Share a Science Documentary Day

Science documentaries. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that you love them. You’ve watched both iterations of Cosmos; you’ve joined Stephan Hawkings on an exploration of the universe; you’ve learned about the rovers, landers, orbiters, and space stations exploring our solar system; you’ve experience Sr. David full-on gushing over a hedgehog. If I were to write a blog post trying to convince you to check out some of Sweet Tea Science’s favorite science documentaries, you would scoff because you are so on top of that. And that’s awesome! Seriously, let’s take a moment to appreciate our collective thirst for knowledge!

However, let’s not get so ahead of ourselves that we forget to share this excitement, enthusiasm, and thirst with others!

It's (Not) In My Hair!

Day One and a Half

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

White, NM

National Park Since: 1930

Total Miles Hiked: 1.5

Rainy days are a special treat when you live in the desert. Summer has assaulted you from all sides since March/April and this year our freedom from the desert dry conditions came with a bang on the Fourth of July. The rains have continued and followed along thus far on our journey. However, as hard as it has tried, it can't rain in the caves. They can however close down several trails. 

Day one is implicitly full of different milestones and firsts. We are now the official co-wielders of a brand spanking new America the Beautiful pass. My first time investing in a full year pass. This year's card has a photo that begs to be replicated. We may now get in free to every national park, monument, battlegrounds, seasides, etc. Now the parks truly belong to us.

We're ready to explore the caverns. The ever-vigilant park rangers had a few questions for us before we could proceeded.


Have you been in a cave or a mine since 2005? Yes, how else was I going to capture a cave cricket for my Entomology collection?


Are you wearing the same clothes/shoes as you were then? I like to get the most out of my hiking boots....so, yes.


We needed to go through the decontamination process. Is this going to be like the creepy scenes from E.T.? 

Rachel's Ramblings:

Lucky for us, Meridith did not end up in that creepy iron lung thing (we also didn't end up flying over New Mexico with me in a bike basket, which was a let down).  We did, however, get our boots decontaminated in order to kill potential hitchhiking fungal spores. According to the National Park Service's (NPS) website, and Ranger Val who told us all about it later in the day, between the winters of 2006 and 2007 scientists studying bats around Albany, New York started noticing a large number of bat mortalities.  In 2011 the cause of death was officially traced back to the fungus Geomyces destructans which causes what has become known colloquially as White Nose Syndrome (WNS).  The theory goes like this, G. destructans grows on the bodies of hibernating bats, irritating them and causing them to come out of the state of hibernation.  The whole point of hibernation is to slow all of the bat's bodily functions (ex: metabolism) down as much as possible so they can get through the winter months when food is in short supply.  When bats wake up ahead of schedule, they burn off part of their precious energy stores, and, as a result, they must venture out into the cold in search of food.  When you only weigh a few ounces or less, like many North American species of bat, this can be deadly.

Ranger Will making sure we don't spread White Nose. 

Luckily for the bats at Carlsbad Caverns NP, they are a migratory, not a hibernating, species.  However, little is known about the potential of this cold-loving fungus to spread to warmer climates, and even less is known about the impacts infection could have if it did reach bats in these regions.  Thus, over the past few years, the NPS has adopted a White Nose Syndrome monitoring protocol as well as a prevention system.  This gets us back around to our Carlsbad Caverns decontamination.  When we purchased our tickets, one of the super friendly Rangers asked us if we were wearing gear that had been in any other cave or mine since 2005.  I had actually just been to Mammoth Cave NP with my family the previous week, and Meridith worked on a biological preserve during college that had several caves, so she figured better safe than sorry.  Luckily we had both washed our clothes since 2005, so they only had to clean our boots.  We were lead outside where another friendly ranger took our boots and sprayed down the soles with 409.  Yes, like what you use in your bathroom.  Turns out that the ammonium solution, when left on the potentially contaminated surface for 10 minutes, does a nice job of killing stubborn fungal spores.  Not a necessary step, but if you have to go through something like this with a park ranger, be friendly and ask questions.  Rangers have a wealth of knowledge, and they are usually up for an informative chat.  After the 10 minute  waiting period, our boots were sprayed down with water, and we were clean and free to go.

