Science
drorzel | November 26, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Sixth in this round is an "adult-onset engineer" working at NASA on some cool stuff.
1) What is your non-academic job? I am a thermal engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, working in the Cryogenic Systems Engineering group. Our group provides thermal engineering support (both cryogenic…
drorzel | November 26, 2014The Pip's current phrase of choice is "How do you build...?" We get asked this several times a day.
"Daddy, how do you build a glass?"
"Well, you get the right kind of sand, and you get it really hot, so hot it melts. Then you make it into the shape of a glass, and let it cool down. Then it's a glass."
----
"Daddy, how do you build a building like that one?"
"Well, you get a bunch of bricks, and stack them up to make the building you want."
"How do you build a brick?"
"Well, you get a bunch of the right kind of mud, and mix it all together. Then you make it into a rectangle, and get it really…
oracknows | November 26, 2014
I don't think I mentioned this, but I'm on a bit of a staycation this week. I figured, what the heck? After coming home from Skepticon I could do with a little R&R. Of course, fool that I am, I still can't resist blogging a bit. On the other hand, the day before Thanksgiving I realize I should dial it back a bit and keep it brief. Everyone in the US (which, sorry, international readers, still make up the vast majority of my readers) is generally busy getting ready and might not have time for checking in with their favorite blogs, particularly blogs of bloggers known for their logorrhea…
oracknows | November 25, 2014
I realize that I risk getting repetitive by writing about this again, but it's a rich vein that just keeps on producing and producing. It also demonstrates that, for every tragedy as huge as the ongoing Ebola outbreak that has killed over 5,000 people in West Africa thus far, there always exist well-meaning people who are into such utter quackery that they can't help but risk making things worse. In my talk at Skepticon on Saturday I discussed how The Secret's Law of Attraction is, to my mind, the Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine, the idea that, if you want something bad enough and…
drorzel | November 25, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Fifth in this round is a bio major who now works on sustainably managing Atlantic coastal fisheries.
1) What is your non-academic job? Fishery Management Plan Coordinator at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (management agency for fisheries)
2) What is your science background…
drorzel | November 24, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Fourth in this round is a Union alumn (another nice bonus of this is getting to promote some of my college's former students...) who prefers to remain anonymous, but is a computer engineer turned web developer for a public relations firm.
1) What is your non-academic job? I'm a web…
drorzel | November 21, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Third in this round is a physics teacher turned developer of physics education technology at Vernier.
1) What is your non-academic job? Title: Physics Education Technology Specialist
Dept: Tech Support and R&D
Responsibilities:
Support teachers using Vernier sensors, interfaces, and…
drorzel | November 20, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
Second in this round is a computer scientist turned underwater warrior. With bonus video!
1) What is your non-academic job? I am a computer scientist at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, RI. I work in the Ranges Department as a part of the Range Software branch. That means I…
drorzel | November 20, 2014That's "Science Online" as in the conference that folded, not "science, online" as in the practice of trying to understand the universe from in front of a networked computer. Specifically, I'm posting about David Zaslavsky's call for help in putting together a replacement meeting. There was a lot of talk about this right when Science Online went under, but that's pretty much died down, at least in public. David's trying to get something more active going.
This is, of course, a massive undertaking, and something fraught with peril. And it's not like I have any free time to make really…
drorzel | November 19, 2014I've decided to do a new round of profiles in the Project for Non-Academic Science (acronym deliberately chosen to coincide with a journal), as a way of getting a little more information out there to students studying in STEM fields who will likely end up with jobs off the "standard" academic science track.
First up in this round is a CS major turned IP lawyer.
1) What is your non-academic job? I am an intellectual property attorney. I work for a "boutique" law firm, which means it specializes in one area of law (that being intellectual property, naturally). I work on all areas of IP,…
drorzel | November 19, 2014Back in August, I gave a talk in Stockholm at the Nordita workshop for science writers, about precision measurement searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. There's now video of this online:
The video quality isn't great, but if you'd like a clearer look at the slides, I've posted them on SlideShare. The talk was divided into two parts, though the video is not:
Part 1:
High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (Part I) from Chad Orzel
Part 2:
High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (…
drorzel | November 18, 2014I've been doing a lot of darkness-cursing lately (mostly off-line), so we could stand to have a little candle-lighting. It's been a few years since I last did a round of profiles of scientists outside academia, so let's see if that will fly again...
