Thursday, June 28, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
science: it's a human thing, and it needs your help
i woke up in australia one morning this week, ate breakfast, drank my coffee, and found that my twitter feed had exploded overnight with the unfamiliar hashtag of #sciencegirlthing, and that i had been identified by several people as one of the #realwomeninscience. it's true, i'm not fake. i'm a real person.
i quickly discovered that the european commission recently kicked off an initiative to encourage teenage girls to get excited about science. i'm all for addressing this important issue, as i've written about many, many, many, many, many times before! the EU commission hosts a nice website with a lot of interesting information.
but the thing that sent twitter aflutter was a trailer video for a project called "Science: It's a Girl Thing." the title of the project is already a problem, in my opinion, which sarah kendrew nicely explains. the video is... disappointing. i'm not showing the whole video in question here, but what i show below has a sufficient amount of clips from the original, and shows meghan gray discussing why it fails to achieve its important goals.
the video is disappointing because it's condescending to send the generic message to girls that as long as youre wearing high heels, lipstick, and do magazine model-type poses, you can be whatever you want! in this case, a scientist, apparently. i know i'm not the target audience for the video, and maybe i'm over-simplifying the marketing strategy, but seriously...
science is exciting because you participate in the process of figuring out how the universe works!
who cares what you wear while you do it? although, one tweet particularly made me laugh. it was something like:
anyway, it doesnt matter what your personal style is or who has done science in the past - everyone should feel welcomed and encouraged to participate in the effort NOW, and all human beings should support any other human being who wants to share that achievement.
so how do we get young people (any people) excited about studying science and contributing to our growing understanding of how the universe works?
that's where i need your help.
in a couple weeks i'll be attending .Astronomy 4 in heidelberg, germany. these events bring together some incredibly capable and clever people to develop "web-based projects, from outreach and education to research tools and data analysis."
during last year's hack day, we produced the "pluto, the previous planet" music video. it was a fun, relatively spontaneous project.
for this year's hack day, i've suggested a project to create a version of a #realwomeninscience video, or even better, a real people doing science video. any ideas for what we could do (in a day)? i have a couple ideas, but i thought i'd ask you creative folks for your help. what do you think? what do you find most fascinating about science? what do you want to know about scientists?
i cannot guarantee that this project will be accomplished, but i'll do what i can to make it happen!
meanwhile, the EU commission has removed the video from circulation and created a list of female scientists on twitter. they should be releasing a statement about all the commotion they've caused soon. who says social media cant be effective?
and if you are curious, this is what a scientist looks like.
i quickly discovered that the european commission recently kicked off an initiative to encourage teenage girls to get excited about science. i'm all for addressing this important issue, as i've written about many, many, many, many, many times before! the EU commission hosts a nice website with a lot of interesting information.
but the thing that sent twitter aflutter was a trailer video for a project called "Science: It's a Girl Thing." the title of the project is already a problem, in my opinion, which sarah kendrew nicely explains. the video is... disappointing. i'm not showing the whole video in question here, but what i show below has a sufficient amount of clips from the original, and shows meghan gray discussing why it fails to achieve its important goals.
the video is disappointing because it's condescending to send the generic message to girls that as long as youre wearing high heels, lipstick, and do magazine model-type poses, you can be whatever you want! in this case, a scientist, apparently. i know i'm not the target audience for the video, and maybe i'm over-simplifying the marketing strategy, but seriously...
science is exciting because you participate in the process of figuring out how the universe works!
who cares what you wear while you do it? although, one tweet particularly made me laugh. it was something like:
i have two problems with this video. (1) you would NEVER be allowed to wear open-toed shoes in a chemistry lab. (2) everything else.
anyway, it doesnt matter what your personal style is or who has done science in the past - everyone should feel welcomed and encouraged to participate in the effort NOW, and all human beings should support any other human being who wants to share that achievement.
so how do we get young people (any people) excited about studying science and contributing to our growing understanding of how the universe works?
that's where i need your help.
in a couple weeks i'll be attending .Astronomy 4 in heidelberg, germany. these events bring together some incredibly capable and clever people to develop "web-based projects, from outreach and education to research tools and data analysis."
during last year's hack day, we produced the "pluto, the previous planet" music video. it was a fun, relatively spontaneous project.
for this year's hack day, i've suggested a project to create a version of a #realwomeninscience video, or even better, a real people doing science video. any ideas for what we could do (in a day)? i have a couple ideas, but i thought i'd ask you creative folks for your help. what do you think? what do you find most fascinating about science? what do you want to know about scientists?
i cannot guarantee that this project will be accomplished, but i'll do what i can to make it happen!
meanwhile, the EU commission has removed the video from circulation and created a list of female scientists on twitter. they should be releasing a statement about all the commotion they've caused soon. who says social media cant be effective?
and if you are curious, this is what a scientist looks like.
real life hot wheels loop
just learned that my uncle's company did the structural design for this giant "Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare." whoa!
i like high-intensity activities quite a bit, but don't sign me up for this stunt! no thanks.
i like high-intensity activities quite a bit, but don't sign me up for this stunt! no thanks.
Monday, June 25, 2012
giant marbles
its almost hard to believe that these rocks live on earth. the whole scene feels other-worldly:
the rocks are moeraki boulders and strewn across koekohe beach on the south island of new zealand. they remind me a bit of the much smaller martian blueberries discovered by the robust little mars rovers.
the photo was one of last year's winners of the national geographic traveler photo contest. they are still accepting entries for this year...!
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| Photo Credit: Marcus Haid |
the rocks are moeraki boulders and strewn across koekohe beach on the south island of new zealand. they remind me a bit of the much smaller martian blueberries discovered by the robust little mars rovers.
the photo was one of last year's winners of the national geographic traveler photo contest. they are still accepting entries for this year...!
Saturday, June 23, 2012
slow-mo slinky
i did not expect the slinky to behave this way when dropped! they give a nice explanation as to possible reasons why...
Friday, June 22, 2012
southern ocean sky
i've recently discovered another master of timelapse astrophotography: alex cherney
in the video below, i love how the clouds become characters in the story, and how gorgeous the southern hemisphere's night sky looks. you can clearly see the smudges of the large and small magellanic clouds in the sequence that starts at 00:44.
Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.
in the video below, i love how the clouds become characters in the story, and how gorgeous the southern hemisphere's night sky looks. you can clearly see the smudges of the large and small magellanic clouds in the sequence that starts at 00:44.
Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
galaxies of the leo triplet
a recent APOD image showed 2 parts of the galaxy trio known as the leo triplet. shown at the upper left is messier's 65 catalogued galaxy and the bottom right is Messier 66.
these images were taken by bill snyder in california earlier this year. below is a focused view of M65. the distinct dust clouds throughout the spiral arms are striking, as is the little dust lane feeding into the central region of the galaxy!
beautiful.
these images were taken by bill snyder in california earlier this year. below is a focused view of M65. the distinct dust clouds throughout the spiral arms are striking, as is the little dust lane feeding into the central region of the galaxy!
beautiful.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
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