Rebecca from Skepchicks tells us of her new contest ”A Moment of Science for Mister Wizard”:

As you may recall, a few weeks ago we lost Mr. Wizard. To keep his spirit alive, I’d like you all to grab your cameras and record a clip of you doing a science experiment in 5 minutes or less demonstrating some scientific concept. Upload it to YouTube as a video response to mine.

The original deadline was today but there’s been an extension. Lucky you! So hurry up and post your eulogy to Mr. Wizard and you could win a free t-shirt from the Skepchick store as well as some shiny Surly-Ramics jewelry.

So far there are 13 entries which range from making a lemon battery (made by Colin, who is ten, and Ethan, who is eight) to extracting DNA from wheat germ. 

This category was MADE for men like Jonathan Meiburg, Austin Texas band Shearwater‘s front man. For those of you who don’t know, Shearwater produces big landscape driven folk music, akin to Arcade Fire’s lets-all-join-in with-triangles-and-tambourines sound. He’s the only man dubbed a “singer-songwriter-birder” by the New York Times. The only thing that could beat that in my books is if David Attenborough picked up the harmonica and played Beatles covers together with the inimitable and eery duets of Indonesian orangutans.

But what I’m writing to tell you is that just because I missed the band here in Vancouver, doesn’t mean you have to. Why? Because they’re playing for free tomorrow night in Battery Park in NYC. Let me repeat that. They. Are. Playing. For. Free. Tomorrow. In NYC. And it’s bound to be a kickass show. Don’t believe me? Well, believe the NYTimes review instead that raved about their Brooklyn show last year and was especially enamoured with their song White Waves “dedicated to the largest hammerhead shark that was ever caught with a rod and reel.”

Sure, naming your band after a bird (think: A Flock of Seagulls) does not a birder make. But Meiburg is the real mccoy. He spent 2001 in Tierra del Fuego studying the Striated Caracara (ding). And shared his experience with the audience of NPR in the same beautiful prose that peppers his songs (DONGGGggg).

Ear candy via iTunes: White Waves (about aforementioned tragic Hammerhead that was pregnant!)

And their latest album Palo Santo: Expanded Edition features the beautiful and catchy Red Sea, Black Sea. 

Atul Gawande, poetic wunderkind Harvard doctor, just gave a lecture at Imperial College about how medicine can improve patients’ lot and you can watch his performance here or even download it if you wish.

For those in the dark, let me fill you in. Gawande is surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was also the editor of The Best American Science Writing 2006. Why him? Because he’s a remarkably gifted writer. Witness his second book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, that came out this spring.

Take for example this recent New Yorker article of his about endangered geriatricians, ”The Way We Age Now.”

To follow up on your nascent fandom of this gentleman, check out the aptly named NYTimes slide show about him ”In Good Hands.” Ahh those steady sensitive hands. That steely gaze. A week from now you won’t even remember who McDreamy is on that show Whosy-whatsit’s Anatomy.