloggers to one another. Nick Sagan, one of Sagan's sons, supports the effort. "The goal here is to make Dec. 20 a blogosphere-wide celebration of the life and works of Carl Sagan," he wrote. "So if you're a Carl Sagan fan with a blog, or you know someone who is, I hope you'll join in and take some time on that day to share your thoughts, memories, opinions and feelings about my dad. And if you could help spread the word, it would mean a lot to me."Sagan, who was also director of Cornell's Laboratory for Planetary Studies, published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books -- including "The Dragons of Eden" (1977), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978. With his wife, Ann Druyan, he co-produced the movie "Contact," based on his 1985 novel of the same title. "Carl was a candle in the dark," said Yervant Terzian, the David Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and former astronomy department chair, after Sagan's death. "He was, quite simply, the best science educator in the world this century. He touched hundreds of millions of people and inspired young generations to pursue the sciences."Sagan died Dec. 20, 1996, at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle following a two-year battle with a bone marrow disease.
...ENDS
Those of you who are children of the 70s, 80s (and before) will probably remember Carl Sagan from the NASA space programme and his superb US-PBS TV documentary series 'Cosmos' (part-funded by the BBC, and broadcast on BBC-TV in the early 1980s). He was a leading figure in the NASA Mars Viking landers of 1976, the Mariner probes to Venus/Mars etc., and was behind the missions, plaques and disks on the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions to the outer planets (they are now in interstellar space, having left the solar system in the 1980s, and are the furthest man-made objects). He briefed the NASA Apollo programme astronauts, many of whom landed on the moon.
An astro-physicist and exo-biologist of huge standing, Carl Sagan was in many ways one of the most influential scientists of the 20th Century. It was he, above all others, through the profoundly inspirational 'Cosmos' series, (the most watched documentary of all time until the 'Civil War'), who popularised science, brought it to the masses, and humbly showed the public you don't have to be a scientist to enjoy and understand science. He was the first to discover the accelerated greenhouse effect on Venus, with its present implications for us on the Earth, and was a staunch opponent of the arms race - poignant indeed as the UK Government orders a new generation of atomic warheads (there are already enough on the earth to produce the effect of all the conventional explosives ignited during World War 2 to be let off every minute during the course of a whole afternoon).
Above all, he showed how through rational scientific thinking, backed up with a sense of skepticism, and the need for verifiable evidence, we can finally reach the truth in whatever field we study and leave the epoch of superstition, economic greed and religious/racial hatred and bigotry behind (more important than ever after 9/11). In so-doing we can avoid the fate of self -destruction caused by the seeming inability of our human passions, intelligence and technology to co-exist.
More details are available at:
http://northeastradio.co.uk/North_East_Radio_Revisited_Miscellaneous_Links_Page.html
and at
http://www.carlsagan.com/.
STARTS....
Bloggers celebrate Carl Sagan's life
Press Release, provided to me by Cornell University via Cosmos Studios:
Fans and bloggers are planning a worldwide blog-a-thon to commemorate the life and legacy of Carl Sagan -- consummate scientist, communicator and educator -- on Dec. 20, the 10th anniversary of his death. Sagan was Cornell's David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences.
The event, organized by New York City fan Joel Schlosberg, encourages bloggers of all stripes to discuss the Cornell astronomer's influence in their lives. Schlosberg plans to compile a meta-blog -- a blog of blogs -- following the event to link Sagan bloggers to one another. Nick Sagan, one of Sagan's sons, supports the effort. "The goal here is to make Dec. 20 a blogosphere-wide celebration of the life and works of Carl Sagan," he wrote. "So if you're a Carl Sagan fan with a blog, or you know someone who is, I hope you'll join in and take some time on that day to share your thoughts, memories, opinions and feelings about my dad. And if you could help spread the word, it would mean a lot to me."Sagan, who was also director of Cornell's Laboratory for Planetary Studies, published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books -- including "The Dragons of Eden" (1977), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978. With his wife, Ann Druyan, he co-produced the movie "Contact," based on his 1985 novel of the same title. "Carl was a candle in the dark," said Yervant Terzian, the David Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and former astronomy department chair, after Sagan's death. "He was, quite simply, the best science educator in the world this century. He touched hundreds of millions of people and inspired young generations to pursue the sciences."Sagan died Dec. 20, 1996, at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle following a two-year battle with a bone marrow disease.
...ENDS
Those of you who are children of the 70s, 80s (and before) will probably remember Carl Sagan from the NASA space programme and his superb US-PBS TV documentary series 'Cosmos' (part-funded by the BBC, and broadcast on BBC-TV in the early 1980s). He was a leading figure in the NASA Mars Viking landers of 1976, the Mariner probes to Venus/Mars etc., and was behind the missions, plaques and disks on the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions to the outer planets (they are now in interstellar space, having left the solar system in the 1980s, and are the furthest man-made objects). He briefed the NASA Apollo programme astronauts, many of whom landed on the moon.
An astro-physicist and exo-biologist of huge standing, Carl Sagan was in many ways one of the most influential scientists of the 20th Century. It was he, above all others, through the profoundly inspirational 'Cosmos' series, (the most watched documentary of all time until the 'Civil War'), who popularised science, brought it to the masses, and humbly showed the public you don't have to be a scientist to enjoy and understand science. He was the first to discover the accelerated greenhouse effect on Venus, with its present implications for us on the Earth, and was a staunch opponent of the arms race - poignant indeed as the UK Government orders a new generation of atomic warheads (there are already enough on the earth to produce the effect of all the conventional explosives ignited during World War 2 to be let off every minute during the course of a whole afternoon).
Above all, he showed how through rational scientific thinking, backed up with a sense of skepticism, and the need for verifiable evidence, we can finally reach the truth in whatever field we study and leave the epoch of superstition, economic greed and religious/racial hatred and bigotry behind (more important than ever after 9/11). In so-doing we can avoid the fate of self -destruction caused by the seeming inability of our human passions, intelligence and technology to co-exist.
More details are available at:
http://northeastradio.co.uk/North_East_Radio_Revisited_Miscellaneous_Links_Page.html
and at
http://www.carlsagan.com/.
