Science Lush

The Lush List: 1/8/2013 - YouTube Science

For years, YouTube got a rap as the place to watch cats on keyboards and stupid people tricks. Funny? Absolutely. Smart? Not so much. However, there are a number of YouTube creators who are now making savvy, entertaining videos about or inspired by science...and I'm not just talking about obvious choices like snippets from the TED Conference.

Over the last several weeks while prepping for the International Academy of Web Televison Awards, which honor the best in online programming, I fell down the rabbit hole of YouTube browsing far too often. Here are just a few of the folks worth checking out. Pieces range from the educational to the wacky to the lovely...

SciShow

This YouTube channel is from creator Hank Green,who is heavily involved in several different YouTube endeavours, including executive producing The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a sassy online modernized adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Green has a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and a master's degree in Environmental Studies, and the segments on his SciShow channel explain both basic and more involved scientific concepts. Green's casual, entertaining delivery helps the information he delivers about topics ranging from fracking to dark matter to biofilm go down easy, allowing even the science novice to walk away feeling like he or she understands something new. 

 

UltraSlo

This one's for those of you who like pretty pictures. UltraSlo features the work of Emmy Award winner Alan Teitel, who with his UltraSlo Studio, creates cool slow-motion videos of nature, explosions and random things like (false) teeth falling into a glass. Many of the videos have a psychedelic quality to them, such as this one of a humming bird, so this is the channel to check out when you feel like chilling for awhile...

 

Rhett and Link
This award-winning duo comprised of life-long best friends Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal has created or been featured in over 500 web videos, including sketches, non-scripted reality pieces and music videos. In 2009, they were musical correspondents for the Science Channel's BRINK. The wrote songs and made music videos for three episodes, including "Hello (The S.E.T.I. Song)."

Sick Science

I always wanted a science teacher like Steve Spangler. He's done a lot of things - he's a science writer, teacher, and toy designer - but you're probably most familiar with his work with candy. Yep, he's the guy who dropped Mentos into a bottle of soda and created a cultural phenomenon in the early days of online video. Luckily, he's got a whole YouTube channel, as well as a website, dedicated to bringing more wacky experiments to the public.

   

And if you feel like taking a walk down memory lane, here's the original September 2005 Mentos geyser video:

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The Lush List: 12/18/12 - Gifts for Science Lovers

 Looking for something fun for the science lover on your list?

Dvice.com has a neat list of "11 Cheap Gifts Bound to Impress Science Geeks." From plushy microbes to Mars rocks, the list includes items for both adults and kids. My favorites are the Gallium samples and the Aerogel.

GALLIUM
As described on dvice.com:

Gallium is a silvery metal with atomic number 31. It's used in semiconductors and LEDs, but the cool thing about it is its melting point, which is only about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. If you hold a solid gallium crystal in your hand, your body heat will cause it to slowly melt into a silvery metallic puddle. Pour it into a dish, and it freezes back into a solid.

This video from the Periodic Table of Videos shows how Gallium will melt in the hand, and features a cool experiment called "the beating heart" where the scientists use sulfuric acid to change the surface tension of a gallium sample. Sidenote: Video is also worth watching for the fantastic hair on Scientist #2.

AEROGEL

I had my first experience with Aerogel when I was at the NASA Social for the Mars Curiosity landing at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and we got to see a sample of it. You can get your very own piece of the world's lowesty density solid over at ThinkGeek.com. This QUEST Lab piece gives the basics on the substance, including a little blowtorch demo showing off its insulation properties.

SCI-JEWELRY

GeekSugar's gift suggestions trend more towards the scientific lifestyle, with suggestions ranging from Laboratory Beaker Mugs to the Hungry Scientist Handbook. I'm a girl who likes her jewelry, so I am partial to the DNA Ladder Earrings from NB Designs. The shop on Etsy has a whole bunch of science-themed pieces, including Petri Dish earrings and a Bacterium tie tac. 

SCI-SLEEPOVER

If you're looking for something a bit more experiential, Business Insider's suggested gift list features a night at the American Museum of Natural History. Bring your sleeping bag and a flashlight, and get ready to frolic after-hours at the Museum before settling down to slumber beneath the big blue whale.

                                                                        Image: AMNH

The Lush List: 12/11/12 - Star Trek Into Darkness, Geminds and Advice from Neil Gaiman

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS TRAILER & FIRST 9!

