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The snaps, crackles and pops of auralization of data--turning data points into sound--begin episode 91 of the Beauty Salon. Ian, Cheryl and Cate consider the use of auralization and the mixing of information and aesthetics to understand the relationships emerging from raw data. In Decoding Rhode Island, Ian sits down with Dr. Alan Rothman of URI’s Institute for Immunology and Informatics (iCubed) about immunology, infectious disease, big data and the rather terrifying rise of mosquito-borne dengue fever.

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The sound of flowing water after a heavy rain begins episode 90 of the Beauty Salon. Cheryl, Ian and Cate reflect on floods, water and the way they shape the landscape of the Ocean State. How will we deal with the changes in the natural world as global warming and sea level rise force the traditional settlements of our coast to evolve in response? On the micro-level, is your fall leaf-raking resulting in quieter, less lively spring evenings? In Decoding Rhode Island, Dawn interviews Professor Tracey Dalton of the URI Department of Marine Affairs about the aesthetics of the Rhode Island coastline.

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We begin with the sounds of a party in the woods, which sparks a conversation about the ways we use our geological spaces across time--for parties, for music and for life. We also change our spaces both on the surfaces and throughout the ecology. These changes in ecology, movements of money and travel, and the effects on human life are the subject of this week’s Decoding Rhode Island with Marta Gomez-Chiarri, professor and chairperson of the Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences at URI who studies the effects of ecological change on fish populations, particularly disease.

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Decoding Rhode Island interviewee Mike Hallock and the Rhode Island Mushroom Company were recently featured on the excellent Rhode Island PBS series Harvesting Rhode Island. See how Mike’s mushroom fits into the larger farm to table movement here in the Ocean State.

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This week on the Beauty Salon, we begin with the sound of our Decoding Rhode Island interviewee Mike Hallock’s band “Trails.” But Mike isn’t here to talk music--he’s here to talk mushrooms in his capacity as co-owner of the Rhode Island Mushroom Company. In this episode, Cheryl, Ian, Dawn and Cate explore cooking, eating and fearing fungus.

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Natural cooperation: forests, fire and fungi

Tales of evolutionary struggles to survive often sound brutal--the bigger, stronger and faster living organisms dominating the smaller, weaker and slower. Recent paradigm shifts in the way we view and think about ecosystems, however, are beginning to challenge the understanding of nature as a war of all against all. Researchers are increasingly interested in viewing ecosystems as cooperative spaces where the very small and the very large work together in order to make the whole environment healthier and more able to survive and thrive as one.

Consider the humble fungus and the douglas fir. In the Nature episode “What Plants Talk About,” professor of forest ecology Dr. Suzanne Simard explains that families of trees and the fungi underneath have a symbiotic--cooperative--relationship. The trees provide a vast underground network of fungi with carbon-based sugar, while the fungi break down dead matter like leaves and branches into food for the trees. Dr. Simard likens it to a good trade between the organisms. The fungus may also connect trees throughout the forest across long distances. In the event of a wildfire, trees draw moisture to their cores, allowing extended branches to burn but protecting the crucial trunk. Here’s the mystery. Trees miles away from the fire itself were ALSO showing the same behavior. How did the trees so far away know about the fire?

One answer may be that the miles-long mass of underground fungi connecting these trees to one another is acting like a communication network, sending chemical signals from the trees near the fire to those further away like an early warning system. Together, the family of trees and their fungi neighbors protect and sustain one another. Thus, the rainforests of British Columbia look less like a battlefield, and more like a shared home.

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In our extended interview with Dean Ray Wright of the URI College of Engineering about Ballot Question Four: A Rhode Island state bond issue to build new facilities for the College of Engineering and the history of engineering in general and specifically at the University of Rhode Island

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Yes on 4

One of the questions Rhode Island voters will find on the ballot this Tuesday is Ballot Initiative Four. The text of the initiative is as follows:

HIGHER EDUCATION FACILITIES BONDS $125,000,000(Chapter 145 - Public Laws 2014)

Approval of this question will allow the State of Rhode Island to issue general obligation bonds, refunding bonds, and temporary notes in an amount not to exceed one hundred twenty-five million dollars ($125,000,000) to construct a new College of Engineering building and undertake supporting renovation. The new building will anchor the northwest corner of the Engineering Quadrangle on the Kingston Campus and provide contemporary and state-of-the-art instructional and research facilities. As part of this project, outdated engineering buildings will be taken out of service and razed.