A final word on the decontamination process.  During the fifteen minutes this whole process took, the ranger must have apologized for the inconvenience 5 times.  Probably, his momma' just raised him right and he was being polite.  I personally didn't feel inconvenienced at all.  I feel so grateful for the existence of the National Parks, and if fifteen minutes of my time means some future kid gets the chance to freak out when s/he sees the bats of Carlsbad, it was more than worth it!  

Photo by Rachel

And now we may descend into the belly of the earth to view the breathtaking display below. The park offers many guided tours, however we opted to explore the caverns via a self-guided route that encircled the Big Room. Mammoth Cave may boast the longest contiguous cave system, however New Mexico's own system offers the largest cavern room in the Western Hemisphere. Not too shabby. I do have some speculation about what constitutes a cave room, versus a passageway or series of questionably separated rooms. It must be quite tempting to label it something grand to attract visitors. Hmmmm. Sneaky cave folk.

Water drops from an active formation.

I'm sure we will come to appreciate moments of downtime during our non-stop traveling, however spare time before you get to see bats in their nightly exodus can be a bit titillating. Sure, there is always something to work on. Thesis. Blog writing. Car tidying. (And let's be honest, if we can't keep it neat through day one, we're a little doomed.) Eating is always a popular option. Bread needs to be eaten quickly and avocados are always calling my name. We managed to get a little of everything in. Except thesising. Day one is not for thesising. 

I don't know how often you get to sit down in an amphitheater and wait for 500 thousand bats to emerge, but this was another first for me. Rachel was matching my excitement and then some.

"I hope this is ranger led and they have jokes." RDW

Ranger Val indeed had some jokes. Due to the rains earlier that day, it was uncertain whether the bats would actually fly tonight. A crackling bat detection system would serve as the bat announcer. Anticipation built as Ranger Val regaled her audience with bat facts, cave facts, cave swallow facts, and another lesson on White-Nose Syndrome. We waited anxiously. A young man in red hoped the gate keeping the rest of us from getting too close to the cave entrance. He did not look like a ranger, yet still had some air of authority to his passage. Val explained he was researching the cave swallows.

"So that's why he looked both sketchy and authoritative, he's a grad student." MLB

CRACKLESPFFFFTLELOUDNOISES

The bat detector.

They were coming.

And the bats danced out of the cave in a graceful counterclockwise spin. Circling long enough to mesmerize us, they quickly turned to fly to the Southwest in search of food. For a while there was no shortage of emerging creatures. The Brazilian (Mexican) Free-Tailed bat is a tiny insectivore, weighing in at a scant half-ounce. They winter in Central and South America before returning to the caverns to give birth. The stream of flying mammal continued, occasionally sweeping above our heads. Eventually it trickled to an end and we still sat, slack-jawed at the marvel we've witnessed.

But we couldn't lolligag around. The night was fast approaching and we needed to find a spot to set up camp. Back country camping is permitted in the park, but due to the rains the main road leading to the normal trail was closed. Luckily for us, Carlsbad Caverns has some of the most helpful rangers who explained that our options were backpacking off another trail in a nearby canyon and exiting the park to camp on the nearby BLM lands. We decided to follow Ranger Justin's advice and head towards the BLM area. Bureau of Land Management handles the utilization of a variety of public lands across the nation. Camping is always permitted on these public lands. We drove up the not so aptly named Means Rd to find a suitable spot close to our vehicle. We only had to kick a few rocks away before setting up camp. Day one was already over.

Question of the Day:
Have you ever visited a cave? What was your favorite part?

Future of Discovery

Today marked the end of an era for manned spaceflight, as the first of the operational shuttles has been retired by the NASA Space Shuttle Program. Discovery landed at Dulles International Airport today after a memorable flight over Washington, D.C.. The Smithsonian Institutes' National Air and Space Museum will welcome the well-used shuttle into their exhibit. 

Eyes were on the sky in Washington as the flight granted spectators a final view of the shuttle in flight, piggybacked on a modified Boeing 747. 

Photo by blogger MarekFloryda 

NASA created a Flickr for those lucky enough to be along Discovery's flight path and have taken photos. 

Space Shuttle Discovery was first introduced to the public in October 1983, and left for it's maiden voyage on August 30, 1984. The shuttle landed successfully back on Earth for the final time March 9, 2011. After spending a cumulative year in space, over 39 missions, it's position as NASA's Orbital Flight leader has finished. 

