Science Lush

2014 Science Lovers Gift Guide (with a STEAM twist)

Christmas lights are up, menorah lights are flickering and far too many of us are scrambling for last minute gift ideas. If you've got a science lover on your hands, here are a few suggestions for STEM-related presents with an artsy, S'Lush-style twist. 

 

FOR THE KIDDO: SCIENCE & LIT

Rachel Poliquin over at Science Friday has recommended "Five Books Guaranteed to Make Kids Love Science." I'm betting these inventive picture books will be just as enticing to the parents who purchase them.  

 

• Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, by Dominic Walliman and Ben Newman (Flying Eye Books): "Both modern in its scientific spirit and with a sensibility modeled after the delightful mid-century children’s books from the Golden Age of space exploration, it tickles young readers — as well as their space-enchanted parents — into precisely that “palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos." (Brain Pickings) 
  
  
• Shackleton’s Journey, by William Grill (Flying Eye Books). One of the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2014. "This is a book that will appeal to adult art lovers, picture book fans and history buffs (of which, I fall into all three categories), children and adult alike. The book’s large format gives ample space for detailed colored pencil illustrations and the perfect pacing for such a fascinating journey." (The Eric Carle Museum)
  
  
• Animalium (Welcome to the Museum), by Katie Scott and Jenny Broom (Candlewick Press): "Designed to mimic the experience of visiting a natural history museum, this elegant, eye-catching volume explores the animal kingdom through gorgeously detailed pen-and-ink illustrations that resemble vintage taxonomical plates. ... It’s easy to imagine these exquisite images hanging in the gilded hallways of a museum, but unlike a museum, readers can take this experience along with them." (Publisher's Weekly review)
  
  
• Infographics: Human Body, by Peter Grundy and Simon Rogers (Candlewick Press): Complex facts about the human body are reinterpreted as stylish infographics, which astonish, amuse and inform by turn. Researched by the Guardian's Datablog expert and designed by the father of infographics, Peter Grundy. (Amazon description)
  
  
• The Worm, by Elise Gravel (Tundra Books): The second in a series of humorous books about disgusting creatures, The Worm is a look at the earthworm. It covers such topics as the worm's habitats (sometimes they live inside other animals), its anatomy (its muscle tube is slimy and gross), and its illustrious history (worms have been on earth for 120 million years). (Amazon description)
   

DECK THE WALLS: SCIENCE & ILLUSTRATION

Deck the walls with these fun illustrated prints from Rachel Ignotofsky! Her pieces feature whimsical takes on everything from the anatomy of cells to lab equipment. My favorite set is probably her "Women in Science" collection, which currently features Marie Curie, Valentina Tereshkova, Jane Goodall, Patricia Bath and Rosalind Franklin. 

On her site, Ignotofsky says of the collection, "I wanted to celebrate the accomplishments of these women and hope to inspire curiosity in young women to ask questions about the world we live in and be the one who finds out the answers." 

You can find the Women in Science prints here, and browse the rest of her collection through her Etsy shop. 

 

RING IT IN WITH BLING: SCIENCE & DESIGN

Although it hasn't been scientifically proven that jewelry is the way to a woman's heart, a li'l shiny shiny for the holidays is almost guaranteed to bring a sparkle to the eyes of the recipient. 

Love this handmade copper bracelet with etched periodic table from Hardware Designs! Additional design options include circuit boards, as well as an aluminum cuff featuring binary numbers (via PopSugar). 

 
Anatomology's science-inspired jewelry includes earrings and necklaces inspired by DNA, synapsing neurons and the molecular structure of caffeine (seen above).  

 

DRAMATIC GIFTING: SCIENCE & THEATER

Give a friend or family member something to look forward to in 2015 with tickets to a technology or science-infused theater production. 

Constellations
Playwright: Nick Payne
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
New York, NY
January 13 - March 15, 2015

"A change in font equals a change in universes." 

If you're a sucker for love and physics (and the latter as a metaphor for the former), this is a show you'll appreciate. Playwright Nick Payne's play premiered at London's Royal Court and is now in New York City playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club. Oh, and it's starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson (THE AFFAIR), which means if you're interested, try to get tixx asap.  

