Science Culture
sporte | July 11, 2009One of my all time favorite books is South: The Last Antarctic Expedition of Shackleton and the Endurance (The Explorers Club Classic) . It's an amazing adventure and an incredible story. It's a comfort to know that any challenges I face will be easier than those conquered by Shackleton.
Luckily, traveling to Antarctica these days is far less hazardous. And we're glad of that because we'd really to send one of our favorite bloggers there as our surrogate eyes and ears.
We're also glad because the we won't have to worry about her getting eaten by polar bears.
Help send Grrl to the far south,…
greengabbro | April 1, 2009Update, April 2: I hope you all had a wonderful April Fools Day, unmarred by water shortages, supervolcanoes, and threats to your world view. This was a fake, but I should have a real job announcement to make soon - and it won't involve any quack apologetics.
After months of searching in a desperate economy, I am incredibly relieved to have been offered a permanent position. Not just relieved, but tremendously excited - I've managed to find an incredibly exciting, challenging, and meaningful job. As of today, I am the newest adjunct fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and…
hrynyshyn | March 29, 2009So Battlestar Galactica is over. Again.
It is unlikely that many a fan of science fiction, or intelligent story-telling of any genre, over the age of 11 mourned the end of the original series. But the resurrected version that drew its final breath a week ago was transcendent television, by any measure. Those unfamiliar with the program should read no further. Bookmark this post, rent the DVDs and return when you're done.
After four years of ambiguous exploration of the battle between science and faith, the writers chose to end on a decidedly spiritual note. Starbuck is an angel. Boomer and…
sb admin | March 25, 2009The question of whether or not I am a geologist is not just an amusing exercise in academic politics. In Washington, as in most U.S. states, geology is a regulated profession; guidelines for who can and cannot call themselves a geologist in a professional context are laid out in the administrative code and enforced by the Geologist Licensing Board.
I am not a geologist, nor will I become one any time soon. To comply with Washington law, I would need to complete coursework in the core subjects of geology (as specified in WAC 308-15-040: structural geology, mineralogy, petrology and sedimentary…
greengabbro | March 25, 2009The question of whether or not I am a geologist is not just an amusing exercise in academic politics. In Washington, as in most U.S. states, geology is a regulated profession; guidelines for who can and cannot call themselves a geologist in a professional context are laid out in the administrative code and enforced by the Geologist Licensing Board.
I am not a geologist, nor will I become one any time soon. To comply with Washington law, I would need to complete coursework in the core subjects of geology (as specified in WAC 308-15-040: structural geology, mineralogy, petrology and sedimentary…
greengabbro | March 24, 2009Or, less generally, am I a geologist?
I have a B.S. in geophysics and an M.S. in earth and planetary science with a funky geophysics/geohydrology emphasis. I took some intro physical geology and earth history as a sophomore, but I have never taken formal courses in mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, sedimentology, or stratigraphy. However, I've picked up the basics of these fields from older kids on the street corner and make use of them in my work.
Please assume while you are answering the poll that my work involves using my knowledge of the Earth's history, processes, and…
sb admin | March 19, 2009On Monday, airline passengers were the first to observe the eruption of the just-barely-above-the-water volcano that forms the islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai, in Tonga. Three days later, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred on the Tonga trench.
Was the timing of these two events just coincidence?
Yes.
Why do I think the events were unrelated? Well:
Earthquakes happen all the time. Thankfully for Tongan residents, I am using a geological definition of "time" here, but still: A major earthquake on a major plate boundary does not require any special explanation.
The earthquake was a…
greengabbro | March 19, 2009My job, for most of the past six weeks, has been to align cryptic old maps with existing digital data, so that points labeled in small, blurry fonts can be entered into a database. I am not going to show actual screenshots of my work - even if I gave away no useful information to the opposing legal team, it would be bad luck - but here is an artist's impression:
Extracting information from this pathetic excuse for a usable map is, in fact, a learned skill. I only realized this a couple of weeks ago, when I sat down with the company's graphic designer to show her how to do what I was doing.…
greengabbro | February 19, 2009 Following the Royal Mail's release of some lovely new Darwin stamps, a few of us got to Twittering over lunch yesterday about the lack of geologists on this year's release of American scientist stamps.
(What's that? You have no idea what Twittering is? It's a stupid Web Eleventy-Point-Oh jibber-jabber service, pay no attention. If you are an Eleventy-Point-Oh sort of person, though, perhaps you should be following me.)
Googling around a bit for existing stamps that feature earth scientists, I found the pickings to be surprisingly slim. Alfred Wegener has been on stamps issued by both East…
greengabbro | January 27, 2009One of my New Year's blogolutions was to clear out my to-blog folder, and bring closure to my unfinished drafts by simply posting them as-is. This is one of those drafts. Disorganized paragraphs, unfinished sentences, and general incoherence enhance the natural character and beauty of a half-written blog post and should not be considered flaws or defects.
