Real Women Talk About Their Careers in Science

in Biology, Education, Science | June 14th, 2013

A year ago the Euro­pean Union launched a cam­paign to attract more young women into the sci­en­tif­ic pro­fes­sions. In Europe, women lag behind men in sci­ence and engi­neer­ing, mak­ing up only a third of sci­ence researchers. But the video the EU made was laugh­able.

You may recall. It was called, Sci­ence: It’s a Girl Thing! and fea­tured three young fash­ion­istas parad­ing around in high heels while a male sci­en­tist peers quizzi­cal­ly at them over his micro­scope.

Along comes sci­ence jour­nal­ist Ker­stin Hop­pen­haus to set the record straight. Hoppenhaus’s new series for the Ger­man sci­ence site SciLogs is called Sig­nif­i­cant Details: Con­ver­sa­tions with Women in Sci­ence. The inter­views are fresh, infor­ma­tive, and acces­si­ble.

It’s inspir­ing to see such a range of women explain their research and walk us through their process for doing it.

A recent inter­view fea­tured Dr. Kris­ten Pan­fil­io (above), an Amer­i­can biol­o­gist on fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cologne. Panfilio’s work focus­es on insect extraem­bry­on­ic devel­op­ment, which means she stud­ies how insect tis­sues devel­op into the bug’s ulti­mate shape by com­par­ing the process in two insects: the milk­weed bug and the red flour bee­tle.

Each con­ver­sa­tion begins with a “sig­nif­i­cant detail” of the woman’s work. With the wry humor and pre­ci­sion of a true sci­en­tist, Pan­fil­io demon­strates how she pre­pares her favorite tool, a glass stick, by soft­en­ing the end with a cig­a­rette lighter.

Panfilio’s spe­cif­ic field is evo­lu­tion­ary devel­op­men­tal genet­ics. Along with her lab assis­tants she stud­ies how embry­on­ic cells know what role they should play in form­ing a spe­cif­ic organ­ism shape. How does a bone cell know it’s a bone cell?

The inter­view is about as much like Sci­ence: It’s a Girl Thing! as Meryl Streep is like Lind­say Lohan. This is a real per­son talk­ing about how she has built her career (she want­ed to be an artist when she was a teenag­er and stud­ied ancient Chi­nese his­to­ry at a small lib­er­al arts col­lege) and explain­ing her high­ly spe­cial­ized work.

She also touch­es on one of the most won­der­ful things about sci­en­tif­ic research: Some of the most excit­ing moments are when the results don’t align at all with expec­ta­tions.

Best of all, it’s just one of the won­der­ful inter­views in Hoppenhaus’s series.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

MAKERS Tells the Sto­ry of 50 Years of Progress for Women in the U.S.

No Women Need Apply: A Dis­heart­en­ing 1938 Rejec­tion Let­ter from Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix and vis­it her web­site to learn more.

 

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Building Statues for Nikola Tesla and Bob Dylan: Two Kickstarter Campaigns

in Art, Music, Science | June 6th, 2013

In the mat­ter of a month, a group called North­ern Imag­i­na­tion raised $127,000 on Kick­starter, the amount need­ed to fund the build­ing of a stat­ue ded­i­cat­ed to the inven­tor Niko­la Tes­la in Sil­i­con Val­ley. It’s a way of pay­ing trib­ute to “the per­son who used his bril­liance to advance soci­ety” by mak­ing “hun­dreds of sig­nif­i­cant and ground­break­ing inven­tions in areas of wire­less ener­gy, wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mag­net­ism, radio, x‑rays, cos­mic rays, radar, robot­ics, engine-pow­ered air­craft and much more.” As cur­rent­ly planned, the stat­ue will sit on Cal­i­for­nia Ave in Palo Alto (right in my neck of the woods). Nat­u­ral­ly, it will host a free Wi-Fi hotspot and also a time cap­sule to be opened on Jan 7, 2043.