Discovery Notable Facts

• Third operational orbiter (after Columbia and Challenger)
• Flew the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit
• Has deployed a further 30 satellites 
• Flew over 238,539,663 km during service

The interior of the shuttle will not be available to museum-goers once the exhibit is open. However, you can explore the flight deck here:

Space Shuttle in Extreme Detail: Exclusive New Pictures

While this is a disappointing day for space enthusiasts, it is certainly not a sign of the end of space discoveries. Many feel that NASA and space exploration progress has slowed to a point that it is in danger of regressing backwards. 

NASA plans to resume manned spaceflight in 2017. NASA's Mars Missions will hopefully continue in 2018 with another rover mission. 

But new, private ventures into space are emerging, and may provide answers and opportunities in the present. 

Spaceport America

My own current state, New Mexico, is at the forefront of space transportation. Spaceport America is currently developing launch vehicles as the world's first commercial spaceport. Owned by the state and its people, this space launch facility is designed to with customers in mind, as well as attempting to inspire visitors. Since dedication in October 2010, the spaceport has successfully launched several vertical rockets. Most recently, the 10th launch reached the highest altitude on record for the facility.

Additionally, Virgin Galactic has entered a 20-year contract with Spaceport America, with the spaceport serving as headquarters. Virgin Galactic's space vehicles have already taken over the skies with their WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo vehicles. Over 500 people have signed up to take flights into space. Including lucky number 500, Ashton Kutcher.

New Mexico further aides in space-related progress through the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium (NMSGC). New Mexico State University (where I currently am attaining my Masters degree) is the lead institution for this program, which aims to support students in multiple disciplines with a united interest in aeronautics, space, and related fields.

SpaceX
This PayPal funded company hopes to pick up where NASA budget cuts left off. SpaceX aims to develop launch vehicles that ultimately reduce cost and increase viability of space access. The jewel of the space fleet vehicles is Dragon, a free-flying craft designed for transport of (un)pressurized cargo and/or crew members. Dragon is scheduled to launch April 30 and will make history by docking with the International Space Station. While this flight is still considered a test, success would bring the company ever closer to becoming the first commercial carrier to deliver payloads.

Questions of The Day:
What are your hopes for the future of space exploration?

Scale Matters: But, What about Time?

If you haven't checked out Monday's, Tuesday's, and Wednesday's blog posts, it'd be best to start there! This week we're having a series of posts discussing scale and size. I'm hoping you all still have your imagination hats handy. 

Size, both great and small, and the ability to perceive it through a series of magnificent inventions are already wondrous enough to contemplate. However, by adding one more aspect to this thought process, we can really understand the importance of scale. 

Time. 

We generally think of time in seconds, minutes, hours, and days. If longer stretches are required we have years, decades, and millennia. 

For those of us on Earth, time is linked to the path of our plant around the sun. A day is the length of time for one rotation of the Earth. 24 hours. A year is one Earth orbit around the sun.  8765.81277 hours. But each planetary body has it's own duration for days and year. 

On Mars, each day lasts on average 24 hours 37 minutes and 22.663 seconds. Researchers and technicians working with robotic rovers and landers on the red planet must adjust their lives to Mars time. Imagine a whole team waking up about 40 minutes later each day so they can maximize research conducted during the daylight hours on a distant planet. 

The human concept of time is inherently quite stunted. We have about 80 year to observe, learn, and live. We use time to schedule our lives, educations, and aspirations. We have time allotted for school, work, and play. Holidays are assigned a certain date on our calendar. Sometimes it can feel like a very local concept. 

But time spreads out over the universe, just like space. 

All of human history is but a blip in time.  

If we take the 14 billion years that have occurred since the Big Bang and realign it into a single year, then all of recorded human history has happened in the last 13 seconds. 

With our universe, time and distances are very closely aligned. Remember that our universe started as a single point from which everything erupted. Time and space included. And with time, the universe expands, thus more space. 

The building blocks of everything that exists now were created in the seconds following the Big Bang. Everything that composes our body, planet, solar system, galaxy, etc. At first, the universe was mainly comprised of basic elements. Hydrogen, the simplest of all elements was most abundant. One proton, one neutron. As time continued protons began to stick together an eventually Helium. Two protons and neutrons. Allow enough time and more and more elements arise, increasing in complexity. 