This week we talked with Prof. Raymond Wright, Dean of Engineering at the University of Rhode Island about why the ballot measure matters to the College of Engineering, and what new facilities would offer. 

You can find the University of Rhode Island's explanation of the proposed plan as part of its campaign "Engineering Rhode Island's Future." Also, you can find out more information about the ballot measure, its supporters and opponents at Ballotpedia. 

Finally, to find your official polling place and make your vote, visit the State of Rhode Island's Voter Information Center

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Every Monday at 12:30pm on 90.3 WRIU, Kingston, RI, make an appointment with the Beauty Salon. The Beauty Salon is a weekly, half-hour look at everyday aesthetics in and around Rhode Island, with hosts Karen De Bruin, Ian Reyes and Cheryl Foster. For more about our hosts and production staff, visit our “about us" page. Missed an appointment? Peruse our archive of past shows to stream episodes on your computer and subscribe to our podcast to download shows and listen to extended interviews. Check in with us throughout the week here, on twitter, on facebook, on rebelmouse or email us at beautysalonURI<AT> gmail.com. Unless otherwise indicated, all digital content is authored by media maven Cate Morrison and the views expressed do not reflect the views of WRIU or the University of Rhode Island.

The Beauty Salon by www.beautysalonURI.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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Providence Perfume Company

We talked with Charna Ethier today on the Beauty Salon about her experience as a perfume maker. You can find out more about Charna's creations at Providence Perfume Company, or drop in the store at 301 Wickenden Street, Providence. And if you've got a second, check out Charna's fascinating explanation of the difference between the way we smell natural and artificial perfumes on her blog.

(image via ProvidencePerfume.com)

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This week on the Beauty Salon, we begin with the sound of agitating the wort--homebrewed beer being stirred. Karen, Cheryl, Ian and Cate talk smell, taste, aging and and the slightly frightening prospect of ingesting fermented things. From making beer and eating rotting food, we turn to the far more pleasant topic of making perfume. In Decoding Rhode Island, Karen talks with Charna Ethier of Providence Perfume Company about the art and technique of making organically-based scents that capture not just things, but places, times and moods.

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We begin today with a mystery sound--that we can’t even identify! Cheryl, Ian and Cate all give it their best guess, but we welcome you to try and guess for yourself. The discussion winds its way to what we save and why, bringing us to the topic of keeping, repurposing and restoring things around us. In Decoding Rhode Island, Cheryl interviews Chris Hart, the Good Karma Carpenter, about creating new things from old things, the history of Rhode Island homes, and his philosophy of carpentry.

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You look like you could use some dog in your life. Here are great pictures of Dr. Kathe Jaret and her psychological assistant Schooner! Dr. Jaret is a licensed psychologist practicing in Wakefield, RI. You can contact Dr. Jaret's office at (401) 789-8244

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We begin this weeks episode with a commentary by Captain Lou Albano, the dog. Lou’s yodelling takes Ian, Cheryl, Karen and Cate to the subject of throat-singing and back again to the connections between dogs and people. In Decoding Rhode Island, Cheryl and Cate sit down with psychologist Dr. Kathe Jarret to talk about therapy, mental health and Dr. Jarret’s dog Schooner, who comes to work with her.

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Bob Dilworth Designs

We talked this week with Bob Dilworth, Professor of Art at the University of Rhode Island. He is currently showing "Revisited, Reframed, and Reconstructed" in the URI Fine Arts Center gallery. Below, an interview with Bob about his work, and some examples of his art:

(via BobDilworth.com)

(via BobDilworth.com)

(via BobDilworth.com)

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How do we use our tools, and when do we change things up? Beginning with a strange sound from a refrigerator, this week on the Beauty Salon, Ian, Cheryl and Karen discuss the tools they have used throughout their lives, from early frightening encounters with industrial meat slicers to current loves of colored pens. In Decoding Rhode Island, Cheryl and Ian talk with URI Professor of Art Bob Dilworth about his shift from traditional painting to mixed-media composition.