Mean­while, halfway across the coun­try, the “Dylan by Duluth” cam­paign is hop­ing to raise $159,000 (again on Kick­starter) to build a stat­ue hon­or­ing Duluth’s favorite son, the trou­ba­dour Bob Dylan. Once com­plete, the bronze stat­ue will stand approx­i­mate­ly 12 feet 6 inch­es tall and hope­ful­ly sit some­where near High­way 61. Three days in, the still-very-young cam­paign has received $5,089 from 40 back­ers. You can help make the Dylan mon­u­ment a real­i­ty right here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Magi­cian Mar­co Tem­pest Daz­zles a TED Audi­ence with “The Elec­tric Rise and Fall of Niko­la Tes­la”

Bob Dylan and Van Mor­ri­son Sing Togeth­er in Athens, on His­toric Hill Over­look­ing the Acrop­o­lis

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

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Buzz Aldrin and Thomas Dolby Geek Out and Sing “She Blinded Me With Science”

in Comedy, Music, Science | June 6th, 2013

Buzz Aldrin is maybe the coolest ex-astro­naut alive, with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of Sto­ry Mus­grave. Both of these guys are forg­ing ahead with life at the age when less­er humans pack it in. At 77, Mus­grave has a five-year-old son and plans to go back into space soon (as a tourist); 83-year-old Aldrin is devel­op­ing a new sci-fi series based on his 1996 nov­el Encounter with Tiber. Cool, right? Just maybe don’t ask Buzz to dance to ‘80s syn­th­pop. He does have a great sense of humor, though.

Watch Aldrin duet with Thomas Dol­by on “She Blind­ed Me With Sci­ence” above. Buzz gets to shout “Sci­ence!” and bop back and forth like your grand­fa­ther rock­ing out at your wed­ding recep­tion. It’s cute. The per­for­mance hap­pened dur­ing a day­long Smith­son­ian con­fer­ence called “The Future is Here.” Aldrin was one of the four­teen fea­tured speak­ers who deliv­ered “nar­ra­tive talks that focused on both great tri­umphs and future inno­va­tions in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy.”

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Moon Dis­as­ter That Wasn’t: Nixon’s Speech In Case Apol­lo 11 Failed to Return

Live: Watch NASA’s Cov­er­age of Aster­oid As It Buzzes By Earth

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Beauty of Space Photography

in Astronomy, Photography, Science | May 29th, 2013

So many of the images we see of out­er space are either cold and flat—a plan­et sphere sur­round­ed by scores of pin­point stars against the back­drop of black space—or they’re artists’ ren­der­ings.

The pic­tures fea­tured in The Beau­ty of Space Pho­tog­ra­phy are nei­ther of those. They’re more like con­cep­tu­al art: beau­ti­ful, mys­te­ri­ous, and intrigu­ing.

The video above is the lat­est episode of PBS’s Off Book, a web series that explores new Inter­net cul­ture. In this episode, the pro­duc­ers inter­view three astro­physi­cists, and they are any­thing but the pock­et-pro­tec­tor types. These sci­en­tists are artic­u­late, thought­ful, and pas­sion­ate about space and about pho­tograph­ing what they see through super-pow­er­ful tele­scopes.

Work­ing for dif­fer­ent insti­tu­tions, each sci­en­tist uses pho­tog­ra­phy as a major tool to study space. The images have func­tion­al val­ue of course, to assist with mea­sur­ing and doc­u­ment­ing find­ings. But there’s no deny­ing their beau­ty. Astro­physics also touch­es on philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions, so the pic­tures trig­ger a sense of awe that bor­ders on the exis­ten­tial.

The blue and pink swirls of cloud dust and deep spi­ral-shaped galax­ies in these pic­tures are breath­tak­ing because, as astro­physi­cist Emi­ly Rice says, we know what they are and yet they are unfath­omable.

The images are of such high qual­i­ty that they con­vey some of the depth and grandeur of space. The pic­tures seem to con­tain the unbe­liev­able immen­si­ty and allow us to focus in on just a small, beau­ti­ful piece of what is all around out there.