 So we've connected time to it's importance in our own lives, and to the lifespan, size, and complexity of the entire universe.

We may also use time as a form of distance! 



The speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant valued at 299,792,458 meters per second. You can see this in action by just going out at night and taking in the night sky. Light from stars and reflected from planets is barreling across space to your eyes. The light has traveled hundreds or thousands of light-years to reach you, granting you a glimpse into the past. My artist friend, Danielle, calls it our Museum of Light that serves as a window to our past. Keep in mind that your eyes are the first things these photons have bumped into since they left the surface of a star. Also, that the star you make a wish upon tonight might not exist at this point in time!

Remember the Hubble's Deep Field Image from yesterday's post? Those galaxies are some of the oldest we've observed, but we can still collect the light that has been traveling towards us to create an inspiring photo. 

The following video brings together several concepts from this week's series on scale. As the intro states, this film shoes the known universe as mapped through astronomical observation. Every celestial body is represented to scale and in its correct location. Keep an eye on the lower portion of the video that keeps track of light years traveled. 



We're nearing the end of this week's series of posts. I hope to bring everything together tomorrow in the final post. I'd appreciate some feed back on the pace and quality of recent posts. 

Questions of The Day:
Have you enjoyed and learned from these posts?
Do you like the idea of a series of posts spanning a week?
Do you have a topic in mind that you'd like to know more about?

Scale Matters: Beyond Our Eyes

If you haven't checked out Monday's and Tuesday's blog post, it'd be best to start there! This week we're having a series of posts discussing scale and size. I'm hoping you all still have your imagination hats handy. 


We've discussed and pondered the very tiny, and the unimaginably ginormous this week. I know it's asking a lot to try and comprehend the size of every single component of the universe, in addition to the vastness of the universe itself. No one can be expected to explore everything in existence. Luckily, scientists do not try and approach the issues with such a wide vision. Divide and conquer! Teamwork! 


But how? How do you study what you can't see with the naked eye or what you can't reach with current technology?


Inventions! (Do you remember the deep voiced commentator from Bill Nye the Science Guy? Imagine him saying "IN-VEN-TIONS!")


Before any form of microscopy could arise, humans first had to gain a basic understanding of magnification. Surely at some point in history (around the first century AD) some curious fellow noticed that when you look through transparent crystal that is thickest in the middle, what over object you peer at becomes seemingly larger. 


And thus, Magnifying Lenses were invented. Named 'lenses' for their similar shape to lentils. 

Telescope

Not a lot happened to advance this technology for a few centuries. Imagine living in a time when people had no conception of what we have learned in just two days. They were really missing out! 


Eventually people must have grown curiouser and curiouser, because in the late 1500's Dutch father and son, Zaccharias and Hans Janssen, experimented with lenses in a tube, which would eventually lead to more advanced instruments. The telescope was emerging. Some 20 years later, Galileo took a short break from figuring the laws of pendulums and chucking objects off the Tower of Pisa to grab a snack and work out the principles of lenses and a focusing device. No big deal.

He turned his attention to the sky and viewed the moon (it was rough!), Jupiter (it had moons?!), and Saturn. 

Compound Microscope

However, the true father of microscopy is Anton van Leewenhoek of Holland, and not just because his name is very entertaining to say in the wee hours of the morning after pulling an all-nighter. 

Dissecting Microscope

Leewenhoek. 
No, he actually taught himself how to grind and polish the most advanced curvature in lenses for his time and quite some time after. Since he was the first and only person to reach these magnification levels at this point, he was also the first person to witness some of the tiny marvels of life. His microscopes were the first to see and aid in describing: bacteria, yeast plants, life in a drop of water, and the circulation of blood corpuscles. 


His advancements were so impressive that no one could rival his lenses for a few hundred years!


Both compound and dissecting microscopes require illumination by some sort of light source (i.e. light microscopes). However, even in an absolutely perfect situation, they cannot be used to distinguish objects smaller than 0.275 micrometers (or half the wavelength of light). As we've recently learned, there is a whole mess of things to look at beyond this limit. Can't learn much looking at a blur. 