All I can think of is "Khan Khan Khan" when I watch this "announcement trailer" for the new Star Trek movie, but according to most of the press reviews of the first 9 minutes, we're going to have to wait to find out more about the villian of Into Darkness. The opening of the movie will be playing before IMAX screenings of The Hobbit starting on Friday, but if you just can't wait, io9.com has a round up of what the critics who were given a sneak peek have been saying.

EYE ON THE SKY

If you're a fan of meteor showers, you're in for a treat this week. The annual Geminids show lights up the sky, peaking on December 13th. As explained on Space.com, one of the reasons for the great show has to do with the origin of the shower.

The Geminids, unusually among meteor showers, are the leftovers of an asteroid (most showers originate with comets). They are caused when rubble from the asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere, lighting a path through the sky as it burns up.

The fact that the Geminid-causing debris comes from an asteroid and not a comet makes the particles denser and more durable than the typical cometary particles that make up other showers, said NASA's Bill Cooke.

As many as 100-150 meteors may be visible during peak times in dark areas. Alas, Los Angeles is not exactly what I'd call prime viewing territory, so I'll be relying on others' pictures to get my meteor fix.

TIPS FOR WORKING IN THE ARTS

I stumbled across this gem of a list from horror/fantasy/sci fi writer Neil Gaiman, which is drawn from a speech he gave to the graduating class at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. As the year draws to a close and thoughts turn to year-end evaluations and resolutions, here are a few ideas to inspire you for 2013. 

1. Embrace the fact that you’re young. Accept that you don’t know what you’re doing. And don’t listen to anyone who says there are rules and limits.
2. If you know your calling, go there. Stay on track. Keep moving towards it, even if the process takes time and requires sacrifice.
3. Learn to accept failure. Know that things will go wrong. Then, when things go right, you’ll probably feel like a fraud. It’s normal.
4. Make mistakes, glorious and fantastic ones. It means that you’re out there doing and trying things.
5. When life gets hard, as it inevitably will, make good art. Just make good art.
6. Make your own art, meaning the art that reflects your individuality and personal vision.
7. Now a practical tip. You get freelance work if your work is good, if you’re easy to get along with, and if you’re on deadline. Actually you don’t need all three. Just two.
8. Enjoy the ride, don’t fret the whole way. Stephen King gave that piece of advice to Neil years ago.
9. Be wise and accomplish things in your career. If you have problems getting started, pretend you’re someone who is wise, who can get things done. It will help you along.
10. Leave the world more interesting than it was before.

[Source: Open Culture]

 

 

The Lush List: 12/4/12 Curiosity Video, End of the Universe and Space's Neighborhood Watch

STILL CURIOUS?

If you've forgotten just how inspiring the Curiosity Rover and those responsible for her journey are, take 5 minutes to watch this lovely piece created by director/photojournalist Dan Winters, editor John Aldrich and sound designer/composer Shervin Shaeri. With narration from key members of the MSL team, including Adam Steltzner, Miguel San Martin, Ann Devereaux and Allen Chen detailing their personal feelings about the rover, it's a lovely, visual journey through the life of Curiosity thus far.

Here's my favorite quote from the piece, which encapsulates the sense of connection between the engineers and scientists who birthed Curiosity, but now only get the occasional phone call or pic from their kiddo far, far away:

"We get to see her in images that she takes of herself, but we won't ever touch again and we won't ever be able to fix her again." 

Mars Rover Curiosity from Mutant Jukebox - Music & Sound on Vimeo.
Photography Credits: NASA JPL, Dan Winters, David Robertson, Travis Smith

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH FOR SPACE?

NASA has a little problem...there are about 500,000 pieces of hazardous space junk orbiting the earth, and there's no trash collector scheduled for the route anytime in the near future! This debris includes spent rocket stages, defunct satellites and fragments from other spacecraft that are the result of erosion, explosion and collision, and it threatens current peacekeeping and combat satellites, as a collision between a piece of the space trash and a satellite could release more than 20,000 times the energy of a head-on auto collision at 65 mph.

So what's a government agency to do?