From The New Yorker's review of the London run: 

Here, under a canopy of white variegated helium balloons that look like a galaxy of stars, Payne conjures the notion of a “multiverse” where “several outcomes can coexist simultaneously,” as Marianne (the petite, piquant Sally Hawkins) says. She happens to be a theoretical physicist who is in the process of being seduced by Roland (the charming Rafe Spall). She goes on: “In the quantum multiverse, every choice, every decision you’ve ever made and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.” “This is genuinely turning me on,” Roland says. 

 

Mr. Wolf (World Premiere)
Playwright: Rajiv Joseph
South Coast Repertory
Costa Mesa, CA
April 18-May 3, 2015

Mr. Wolf (Image: South Coast Repertory)

Theresa is 17 years old, and she can map out the solar system. She understands the universe—how and why it came to be. She owes all that to a man named Mr. Wolf. Now the only life she has ever known is coming to an end. She’s being taken away—turned over to people who are strangers to her. How can they possibly understand her needs, when they seem to be lost, too?

 

stop. reset.
Playwright/Director: Regina Taylor
Goodman Theatre
Chicago, IL
May 23 - June 21, 2015

As e-books and digital technologies transform the literary world, Chicago businessman Alex Ames must confront the likely demise of his long-standing African-American book publishing company. While his employees fret over losing their jobs, Alex finds unlikely inspiration from a mysterious teenager, whose inventive, forward-thinking ideas may provide the solution to preserving Alex's legacy. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lush List 9/8/14: AxS Festival, Marjorie Prime at the Taper and Planets at the Hollywood Bowl

While technically the summer isn't over for a few weeks, there's that back-to-school feeling in the air. Perhaps that's the reason there are all sorts of exciting science-infused cultural happenings popping up!

Marjorie Prime

This year the Mark Taper Forum kicks its season off with the play MARJORIE PRIME by playwright Jordan Harrison. Directed by Les Waters, the play will run from September 10th – October 19th. I’m intrigued by the Taper’s description: In the age of artificial intelligence, how do you compute the reality of loss and keep your loved ones from becoming a distant memory?

Jeff Ward, Lois Smith, Lisa Emery and Frank Wood on the first day of rehearsal for MARJORIE PRIME. 
Photo by Craig Schwartz, courtesy of Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum. 

In addition to the compelling subject matter, I'm also excited to see this play because the cast features one of my favorite actresses, Lois Smith. I’ve been lucky enough to see her do some amazing theater, and she's been in a ton of classic films (her first part onscreen was in EAST OF EDEN!), but she may be more recognizable to newer audiences from her roles in TRUE BLOOD and MINORITY REPORT. In an interview in the Playbill for the show, she was asked what about Harrison’s play resonated with her the most:

“The way he deals with memory and with family and in a way, eternity. There is a certain delicacy about it. [The characters] are, like a piece of music or a book, in terms of human endeavors, they are human inventions, trying to encapsulate meaning. Just the delicacy with which he tackles something. I’d never seen that before."

The Planets: An HD Odyssey

If you didn't get enough of the heavenly bodies on International Observe the Moon night this past Saturday, the Hollywood Bowl is giving you a grand second opportunity on Tuesday, September 9th. Images from NASA and JPL rovers and satellites, as well as computer-generated graphics of the Mars landing, will accompany a performance of Holst's PLANETS. The suite has seven movements, each named after a planet and its corresponding astrological character:

1. Mars, the Bringer of War (00:00 - 07:21)
2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace (07:22 - 15:59);
3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger (16:00 - 19:51);
4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (19:52 - 27:49);
5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age (27:50 - 36:31);
6. Uranus, the Magician (36:32 - 42:14)
7. Neptune, the Mystic (42:15 - 49:01).

And if for some reason you're not awed by what you see onscreen, all you have to do is tilt your head back and look up at the sky. I can't wait for this evening of beautiful music under the stars! Now I just need to figure out what kind of picnic to pack...