SEM - Scanning Electron Microscope

TEM - Transmission Electron Microscope

Hark! The arrival of the electron microscopes in the 1930's provided us with a means to magnify objects up to 1 million times! Provided they wouldn't mind resting in a high vacuum (most living specimen mind). In these microscopes, electrons are sped up so that when beams are focused onto a sample, they are either absorbed or scattered and form an image on an electron-sensitive photographic plate. 


In addition to advancing science with their improved optics, these powerful microscopes have lead to amazing works of micro-art. 

Butterfly egg perched on a plant tendril to avoid ant predation. Martin Oeggerli.

In the last hundred years, we have made some incredible advancements in technology.

An Array of Radio Telescopes

Radio Telescopes - Differing from optical telescopes, these directional radio antenna operate in the radio frequency. Despite what Jodie Foster would have you think, these do not return data in the form of sound, but rather pictures.

Do not go to New Mexico's Very Large Array and ask to listen for communications.

Trust me on that one.

Multi-Telescope Observatories - Twin telescopes allow increased stability in optics due to two smaller mirrors in place of one large, fragile one.

Hawaii's Big Island hosts two of the world's most important astronomical viewing sites.

Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope - Carried into orbit in 1990, this monster of a telescope is still in operation today, thanks to numerous missions to update and maintain the many instruments and components. Like the electron microscopes, this masterpiece has also managed to provide images that are simply works of art.

NASA pointed Hubble at a particularly dark spot in our night's sky. The following image is the result and contains more than 10,000 galaxies.

Hubble Deep Field Image - the most detailed visible light image of some of the oldest (most distant) galaxies. 

Mars HiRise - The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is a powerful, and highly useful, camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Images from HiRISE have aided in locating areas of interest so that they may be later explored by the everlasting bunny, err Opportunity rover. Perhaps this camera, or its successor, will be able to watch over an eventual manned mission on Mars.

Artists Rendition of the Hi-RISE aboard
the Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Questions of the Day:
Which of these instruments would you like to look through?
What would you look at?
What kind of advancements do you think lay ahead of us in these fields?


Don't forget to participate in Hubble's Hidden Treasures! You have access to ALL OF THE IMAGES FROM THE HUBBLE TELESCOPE! Two slide shows of the contest Flickr accounts are on the right side of my blog. Go, be inspired!

Scale Matters: What is Big?

If you haven't checked out yesterday's blog post, it'd be best to start there! This week we're having a series of posts discussing scale and size. I'm hoping you all have your imagination hats handy. I never leave home without mine.

Earthrise - by William Anders

After discussing the tiny, microscopic aspects of our world yesterday it's easy to see ourselves as these giants towering over these minuscule particles. In fact, when consider our role and impact on this planet, it's hard not to feel big, brave, and onto of the world. We've explored the deepest trenches of the oceans, climbed to the top of the greatest mountains, and blasted to the moon and looked back at our planet.

And then, once more, we realized once more how small we are.

“The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth.” - Jim Lovell

Cloudy skies lend to the view. Looked like a painting.

My most recent 'OMG - I'm tiny' moment was the moment I walked up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and looked out at the natural wonder that stretched before me. I thought I had seen some pretty awe-inspiring, gigantic things in my life. Whales off of the South African coast. Giant Sequoias in California. But they all paled in comparison to  the giant painted canvas that is the grandest of all canyons. It's important to note that the Grand Canyon is not the largest, longest, or deepest canyon, but is still rightly so the grandest.


We can move on to even more expressive depths. By stroke of luck, this week the man behind XKCD penned an impressive array of the depths of lakes and oceans. I was shocked to see that the Deepwater Horizon oil well went even deeper than James Cameron's epic journey to the deepest trench in the ocean. Even a blue whale, the largest animal to have ever lived (that's right, larger than all of the dinosaurs) is a mere blip on this scale. 

Click to enlarge.

What I've found is that there is always something bigger that serves to make me feel like a dust speck on a pretty blue marble. Even as far as our own solar system goes, we're on the petite side. Jupiter dwarfs us and is promptly dwarfed in return by the Sun.

Our solar system to scale.