But that’s just part of the fun of this short video. Lis­ten­ing to the sci­en­tists talk about their work is like hav­ing an expert guide you through the uni­verse, a docent who’s excit­ed and edu­cat­ed about things that none of us can tru­ly com­pre­hend even as we gape at their beau­ty.

The oth­er sci­en­tists fea­tured in this short are David Hogg (NYU) and Zolt Lev­ay (Space Tele­scope Sci­ence Insti­tute).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Find Cours­es on Astron­o­my and Physics in our Col­lec­tion of 700 Free Online Cours­es

125 Great Sci­ence Videos: From Astron­o­my to Physics & Psy­chol­o­gy

The Won­der, Thrill & Mean­ing of See­ing Earth from Space. Astro­nauts Reflect on The Big Blue Mar­ble

An Ani­mat­ed Visu­al­iza­tion of Every Observed Mete­orite That Has Hit Earth Since 861 AD

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site or fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix.

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Watch Isabella Rossellini Embody the Animal Kingdom’s Most Shocking Maternal Instincts in Mammas

in Biology, Comedy, K-12, Science | May 13th, 2013

Moth­er’s Day can elic­it com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions in the human ani­mal. Not so Moth­er Ham­ster. While you were out to brunch, she was mat­ter-of-fact­ly devour­ing the run­ti­est of her lit­ter. And not because he failed to present her with a bou­quet and flow­ery card. “It’s a good morsel to recoup some of the vit­a­mins and pro­tein that are lost dur­ing child­birth,” she explains with a shrug.

This heart­warm­ing vignette is but one of the rev­e­la­tions in Mam­mas, the lat­est web series from the inquis­i­tive and extreme­ly game Isabel­la Rosselli­ni. Hav­ing embod­ied a vari­ety of insects, arach­nids, and marine life in the sci­ence-based Green Porno and its fol­low-up Seduce Me, the moth­er of two is cur­rent­ly suit­ing up to play some of the Ani­mal King­dom’s most noto­ri­ous moth­ers, from the oppor­tunis­tic Cuck­oo to the self-sac­ri­fic­ing Aus­tralian sub­so­cial crab spi­der (Diaea ergan­dros).

The com­i­cal­ly inven­tive cos­tumes are an added bonus, par­tic­u­lar­ly for any human moth­er (or father) with an aver­sion to dress­ing their ani­mal-lov­ing off­spring in store bought dis­guis­es, come Hal­loween. Catch the com­plete series here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Wild King­dom: Brought to You by Mutu­al of Oma­ha (and YouTube)

Film­ing a Sprint­ing Chee­tah at 1,200 Frames Per Sec­ond

Rainn Wil­son Talks About Life’s Big Ques­tions in His Web Series Meta­phys­i­cal Milk­shake

Ayun Hal­l­i­day thinks Isabel­la Rosselli­ni is the bee’s knees, espe­cial­ly when her glass legs are filled with beer. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Romantic George Carlin Writes a Nano-Powered, Sub Atomic-Filled Love Letter to His Wife

in Comedy, Life, Science | May 11th, 2013

Carlin Letter

George Car­lin was more than a Class Clown. He was also a class act, as evi­denced by this undat­ed mis­sive to com­e­dy writer Sal­ly Wade, with whom he shared the final decade of his life. The man who once parsed the Sev­en Words You Can Nev­er Say on Tele­vi­sion show­ered his “spouse with­out papers” with such notes dai­ly.

Giv­en such a prodi­gious out­put, he wise­ly turned to sci­ence to quan­ti­fy his ardor in the repro­duc­tion above. (His physi­cian’s scrawl can be dif­fi­cult to deci­pher — a tran­scrip­tion is sup­plied below.)

SALLYBURGER,

If you took THE NUMBER OF SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES IN THE UNIVERSE and mul­ti­plied that num­ber times itself THAT MANY TIMES; and then added the total num­ber of MICRO-SECONDS since the begin­ning of time, times itself; and then added 803—you would STILL have only the tini­est frac­tion of A BILLION-BILLIONTH PER CENT of the amount of love I HAVE FOR YOU.