DARPA has created SpaceView, "a space debris tracking project that provides amateur astronomers with the means to make a difference....The vision behind the SpaceView program is to provide more diverse data to the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), a U.S. Air Force program charged with cataloguing and observing space objects to identify potential near-term collisions. SpaceView hopes to achieve that goal by engaging U.S. amateur astronomers by purchasing remote access to an already in-use telescope or by providing a telescope to selected astronomers. When a telescope that is provided by the program is not in use by the SpaceView program, DARPA will provide its use for astronomy and astrophotography." 

So in other words, if you're located where they need you to be, you might get to time-share some equipment, qualify for some fancy upgraded hardware or even receive some minor financial compensation. And of course, there's that satisfying undercover-superhero-feeling that comes from quietly saving the Earth!

Interested astronomers may learn more about the program and sign up at www.spaceviewnetwork.com. Participants will be selected based on geographic location and access to a permanent site for a telescope, among other criteria.

COLBERT'S INTELLECTUAL HYDROPLANE: BECOMING MASSIVE!

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll hungout with Stephen Colbert last week while promoting his new book THE PARTICLE AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE: How the Hunt for Higgs Boson Leads us to the Edge of a New World.

In between Colbert's jokes about jetpacks and teleportation, Carroll attempts to explain what exactly the Higgs Boson is and why it's important.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sean Carroll
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

 

The Lush List: 10/17/12 - Hoarding, Old Spice Explosion and Endeavour in LA

So you may have noticed the posts grinding to a halt over the past several weeks. Alas, I've been spending far too much time with cardboard boxes instead of my computer. I found out mid-August that the woman who owns the house we were renting had decided to sell it, so we had to scramble to find a new place to live and then pack up all our stuff. 

SCIENCE OF HOARDING
Moving is always a pain the ass, but the fact that I'm a bit of a pack rat makes it even more challenging. And while I'm nowhere near being labeled a Hoarder, I've been known to keep a few too many nostalgic items that perhaps would be better left behind. As I was surveying the large pile of boxes now exiled to the garage at our new place for storage, it got me to thinking about why people hang onto things. Which led me to the following about the science of hoarding.

In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study done by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grantee David Tolin, Ph.D, and his colleagues at Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT, parts of a decision-making brain circuit in patients with hoarding disorder over-activated when deciding whether to keep or throw away their own possessions, but had no such reaction when throwing away items belonging to others. From the NIMH press release:

In this case, the implicated brain areas are hubs of a salience network that weighs the emotional significance of things and regulates emotional responses and states. Hoarding patients’ severity of symptoms, self-ratings of indecisiveness, and feeling of things being “not just right” were correlated with the degree of aberrant activity in these hubs. The results add to evidence of impaired decision-making in hoarding disorder and may help to disentangle its brain workings from those of OCD and depression.

EYE CANDY: BLOW IT UP
Moving causes a lot of stress, so sometimes you just need to take a break and blow off some steam. Old Spice's "Explosion" is not scientific - it just made me laugh.

MOVING THE SHUTTLE
We got a pretty big truck to move our stuff (did I mention I like to keep things?), but it was nothing compared to the rig that got the Space Shuttle Endeavour through the streets of Los Angeles on October 12th-13th as it traveled from LAX to its new permanent home at the California Science Center. Brandon Fibbs got some fantastic pics of the shuttle which you can see here in his photostream on Flickr, and here's a pretty amazing time lapse of the Shuttle's journey. 

The Los Angeles Times. Video by Bryan Chan.

While the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, the future permanent home for Endeavour, is being built, the shuttle will be on display in the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, opening on October 30, 2012.

Science Lush 08/21/12: Historical Science Chicks, Curiosity's Laser and the Art of Botany

Science Chicks From History

I stumbled across the Tumblr Science Chicks From History, which is pretty much exactly like it sounds: a blog dedicated to women from science history. Sweet and simple, each entry features a brief description of a lady scientist, usually partnered with an accompanying image. It serves as a lovely introduction to a group of scientists, mathematicians and technologists you may want to know more about.

I'm particulary intrigued by Aglaonike, cited as the first female astronomer in Greece, and Hypatia of Alexandria (350? - 415 AD), the first historically noted female mathematician. She sounds like a pretty cool chick: 

She dressed in the clothes of a scholar instead of women’s clothes and drove her own chariot. Hypatia was murdered in the streets of Alexandria by a Christian mob after being accused of witchcraft and godlessness. Her writings were destroyed when the Library of Alexandria was burned.