Draft date: April 18, 2008
There's a related discussion happening now at All of My Faults Are Stress-Related.
So far, the part of scientific paper-writing I hate the most - I mean, apart from all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over…
hrynyshyn | January 19, 2009This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending ScienceOnline '09, a conference-meetup-lovefest of about 200 scientists, journalists and bloggers. There I learned much about what we should and should not be doing in the blogosphere, and astute readers may notice some small changes on the Island of Doubt as a result. Nothing major, just refinements to my particular approach to this still-fledgling communications tool.
More importantly, though, I got acquainted and reacquainted with a few folks behind some blogs that I feel are worthy of your attention. I'll get around to updating my long-…
sporte | January 4, 2009My oldest daughter's favorite sweatshirt is one from the Seattle Children's Theatre Drama School, with the motto, "What's your motivation?"
I was reminded of motivation the other day, as I talked about projects with the DIY biology group. It's pretty clear that you can't pick a project without knowing whether you're motivated by the discovery or the application.
Many of the people I've known in academia, either researchers or science educators, are motivated by the prospect of discovery. They either want to discover something new or help their students make discoveries. Inquiry-based…
sporte | November 9, 2008Brian Switek, from Laelaps, could probably tell you.
And, if you vote for him in the 3rd Annual College Blogger Scholarship competition, he just might.
He'll tell you why should you vote for him, too, and I agree.
And below the fold, is an inspirational cartoon.
From xkcd.
sporte | October 6, 2008Okay, watching some of the other movies makes me realize that I've been very negligent in not uploading ours.
Without further ado, here it is.
Can you guess the age of the person who made the movie? I'll give you a hint. It wasn't me.
sporte | September 29, 2008Calling all scientists and science-fans: you can help with science education by letting students know you're interested. How? Go and comment on classroom blogs and wikis.
I've been gradually collecting some blogs from different classes and I've even had some brave volunteers offer theirs for review.
So here goes:
www.missbakersbiologyclass.com/blog
Ms. Hoffman's AP class blog
Tomorrow's table from Pamela Ronald. This is going to be used for two months by students in a Genetics and Society class.
Biology in Action
Evolution and Diversity (Biol 124) at http://darwinslegacy.blogspot.com…
sporte | September 28, 2008Ozzie's will never be the same.
The sun shone so brightly yesterday afternoon that it left us with no choice. We had to go outdoors. Luckily, Ozzie's has a wonderful upper deck in full view of the daylight and well-equipped with chairs.
Photo footage below.
The scene of the crime.
Where do we hang the banner?
Bloggers and readers enjoy the Seattle sun.
Dave confesses some uncertainty about the fate of Schrodinger's cat.
That's all for now!
But our readers say they want to do this more often!
UPDATE: GrrlScientist has more pictures here.
sporte | September 19, 2008Every now and then, people hire me to travel places and give workshops for college instructors and teachers on using bioinformatics. In a couple of weeks, I'll go to Long Branch, NJ. This week, I went to Corpus Christi, Texas and gave two workshops at Del Mar College; one on using Cn3D to understand protein DNA structure, and another on using BLAST to identify the source of unknown DNA sequences.
Del Mar College has a beautiful science facility, with an amazing assortment of fancy high tech equipment. The workshops were fun and I enjoyed seeing the student posters showcasing work on the…
sporte | August 26, 2008Last night we went to a pub to hear about some new technology for diagnostic testing. A wonderful speaker, Karen Hedine from Micronics came and told us about the work that her company is doing. She brought along a demonstration machine and passed the machine and several plastic test chambers around the pub so we could all take a look.
The technology, microfluidics, is fascinating stuff. I've written about it a little before( "From Louis Pasteur to "Lab on a chip"").
A biological sample (blood, poop, urine, saliva, a vaginal smear) is drawn into the card. Molecules move into the card via…
sporte | August 11, 2008The first lab mouse I touched had soft white fur and a light pink tail. It looked cute enough to snuggle and take home as a pet and I was smitten. I slipped my hand into the cage, thinking the mouse would respond like my pet gerbils or my brother's pet rat. As my hand closed around its belly, that sweet little mouse sunk its teeth deep in my thumb. I screamed and shook my hand, smashing the mouse on the cement floor and killing it in an instant.
It's been many years now since I've been doing anything with mice or rats. There's much more oversight these days, as DrugMonkey has been…
greengabbro | July 14, 2008Before I give you my review of Randy Olson's new mockumentary about the global warming debate, I'd like to apologize for being such a terrible liberal documentary-goer. I haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth, or Olson's previous movie, Flock of Dodos, or any of Michael Moore's work since "TV Nation". I keep meaning to, and then I forget, or I decide that I'd rather use those two hours of my life for an escapist Pixar fantasy or save the $9 for beer. I am totally going to fail at providing a compare'n'contrast with the relevant touchstones of the genre that will assist you in deciding whether or…