Love,

your can­dle part­ner,
the roman­tic Mr Car­lin,
your eter­nal flame

A por­tion of these sweet noth­ings were col­lect­ed in The George Car­lin Let­ters. Its sub­ti­tle, The Per­ma­nent Courtship of Sal­ly Wade, was tak­en from the note he left on her com­put­er the day he died, two days shy of their 10th anniver­sary.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

RIP: George Car­lin on the Tonight Show (1966)

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

George Car­lin: The Mod­ern Man in Three Min­utes

Ayun Hal­l­i­day has been lov­ing on Greg Kotis since 1991. Such notes as there are remain pri­vate, but you can fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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An Animated Visualization of Every Observed Meteorite That Has Hit Earth Since 861 AD

in Animation, Science | May 9th, 2013

Car­lo Zap­poni, a data visu­al­iza­tion design­er at Nokia, has cre­at­ed a pret­ty splen­did visu­al­iza­tion of the 1,042 mete­orites that humans have wit­nessed hit­ting our plan­et since 861 AD. If you click the image above, you will see the visu­al­iza­tion in full screen mode. And if you then click on var­i­ous points along the time­line, you’ll get essen­tial data (pro­duced by The Mete­orit­i­cal Soci­ety) about each observed mete­or strike. Most are clus­tered in the 19th and 20th cen­turies. The last is the ter­ri­fy­ing rock that blast­ed through Siberia ear­li­er this year.

Note: A total of 34,513 mete­orites have hit our plan­et since 2500 BC. But the vast major­i­ty were nev­er observed. They were only lat­er found.

via The Guardian 

Oth­er Great Visu­al­iza­tions:

Per­pet­u­al Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visu­al­iza­tion of Our Ocean Cur­rents

Visu­al­iz­ing WiFi Sig­nals with Light

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

Stephen Hawking’s Uni­verse: A Visu­al­iza­tion of His Lec­tures with Stars & Sound

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Why He’s Uncomfortable Being Labeled an ‘Atheist’

in Religion, Science | April 29th, 2013

The evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist Stephen Jay Gould famous­ly said that sci­ence and reli­gion are “nonover­lap­ping mag­is­te­ria”:

The net of sci­ence cov­ers the empir­i­cal uni­verse: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (the­o­ry). The net of reli­gion extends over ques­tions of moral mean­ing and val­ue. These two mag­is­te­ria do not over­lap, nor do they encom­pass all inquiry (con­sid­er, for starters, the mag­is­teri­um of art and the mean­ing of beau­ty). To cite the arch clich­es, we get the age of rocks, and reli­gion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heav­ens go, and they deter­mine how to go to heav­en.

But sci­ence and reli­gion, as it is wide­ly prac­ticed, do over­lap. They both make spe­cif­ic claims about the nature and his­to­ry of the Uni­verse. Some reli­gion­ists do indeed make claims about the age of rocks.

Giv­en the obvi­ous over­lap, it’s not sur­pris­ing that scientists–particularly those who work in the most fun­da­men­tal and gen­er­al of fields, like physics and cosmology–are often asked for their views on reli­gion. In this short video from Big Think, astro­physi­cist and pop­u­lar sci­ence writer Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why he is loathe to take sides on the issue, and why he dis­likes the word “athe­ist.”

“The moment when some­one attach­es you to a phi­los­o­phy or a move­ment,” says Tyson, “then they assign all the bag­gage, and all the rest of the phi­los­o­phy that goes with it, to you. And when you want to have a con­ver­sa­tion, they will assert that they already know every­thing impor­tant that there is to know about you because of that asso­ci­a­tion. And that’s not the way to have a con­ver­sa­tion.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Neil deGrasse Tyson Deliv­ers the Great­est Sci­ence Ser­mon Ever

Alain de Bot­ton Wants a Reli­gion for Athe­ists: Intro­duc­ing Athe­ism 2.0

Stephen Col­bert Talks Sci­ence with Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson

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