As a member of a classical theater company, I've spent a lot of time in imagined worlds populated with ancient Greek gods and goddesses. But these women clearly had some real-world powers of their own which enabled them to perservere in learning and teaching at a time when science was truly a man's occupation.

Fire It Up! Curiosity's Laser Zaps Her First Target 

"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."
GOLDFINGER

Ok, let's be honest - lasers are just cool! It's fun to watch stuff get blown up, plus they come in awfully handy when trying to destroy the world (yes, I watch a lot of superhero movies). Luckily, Curiosity is on a benevolent mission, so when the Mars rover fired up its laser for the first time on August 19th, she had the best of intentions. Her target for this first test? A fist-sized rock called "Coronation." Here's what went down:  

The mission's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, hit the fist-sized rock with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.

The energy from the laser excites atoms in the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light from that spark with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the target.

The technique has been used in a variety of extreme environments here on Earth, including inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor, but this is the first time it's been used to explore an object on another planet.  ChemCam was developed, built and tested by the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in partnership with scientists and engineers funded by the French national space agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and research agency, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

This composite image incorporates a Navigation Camera image taken prior to the test, with
magnified insets taken by the camera in ChemCam. The circular insert highlights the rock before
the laser test. The square inset is further magnified and processed to show the difference
between images taken before and after the laser interrogation of the rock.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP

 

 The Art of Botany: Call for Entries

The Canadian Botanical Association/L'Association Botanique du Canada (CBA/ABC) 49th Annual Meeting and Conference, which is being held June 2013 in Kamloops, BC, will feature an "Art of Botany" show highlighting  how art supports botanical research and learning about plants. The idea for this exhibition grew out of a collaborative relationship between an art instructor Ila Crawford and a botany instructor Lyn Baldwin at Thompson Rivers University.

In this article by Baldwin and Crawford, which appeared in the March 2012 Edition of the CBA/ABC Bulletin, each gives her take on the relationship between art and science.

Here's the official submission information:

Art and Science: Drawing and Botany

Artists and Botanists are invited to submit work that responds to the assertion that “art inhabits the teaching and practice of botany, and conversely botanical subjects and scientific methods have a legitimate place in teaching and practicing art.” The exhibition, "Art and Science: Drawing and Botany," will present an array of work that facilitates discussion about integrating art with science and science with art. Specifically this exhibit will include work that explores questions about the perceived boundaries between art and science, and will add to a growing synergy between art and botany. Many scientists, and specifically botanists, incorporate art practices as part of their own research, and many artists explore the realm of botany in their practice.

Invited: Artists, botanists, and groups of artists and botanists working on special projects (10 or more individuals)

Submissions: Three maximum for individuals; one per member for group submissions. Only original work will be accepted, no reproductions. Sketchbooks will be accepted. Only digital images will be accepted for the jurying process.

Entry Fee: $10 per registration ($10 covers up to three works)

Deadlines: Individual submissions (March 29, 2013), Project-based submissions (January 15, 2013)

For additional information about digital submissions, artist’s statements, insurance and more, visit Art and Science: Drawing and Botany.

 

 

 

 

The Lush List: 8/14/12 - Language Intelligence and Curiosity Rover Update

Reading List: LANGUAGE INTELLIGENCE by Joe Romm

I stumbled across a review from John Cook on SkepticalScience.com for this new book written by physicist and Climate Progress blog editor Joe Romm. When the title of a book includes the phrase "Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln and Lady Gaga," you know there's something intriguing going on inside the covers (and no, I don't mean shenanigans between Lady G. and the three gentlemen).

LANGUAGE INTELLIGENCE is about rhetoric, the art of verbal persuasion. Back in Shakespeare's day, rhetoric was a key part of an education. I've had the good fortune to study Elizabethan rhetoric with master teacher Armin Shimerman. It's amazing how once you start to explore the various rhetorical devices utilized by the Bard, his work comes to life in a completely new way. Incredibly useful for an actor.