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Modern science and the gentleman's word

Monday on the Beauty Salon we discussed etiquette, manners and decorum. Roughly, decorum is the general expectation that a person will observe and follow the informal rules of behavior in a given place. Manners are the proper practice of these particular behaviors in different settings. Etiquette is the art of understanding and interpreting both the rules and behaviors and of being able to decide the most appropriate course when faced with uncertainty or clashing sets of expectations. Think of it this way: a sense of decorum is a will to do right by others, good manners are the practice of this will, and etiquette is the art of figuring out, when we don't know or come into conflict, the way that does the most right by everyone involved. It's interpersonal diplomacy.

In A Social History of Truth, Steven Shapin (Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University) investigates the role of decorum--that will to do right by others--in shaping the search for truth in science. Essentially, the practice of modern science has been deeply influenced by the British Royal Society, whose ranks were made of aristocratic gentlemen who practiced science as a leisure activity. Proper decorum would dictate, then, that one seek to do right by and thus meet the expectations of gentlefolk. From the will to meet aristocratic expectations of behavior arose a set of manners, proper practices that respected the standing and word of others. To resolve conflict or ease uncertainty, there develops an etiquette of scientific practice and communication that emphasizes not truth in a bare sense but maximal respect for the participants in discussion.

My brief summary doesn't really do justice to Shapin's full argument, so rather than painfully rehash a complicated position, let's investigate a single passage. First, the selection in full, then a few comments:

To value truth above good manners was not decorous; it was to disrupt civil conversation; it was the mark of the pedant. In 1669 the Belgian mathematician Rene Francois de Sluse wrote to Oldenburg about a geometrical quarrel between Fermat and James Gregory. He hoped that their dispute would keep within civil bounds: 'For in my opinion learning is not so great a thing that one should be forgetful of good manners on its account.' Gentlemanly conversation worked with and enshrined a conception of truth as adequate to the practical task. And that task was the continuance of the conversation itself. Insofar as the English experimental community had relocated gentlemanly codes into the practice of natural philosophy, that conception of conversation was available for the practices by which adequate truth was itself recognised and produced.

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Lowered expectations of philosophical accuracy, a more reserved way of speaking, a less passionate attempt to claim exact truth for one's claims were justified on explicitly epistemic as well as explicitly moral grounds. It might be reality itself which demanded a more decorous and reserved way of speaking about it. The world might be such a storehouse of experiences which sustained as competent and sincere a range of differing accounts that practitioners offered of it" (Shapin, A Social History of Truth,  308-309).

As "natural philosophy" became increasingly practiced by gentlefolk, the social environment and expectations changed. Codes of behavior were no longer set by academics but by aristocrats--and that behavior and its practice (its manners) were all geared toward giving maximal respect to all participants. Did my experiment not replicate your results? Must be a difference of air, or a mistake on the part of my servant. Are my results theoretically impossible? The world is too vast to be described by any one theory. Very interesting nonetheless, thank you! As Shapin says, this posture of flexibility, that allowed for all to be right and respected, was not just moral (doing right) but also epistemic (being right, as in true). The truth of the world, in other words, was that it could never be entirely captured by a single theory, observation or experiment. So long as the subject was open to different possibilities, it was worth discussing. But debate it? No! Debates end, decisions are rendered. For the gentlefolk of the Royal Society, demanding a decision was tantamount to taking your ball and going home: bad sportsmanship. Not just unsporting and bad mannered, it was false. Perfect clock-worlds and logical structures are for nerds, geeks, pedants, bores and God-botherers. The real world can be seen in pieces of experience but never as a whole. Imagine the following conversation:

I'm right, you're right and we should definitely do this again next week. Sir Harry has evidence of ghosts. I've read the paper and it is fascinating. Poor Reginald will hate it, but it's his fault for being a Vulcanist. Fire, really? Anyway, we can discuss the aether next week. Love to Chrysanthemum and the Baroness.