Conductor: Andrè Previn & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

AxS Festival 2014: Curiosity

So, so excited about this two-week festival taking place in Pasadena, CA, from September 19th - October 5th. AxS [ak-sis], produced by the Pasadena Arts Council, "explores the nexus of artistic and scientific inquiry, promoting experimentation and cross-fertilization between these disciplines."

So what does that mean exactly? A whole bunch of really cool events that merge science with architecture, new media, visual art, music and theater, along with some super-smart, creative people having conversations about it all. You can check out the full schedule; below are a few of the events I'm particularly looking forward to.* For specific date, time and ticket info for each of them, see the individual event pages. 

• EVELINA DOMNITCH & DMITRY GELFAND/ LUCKY DRAGONS: Amsterdam-based art-science artists Domnitch and Gelfand will join experimental music group Lucky Dragons for performance, science and art, live music,video projections and collaborative sound art. Domnitch and Gelfand’s 10,000 PEACOCK FEATHERS IN FOAMING ACID uses laser light to scan the surfaces of soap bubble clusters. Unlike ordinary light, the laser’s focused beam is capable of crawling through the micro and nano structures within a bubble’s skin. When aimed at specific angles, this penetrating light generates a large-scale projection of molecular interactions as well as mind-boggling phenomena of non-linear optics. Bubble behaviors viewed in such proximity evoke the dynamics of living cells (the lipid membranes of which are direct chemical descendants of soap film). And then for a deeper dive into Domnitch and Gelfand's process, head to QUANTUM SENSITIVITY:A Talk with Domnitch & Gelfand, at which the artists discuss their immersive works which merge physics, chemistry and computer science with uncanny philosophical practices. Addressing the very thresholds of scientific insight, these endeavors explore the slippery frontier where quantum behavior arises on a human scale. 
  
  
• MARKO PELJHAN: Arctic Lab: A trip to see the glaciers is on my bucket list, so this project caught my eye. Artist/scientist Peljhan will discuss the Arctic Perspective Initiative, an art/science/tactical media project focused on the global significance of the Arctic geopolitical, natural and cultural spheres. And did I mention that Peljhan has also been the flight director of ten parabolic experimental flights in collaboration with the Microgravity Interdisciplinary Research initiative and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, creating conditions for artists to work in alternating gravity conditions? Fascinating stuff I'd like to hear more about.
   
• SOL PATH: Having been on site as part of the NASA Social program for the Curiosity landing, I still feel an affinity for all things rover-related. Sol Path was inspired by the exploratory path that the Mars Rover takes over the course of a Martian day and developed in residency at JPL. It explores the intricate interactions between an Earth-bound team of explorers and a robotic space lab as it searches for signs of life. By composer/cognitive scientist Bruno Louchouarn, with live performance by viola soloist Brett Deubner and immersive multimedia platform by Adam Larsen.
  
  
• Pasadena Arts Council has commissioned arts collective Machine Project to re-imagine the Pasadena landmark Gamble House through a variety of interactive events. I think my favorite on the list is POETS IN CLOSETS, where poets read a single poem to one audience member at a time in the Gamble House’s walk-in closet. It’s like a literary twist on 7 Minutes in Heaven. Or what I like to imagine might be a lost scene from Downton Abbey.
  
  
• COPENHAGEN: I was lucky enough to see the original Broadway production of Michael Frayn’s Tony-award-winning play in which German physicist Werner Heisenberg and Danish physicist Niels Bohr (and Bohr’s wife Margrethe) meet in 1941 to debate physics, politics, love and betrayal, while cautiously dancing toward the detonation of the fission bomb. In this special presentation from theater company A Noise Within, the always engaging Caltech physicist and author Sean Carroll offers an engaging, pre-show mini-lecture on the origins of the universe, and the cast will do a post-show discussion on the themes of the play.
  
  
• ALICE THROUGH THE WORMHOLE OR WHAT’S THIS WONDERLAND UP TO? You all know I’m a sucker for good theater, so not surprising that I’ve chosen to highlight not just one, but two theatrical endeavors from the festival. This is described as a work-in-progress of a wild, original musical take on Alice through the Caltech Universe.
  