While rhetoric is no longer required study, it makes complete sense that a blog dedicated to "getting skeptical about global warming skepticism" would find a book about persuasive communication to be an important read. Understanding how to, as Cook puts it, "[harness]  the power of language to craft compelling, memorable and emotionally engaging communication," is a very useful skill. Cook's thoughts on how scientists might apply the information in the book to their work caught my eye, and that's what made me want to call attention to it on ScienceLush:

For science communicators, I believe the most important lesson is the use of metaphors. Scientists are trained to think in the abstract while in general, people think in metaphors. It’s a “Scientists are from Mars, people are from Venus” kind of thing. People conceptualize and make meaning of the world using analogies and metaphors, which transform the abstract into the concrete. Consequently, we take more notice of messages and remember them better when metaphors are used.

I'm a perfect example of an audience that's hungry for good science metaphors. As y'all know, I'm not a scientist, I'm just intensely interested in science, how it affects our understanding of the world around us, and the areas where science and creativity co-mingle. I love plays, art, music, etc. that have been inspired by scientific discovery, and I constantly find myself wanting to dig deeper, to really understand the theories behind the creative work. Therefore, I'm extremely grateful to those who can communicate about science using metaphors in such a way as to help me feel like I've cracked the code and gained some small measure of understanding about the topic at hand.

I'll be adding LANGUAGE INTELLIGENCE to my list o'books to read this summer. In addition to helping one decipher Shakespeare and rebut those who deny climate change, I have a feeling that a better understanding of rhetoric might come in awfully handy during a presidential election year...

 

Cartoons, Sex and Music

While I'm talking about science communication, I wanted to draw attention to this post from science illustrator Emily Coren on Nature.com's SoapboxScience guest blog. She writes about the connection between the public's understanding of science, their resulting support for it, and the key role that plays in the funding of the work. Her suggestion:

Use mass media to communicate science to the public. We have science research generating vast amounts of new information about our world, and an entertainment industry producing huge volumes of content that is consumed by the public collectively creating our culture. Why not start pairing them to work together?

She includes examples such as "Yakko's Universe" from ANIMANIACS and this totally nutty cartoon about Narwhals, and then calls for "science placement" in television shows, much like product placement. I'm excited about the organizations and creators who are already actively engaged in the fusion of science and entertainment, such as The Science & Entertainment Exchange, which is dedicated building a bridge between science and the Hollywood community. YouTube also provides an outlet for the meshing of science and entertainment, with channels such as SciShow and MinutePhysics.

 

Curiosity Update: Surface Operations Begin

This update on the Curiosity rover from MSL engineering operations team member Jessica Samuels uses a combination of animations and some of the amazing pictures that have come back to update us on what's gone down so far and what's up next for our favorite rover.

 

During my NASA Social adventure, Samuels spoke to us about what the first month or so of Curiosity's life on Mars might look like. The first priority would be making sure Curiosity was healthy and that all systems were in order, followed by loading the new software that would turn Curiosity from a flying machine into a surface chemist. Samuels anticipated that they'd really get into the science of the mission about a month after landing. 

Samuels also talked with us about the team's plans here on Earth for coping with the sliding Martian day. For the first 90 days, aka "sols" of the mission, the team will be on Mars time, following the Red planet's 24 hour, 40 minute long day. This means that eventually their Earth days and nights will be reversed. In addition to coffee, survival mechanisms include heavy blackout curtains in the surface mission control area. And of course, there's an app to help keep track of the time! Alas, you won't find Mars Time in the iTunes store - it's only for internal mission use.

 

The Lush List: 7/23/12 - Age of Miracles, deGrasse Tyson at ComicCon and RIP Sally Ride

Pages: The Age of Miracles

I just finished reading Karen Thompson Walker's THE AGE OF MIRACLES, a lovely, pensive book about what happens when the Earth's rotation begins to slow. Yep, that's right, another book I love about the end of life on Earth as we know it! One day I'll figure out why I'm addicted to stories about the worst possible versions of our future...

As far as this particular gem goes, Walker draws readers into the devastating scenario through her 11 year-old narrator Julia. Smart, quiet, yearning for acceptance, Julia chronicles "the slowing" (the name given to the situation) against the backdrop of 6th grade - a time when it doesn't take a natural disaster for one's world to turn upside down. The days and nights may be getting longer and longer, but eternity has a different meaning entirely when your best friend deserts you at the lunch table for other, more popular girls. Or when you're trying to think of just the right thing to say to the boy you like who has finally realized you exist.

In an NPR interview, Walker says that she did scientific research to help make the story feel realistic.

"I would lift details from newspaper stories," she says. Reports on strange weather, climate change, extinctions and industrial farming all became fodder for the story.

