Supercourse Newsletter, March 29 2004
-------------------------------------
http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom�
We had thought that the pace of lecture acquisition might slow
down as there are just so many lectures on prevention. However,
we are still accelerating like a 2004 Lamborghini. On Jan. 1 we
had 1,611 lectures, on March 28 we have 1,754, an enormous gain
of 143. If this pace continues then this year we will have ac-
quired 575 lectures, for a total of 2,186. Incredible... It can
only get bigger as the BMJ has agreed to provide to us all of
their lectures as well.
BMJ:
In April the BMJ will do a short piece on the Supercourse. If
they liked us, then tell people about it. If they did not like
us... then unsubscribe (only kidding)
Epidemiology of Grants and Disasters:
I am teaching a class on Grants and Disasters (this is appropri-
ate as often writing grants is a disaster!!). Eric Noji was
scheduled to speak last week, but I got the day screwed up. I
had the opportunity to present using his lecture on earthquakes.
It turned out to be considerable fun to teaching about something
one knows nothing about. They even laughed at my jokes. If you
have a chance, try using a Supercourse lecture in an area dis-
tant from you. We are also trying something new this year. Ali
Ardlam is a student at the school of Public Health in Tehren. He
will be sending a PowerPoint lecture to us on the Bam Earth-
quake, and then we will call him, and he will give the lecture
from Tehren using the slides transferred to us in Pittsburgh. It
is kind of a neat way to get a guest speaker for a small amount
of money.
What a Man�Gil Omenn
Gil Omenn visited Pittsburgh last week. We all in prevention
must be proud of him. He is now the president of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He is an expert in
genetics/prevention. He competed for the position with a Physi-
cist who received a Nobel prize, and he won. Thank you all for
voting for him. He presented a wonderful lecture on the future
of public health and prevention. Eugene just put the lecture up
on the web. We were discussing with him how the Supercourse
could collaborate with AAAS. Gill suggested that we apply to
present at the next meeting, which we will. It would be great if
as many of you as can could come to the meeting. We very much
want to work with AAAS to establish a Supercourse of Science.
Tornados and Disasters
Eugene just told us that we have 93 lectures on disasters. The
Supercourse is thus the disaster capital of the world. We are
preparing for a tornado next. I have borrowed a wonderful lec-
ture by Randell Schindler and modified it so that it is small
and can be distributed to many different schools. We also have a
stockpile of tornado lectures with 8 collected in total. We have
leaders in meteorology who have helped us. We are ready... We are
talking with various educational agencies to see how we can push
this lecture down into the schools of the US so that should a
major tornado takes place they can present a very scientifically
sound lecture to the students. Once we get the mechanics of this
worked out, then we will make the approach available world wide.
Thus should an earthquake occur in China, the lecture can be
translated in a day, and continuously updated. Earthquake,
flood, hurricane, typhoon, tornado education can reduce fear and
save lives. We want to move slowly and figure how to evaluate
the approach, but we have the pieces in place. If you would like
to join and contribute your thoughts to our disaster effort, we
would be very honoured.
The squirrels are out running our yard, and the deer are having
most fun as spring is just about here.
Best Regards from Pittsburgh,
Ron, Faina, Mita, Eugene, Soni, Akira, Tomoko, Ali, EunRyoung,
Rania, Eric, Abed, Francois, Gil
mailto:super1+@pitt.edu