  
• KPCC will be hosting several events in conjunctinon with AxS at the Crawford Family Forum, including MAKERS: WOMEN IN SPACE. This segment of the six-part PBS documentary series from Executive Producers Dyllan McGee & Peter Kunhardt profiles the impact women have had over the past 50 years. Following the film, Joanne Griffith will interview Rev. Dr. Bear Ride on the life and legacy of her sister, the late Dr. Sally Ride — the first U.S. woman in space.   

*Event descriptions that accompany my comment provided by AxS.

 

 

 

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.

Living on Mars Time

I continue to be entralled by all things Curisoity, including the story of flight director Dr. David Oh's family. Oh, his wife and three kids have been living on "Mars time," shifting their daily routine to accommodate the extra 39 minutes necessary to stay in sync with the Martian day or "sol."

While those of us with busy schedules often yearn for an extra hour or two, the practical application of such added time is complicated. It's not like you just get an extra 40 minutes to take care of all the stuff on your To Do list that you haven't gotten to yet. As the day shifts, "morning "and "night" eventually flip-flop as clock time becomes untethered to sunrise and sunset. Day becomes night, and suddenly you're eating breakfast at 11:30 p.m.

Karen Thompson Walker's lovely YA novel THE AGE OF MIRACLES offers a fictional imagining of what it might be like if our days started extending (which I wrote about in this previous post). But for a real-life account, hop over to Braden Oh's MarsTimr blog, where the 13-year old  chronicled his family's adventure as they spent about a month living on a rotating schedule.

Aug 3: Dr. David Oh gives the NASA Social a tour of Mission Control and tells us about what to expect the night of the Curiosity Landing

I loved reading about the details of figuring out how to configure economical blackout shades for sleeping during the day (Gorilla tape = key element), riding bikes in the middle of the night, and the fun of waking up at 3:30 p.m. And of course, the conundrum of deciding if a 3 a.m. meal at Denny's is dinner or breakfast (label-schmabel, pancakes work for any meal!). Oh's family even came up with some new timeshift terminology:

We’ve pretty much lost track of what day it is.  Towards the beginning of the month we could say things like tomorrow, tonight, last night, tomorrow night, etc.  Right now our day is split between two days, and we’ve resorted to calling our days “Sols.”  Currently our Sol is split between two Earth days.

To tell what we’re talking about, we’ve been using terms like “Solmorrow” and “Yestersol.” This gets pretty weird when saying “Yestersol night” and “Solmorrow evening.”

But perhaps the coolest part of reading Braden's blog was seeing how well kids respond to innovative efforts to involve them in science. Dr. Oh could have just explained the change in time, shown his kids a few graphs and charts, and then disappeared into Mars Time with the rest of the Mission team. Instead, he and his wife gave their children a unique visceral experience. As Braden writes in his post as he shifts back to Earth time: “Dare mighty things!”

For more:
-Check out the NPR story on the Oh family's experiment:
-Rover updates: Follow @MarsCuriosity on Twitter.
-For another account of the landing weekend: Brad Snowder's writes in detail about the NASA Social experience on his blog Skywise Unlimited.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Curiosity Rover: Behind the Scenes at JPL in Pics

Here's a look at some more of what we got to experience during our time at JPL. I'll be continuing to add photos as people share them and as I continue to download them from my own devices. Many thanks to the NASA Social crew who took such great pics!

 

Dr. Randii Wessen kicks off the tour by using me as a planetary model to demonstrate different types of interplanetary missions, including flybys and landings.Good to know all that $$$ I spent on my theater degree from Northwestern was worth it!
Photo credit: Tristam Sparks.

 

Mars Science Laboratory Flight Director Keith Comeaux gives me the scoop on what we can expect on Sunday night during entry, descent and landing (EDL), aka "7 minutes of terror."
Photo credit: Tristam Sparks.

 

Space Camp's Kimberly Stockton sets up Peanut Luck.
Photo credit: Brad Snowder.

 

A great night to raise your hands and be sure!
Photo credit: Brad Snowder

 

Mohawk-stronaut Bob Fedowski stops to celebrate with the NASA Social team.
Photo credit: Brad Snowder.