When it was done, Walker worked up the nerve to show her manuscript to an astrophysicist. "I was relieved at how many of the consequences [of the slowing] he felt were based in real science," she says. "And then he helped me make a few of them a little more realistic."

This got me curious about scientists' answers to the "what if" scenario Walker presents, which includes all of the things she mentions in the interview, as well as changes to gravitational force and the Earth's magnetic field. If you're curious as well, here' are some topical tidbits for ya':

• Over at "Ask the Astronomer," Dr. Sten Odenwald answers the question: "What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?"
• Joelle Renstrom's post on Slate.com: "Could the Earth's Rotation Really Slow Down Like It Does in the New Novel THE AGE OF MIRACLES?", in which she mainly focuses on tidal friction. [FYI, she has a blog called COULD THIS HAPPEN?, where she explores the relationship between science and science fiction. Lots of yummy reading there, and possibilities for S'lush postings...have a feeling I'm going to lose a lot of time to this one...].

Neal DeGrasse Tyson's ComicCon Spaceship Smackdown

Sadly, I was not able to attend ComicCon this year. The only consolation is that because I didn't go, I didn't have to make the difficult decision of which events to actually attend! But apparently one session I would not have wanted to miss was this year's Starship Smackdown panel. As described in the ComicCon program guide:

The must-see panel of Comic-Con, brought to you by the new Geek Magazine, as featured on National Public Radio, returns for another action-packed year as the greatest spaceships in the history of the universe converge in the ultimate cosmic conflagration for the highly-coveted Smackdown title in Comic-Con's most scholarly and erudite panel. Will the Enterprise once again defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer? Can the Serenity make mincemeat out of the Battlestar Galactica? In space, can anyone hear you scream on the Prometheus and can you actually get cell reception in the TARDIS? And what exactly is the "Captain's Courageous" lightning round anyway?

A group of experts debating the merits of competing (fictional) spacecraft? Sign me up!! But what made this year's Smackdown particularly notable was the spontaneous address from audience member Neal deGrasse Tyson. Yep, that's right...when the panelists couldn't make a final decision about which ship was going to take the 2012 title, they turned to the audience for help. And luckily for them, there just happened to be a famous astrophysicist in attendance. Here's what he had to say:

[Source: Seriocity's fantastic, enthusiastic description of the panel,
which I found via THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER].

RIP Sally Ride

I don't remember a time when there weren't female astronauts.
I have Sally Ride to thank for that.

• NASA Tribute: An overview of Ride's accomplishments
• SallyRideScience.com:  The science education company she founded dedicated to supporting children's - especially girs' - interests in science, math and technology.
• Space.com has a number of tributes to Ride. My favorite is a personal memory from X-Prize Chairman/CEO Peter H. Diamandis: "I remember clearly the signs at the Cape during STS-7..."RIDE SALLY RIDE AND ALL YOU GUYS CAN GO ALONG TOO"... All of us rode with Sally on that flight. Her passion and dedication to education and to inspiring women to become scientists and engineers will be sorely missed."
• Related Reading: THE MERCURY 13: THE UNTOLD STORY OF 13 AMERICAN WOMEN AND THE DREAM OF SPACEFLIGHT: Martha Ackmann's book about the women who pre-dated Ride, training in secret in 1961 for the Mercury missions, with the hopes of becoming America's first female astronauts.

ABCNews coverage of Ride's passing, which includes several clips of Ride

Ride talks about her historic flight on NASA's 50th anniversary

 

 

The Lush List: 7/5/12: Higgs Boson, Mysterium Tremendum and Internet Celeb Commercials

Higgs Boson Sweetly Explained

Big news in the science community this past week about discovery of the Higgs boson particle [general readers may be more familiar with this as "The God Particle,' a term that raises the hackles of many scientists]. While the folks at CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are being cautious and saying it's too soon to know for sure, the discovery is exciting physicists around the globe.

And just what is this li'l particle that's making them jump for joy? As THE NEW YORK TIMES describes it:

According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass...Without the Higgs field, as it is known, or something like it, all elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light, flowing through our hands like moonlight. There would be neither atoms nor life.

So yes, it's a big friggin' deal!

Still lost?