So, if you 1) Have a degree in a STEM field (BA/BS, MA/MS, Ph.D., whatever), 2) Have a career that doesn't involve people calling you "Professor," and 3) Are willing to share answers to a few simple questions about how you got there and how your science background helps, drop me a line. You can leave a comment here, email me (orzelc at steelypips…
oracknows | November 18, 2014
I figured that yesterday’s post about the First Nations girl in Ontario with lymphoblastic leukemia whose parents stopped her chemotherapy in favor of “traditional” medicine would stir up a bit of controversy, and so it did, albeit much more at my not-so-super-secret other blog, which featured an expanded version of this post. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. It was expanded in order to have a more in-depth discussion of the quack in Florida who’s treating this girl, something I’ve already discussed here and could just link to. Efficiency!
Before I launch into this, let me make one…
oracknows | November 17, 2014A few weeks ago, Steve Novella invited me on his podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, to discuss a cancer case that has been in the news for several months now. The case was about an 11-year-old girl with leukemia who is a member of Canada’s largest aboriginal community. Steve wrote about this case nearly a month ago. Basically, the girl’s parents have been fighting for the right to use “natural healing” on their daughter after they stopped her chemotherapy in August because of side effects. It is a profoundly disturbing case, just as all the other cases I’ve discussed in which…
drorzel | November 17, 2014The first time you hear about dark matter, it sounds kind of crazy-- asserting that we're surrounded by tons of invisible stuff is usually a good way to get locked up. But the process of its discovery is surprisingly ordinary: it's just what you do when you play cards.
Here's the second green-screen video I've done to promote Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, which comes out three weeks from tomorrow (but can be pre-ordered today!). This one is about card games, modern astrophysics, and why you probbaly shouldn't play bridge against Vera Rubin:
For those who dislike video, I'll put…
drorzel | November 16, 2014I've been quieter than usual here, partly because I've been crushingly busy, but primarily because most of the things I want to talk about, I can't. Not yet, anyway. But I'm still alive, and this murderous term will be over soon, at which point blogging will pick up a bit.
I will throw in a quick teaser for something coming up in the future, though, by way of a thank-you to the folks at Schaffer Library who let me take some photos of the rare books collection:
An 1845 edition of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," published anonymously but now known to be the work od Robert…
oracknows | November 13, 2014
Of the many lies and myths about vaccines that stubbornly persist despite all evidence showing them not only to be untrue but to be risibly, pseudoscientifically untrue, among whose number are myths that vaccines cause autism, sudden infant death syndrome, and a syndrome that so resembles shaken baby syndrome (more correctly called abusive head trauma) that shaken baby syndrome is a misdiagnosis for vaccine injury, the lie that vaccines are being used for population control is one of the most persistent. In this myth, vaccines are not designed to protect the populations of impoverished…
illconsidered | November 12, 2014Dear Readers,
Find below an interesting press release I may as well share verbatim:
The rapidly melting ice sheets on the coast of West Antarctica are a potential major contributor to rising ocean levels worldwide. Although warm water near the coast is thought to be the main factor causing the ice to melt, the process by which this water ends up near the cold continent is not well understood.
Using robotic ocean gliders, Caltech researchers have now found that swirling ocean eddies, similar to atmospheric storms, play an important role in transporting these warm waters to the Antarctic coast—…
oracknows | November 11, 2014
Sigh.
Just a week ago, I deconstructed an awful article touting how the mass of prescientific quackery known as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as somehow being “validated” by modern science. Specifically, some truly misguided scientists were attempting to use modern systems biology techniques to look for biomarkers associated with TCM diagnoses such as “hot” or “cold” syndromes, specifically with respect to rheumatoid arthritis. The article is an example of just how the false narrative of TCM has taken hold. Although the article acknowledged that there was little evidence to support…
drorzel | November 10, 2014My new book comes out one month from yesterday, or four weeks from tomorrow. Of course, yesterday was Sunday, and tomorrow's a federal holiday, both lousy times for promotional posts, so I'll drop this in today instead. Here's a promotional video I put together, about how the history of quantum mechanics can be compared to working a crossword puzzle:
This is basically the talk I gave at TED@NYC last year, done in front of a green screen with slides edited in behind me for that An Inconvenient Truth vibe (Nobel committee, take note...). With some bonus cute kid photos and an explicit…