For those of us who want to know more but don't have a string of letters after our name or spent most of science class flirting with the guy behind us, Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample explains what a Higgs boson is, how Cern physicists are looking for it, and why it matters if they find it. And he does it all with very sophisticated tools: ping pong balls, sugar and a cafeteria tray. After watching, I wasn't sure if I should go bake cookies or dig out my set of paddles and get ready to serve...

 

The Grateful Sounds of the Universe

I am definitely NOT a Deadhead. In fact, my musical taste (or lack thereof) could almost be described as the complete opposite of the Grateful Dead: Jersey rock (think ROCK OF AGES soundtrack), Top 40 dance tunes and Broadway musicals. However, when I read this post on Open Culture about Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's latest project, I finally found a set of tunes for which I'd be willing to take a road trip.

On his new record MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM, Hart used "cosmic sounds" composed in outer space to create the tracks. As described on the site:

To make music like this, you need some unusual collaborators. Hart went to NASA, Penn State, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with scientists like George Smoot, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics with John C. Mather. They helped convert light, radio waves, and other electromatic radiation into sound waves that Hart and his band could put to musical use.

For a sampling of "the songs our universe sings," you can watch below in the recording of the Madrone Studios performance in San Francisco on 4/4/12. Gotta love it when a musician kicks off his set explaining that the piece he's about to play is based on "the sounds of the sun and some very deep star clusters."

Just have to give a shout out to Open Culture, which has the tagline "the best free cultural and educational media on the web."  They constantly point me to coolness that I find myself wanting to share with y'all. If you like what I write about here, they are definitely a site to check out.

 
Internet Celebs in Commercials

As you may remember, I'm a big fan of well-done commercials (especially when I see them online instead of in the middle of my favorite TV programs). All sorts of creatures have been utilized in the selling of things, including scantily clad celebrities, gekkos, and funny ladies with headbands dressed in all white. But lately, internet-age celebs have been cropping up in commercials. And I don't mean YouTube stars - I mean the folks who actually created YouTube.

London agency Albion made this film for Code Club, a startup that teaches children coding after-school. In the spot, three savvy kids interview prospective employees for Code Club, including Tim Berners-Lee, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, Skype's Niklas Zennstrom and Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane-Fox, founders of LastMinute.com, among others. And they're not exactly impressed...

The spot reminded me of the ad from Best Buy which debuted during the Superbowl. It features the inventors and Silicon Valley folk who are behind li'l things like the camera phone, Instagram and Square. It's quite a change from their 2011 Superbowl campaign, which featured Justin Bieber and Ozzie Osbourn. 

 

 

The Lush List: 06/25/11: SETIcon, Science of Hangovers and Juicy Brain Photos

SETIcon II
Just what is it about CA and the 'Cons? VidCon starts on Thursday in Anaheim, Comic-Con is right around the corner in July in San Diego, and this past weekend, the SETIcon II hit Santa Clara. And just what is SETIcon? As explained on the event's website:

SETIcon brings together innovative scientists, science fiction authors, space and science artists, space lovers, and the curious and adventurous everywhere for a 3-day public celebration and exploration of space, real science, technology, imagination, and science education.There is no other event in the world like SETIcon that explores space and the human imagination through the lens of real science, attracting global interest and participation. This is not a science conference with technical lectures (SETI Institute scientists lecture all over the world). Instead we’ll bring together scientists with authors and artists to celebrate science and exchange ideas around space exploration and our place in the cosmos. SETIcon will create a new channel of discussion between Earthlings where real science and imagination will meet.

I'm all for increased discussion amongst Earthlings about that sweet spot where science & creativity meet! Unfortunately, I couldn't go myself, so what's a modern girl to do? Absorb some of the conference vicariously via Twitter, YouTube and the blogosphere.

If you search for #Seticon on Twitter, you'll find some nuggets from the conference. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Jenny Ryan @tubebananas: If I can inspire others to do science thru sci fiction & dreaming, then my work has not been so silly as it seems -Robert Picardo #SETIcon

Camilla Corona @Camilla_SDO: Doug Vakoch: Humans are very visually oriented. What if other life forms rely on other senses? #SETIcon #AlienLanguages

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust: Doug Vakoch: what we read into any extraterrestrial message will say more about us than about them. #SETIcon

Marimikel Charrier @Marimikel: People see space as for rocket scientists & billionaires. We need to change that & show how space affects us all. - @maejemison #SETICon

Now, if all these tweets have got your jonesing for more detailed coverage, take a few minutes to read Rebecca Boyle's post on PopSci about the event, where she uses sentences with more than 140 characters to describe it.

...hundreds of space enthusiasts and science evangelists came together to ask questions, buy and wear awesome T-shirts, and talk with breathless, uninhibited glee about the crazy science that keeps them up at night. Luminaries like Frank Drake and Bill Nye, along with planetary scientists, “Star Trek” actors and educators, filled two days of talks. Topics included antagonistic aliens, panspermia (“planetary spit-swapping happens,” SETI scientist Dale Andersen said), robot rights and the 100-Year Starship. It’s the only convention, as one person said, where people will be glad to tell you which of Saturn’s rings is his favorite, or which extremophile is the best.

She goes on to talk about the abundance of science tattoos; the environment created by the unique mix of science professionals and enthusiasts; and folks who have changed jobs midway through life to make careers out of their curiousity about space exploration.

The Seti Institute, the organizer of the event, is supposed to eventually post videos from the sessions on its YouTube Channel. Note to self: bookmark channel for future viewing when I need a break from cute kitty videos and Epic Rap Battles of History: Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking.  

The Hangover Explained
The fact that you missed SETIcon II driving you to drink? Well, if you're going to imbibe, at least do so with the understanding of how the alcohol will affect your body. Y'all know I love creative science vids, so check out this smart-board animation piece from ASAPScience: WHAT CAUSES A HANGOVER?  

       

There's more video fun from creators Mitchell Moffit (@mitchellmoffit) and Gregory Brown (@whalewatchmeplz) on their YouTube channel, including HOW TO SEE OR HEAR THE BIG BANG. They have a fun presentation style, and ridiculously good handwriting.

In addition to the vids, there's an interesting argument in the comments on the BIG BANG piece about the show MINUTE PHYSICS and whether or not ASAPScience is a rip off of it. MINUTE PHYSICS has been on my list o'things to watch for quite awhile now, so I figured this was a particularly appropriate moment to check it out (hey, if I'm actually writing about YouTube videos, then watching them can't be considered procrastination, right?). 

There's definitely a shared visual style here. Is it a rip off? An homage? Or as commenter keepcalmcarryon1939 writes of ASAPScience:

Should we shun Neil deGrasse Tyson because Brian Greene was popular for trying to engage the public in science first? Or shun Brian Greene because Bill Nye did it before him? Or maybe we should shun Bill Nye because he liked to talk about science, even though Carl Sagan had his own television show way before Bill Nye did.

It's not about about who did what first. The important thing is that so many people are interested in talking about science. And that, friends, is really spectacular.

The science nerdling in me agrees - the more engaging ways we have to talk and learn about science, the better. However, the artist in me wonders if I might be a bit ticked off if I felt someone had copied or borrowed my unique take on how to explore science...even if the "borrower" explicitly stated that I had been an inspiration for their creation. Would I feel flattered? Or like calling my lawyer? Thoughts?

[Source: Thanks to The Daily Dot for bringing ASAPScience to my attention].

Wellcome Image Awards 2012

OK, this one's not for those with a weak stomach. The Wellcome Image Awards, from the Wellcome Trust, were presented on June 20th in London. The winner is a photo of a living human brain. Robert Ludlow took it during a surgical procedure on a patient with epilepsy. And while I'm usually somewhat squeamish about such things, I found myself gazing at the photo for longer than I would have thought my delicate sensibilities could handle, amazed at its vibrancy. I'm so used to seeing dull, lifeless brains floating around in jars (um, yes, I watch a lot of sci fi)...was incredible to see the living brain captured in all it's glory, looking so JUICY!

So just what are these fancy awards all about? Says the Trust's website:

Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images and a member of the judging panel, said: "The Wellcome Image Awards are unique in that the winners are chosen for their scientific and technical merit as much as for their aesthetic appeal. They offer people a chance to get closer to science and research and see it in a different way, as a source of beauty, as well as providing important information about ourselves and the world around us."

Credit Robert Ludlow,Wellcome Images
Intracranial recording for epilepsy. Surface of human brain in situ

You can see the entire collection of photos at WellcomeImageAwards.org, including my two other favorites: a striking shot of caffeine crystals and a very cool pic of connective tissue removed from a human knee.