Well, at least we can rest assured that the star in our solar system is quite a whopper, right? I mean, the Sun, she's pretty big. Look at her! No? Really, are you sure?



So there are suns that make our Sun appear to be a tiny dot. And THOSE ginormous suns are themselves dots among a giant expanse of galaxies. And those galaxies are specks in the great, vast, really, really, REALLY large expanse that is the universe.

And to think, that at one point at the very beginning of time, all of this (all the planets, stars, galaxies, etc) began at one unimaginably dense, infinitesimal point from which everything expanded.

It boggles the mind to try and comprehend these vast scales, but I suggest that you try. Go outside tonight and look at the stars, if you can, and think about the sizes and distances involved.

Remember from the video in this post, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, talks about how when most people think about the size of the universe that it makes them feel small. But when he thinks about the universe he feels big, huge even, as he is (as we all are) made of and are part of everything.

This website touches on some of the biggest objects in the universe. Can you try and guess what these structures are?

Questions of The Day:
Did you guess the biggest objects correctly? What were your guess and what surprised you about the answers?
Are you enjoying this weeks series on scale?
What is the biggest thing you've seen on our lovely planet?

If you still haven't had enough of this topic, then I highly recommend the following video. It's 45 minutes long but it can help you visualize and provide additional information and astounding facts.

Scale Matters: What is Small?

What is the smallest thing you've ever seen?

Now, what's the smallest thing you can imagine?

Imagine something even smaller.

Even smaller.

How about even smaller?

How small is it? How would you measure it? With what units?

This video, narrated by Stephen Fry, has inspired this weeks look at size and scale. Check it out and then come back for more!

   

Woah! A nanometer is pretty tiny! If you recall, my research looks at a specific species of micro-algae, Nannocloropsis salina. These guys are only one cell, and can only be seen under a microscope. How many nanometers across are they?

You'll have to take my word for it, but the diatom on the left is about 34 um,
while the four N. salina cells are each about 4 um. I can place rulers on the cells individually
within the program, but they don't save in the image files. Odd!

So these itsy-bitsy, unseen with the naked eye cells are thousands of nanometers wide. The diatom is about 34,000 nanometers long! In fact, both are so big that we measure them in micrometers (µm). 

A look at different size prefixes.
 

Let's think about this. N. salina is just one cell, and it's 4,000 nm in diameter. What makes up a cell?
We can break down even this basic building block into molecules and atoms. How big might they be? What can you find inside of an atom? How big are electrons, neutrons, and protons? Can you go even smaller?

Check out this fantastic website for help answering these questions with an iterative, visual module of the universe.

Surely there can't be many things that are even smaller. Right?

Let's-a-see. 

Why do we even need to study anything so unbelievably small? 

How big of an impact could they have on us, the giant humans?

We could ask Mr. Owl, over here, but I had better luck searching the web. 

1. Nanotechnology could enhance environmental quality and sustainability.

2. Ultrathin and lightweight organic solar cells with high flexibility

3. And an extra special application that could help with the trip to Mars: The NASA Biocapsule - made of carbon nanotubes - will be able diagnose and treat astronauts in space!

Tune in tomorrow for the continuing saga of Scale Matters!

Question of The Day:

Can you think of any other applications or uses for the extra small objects we learned about?

Reference:
Kaltenbrunner, M., White, M.S., Głowacki, E.D., Sekitani, T., Someya, T., Sariciftci, N.S. & Bauer, S. (2012). Ultrathin and lightweight organic solar cells with high flexibility, Nature Communications, 3  770. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1772

Cool Stuff Sunday 5

Another beautiful New Mexican Sunday has come and is spoiling me with its warmth and sunshine. These are the types of days that I need to appreciate and remember if I end up participating in the Mars Analog Food Study. I'll just have memories of the sun's warmth and the fresh air's breeze. So enjoy the post and the content I've compiled, but then get off of the internet and go outside! And not just because there might be candy hidden.

Before you check out the videos and links, perhaps you can take a minutes to sign a petition to raise the allotment of tax money to increase NASA's funding?

This guy is not quite as cuddly as the Easter Bunny

A very cool NPR story that I heard on the radio about using music to teach math
 and fractions!. Creative education that works is so wonderful!

A really creative fix that may allow us to utilize brown seaweed for biofuel! I wouldn't
mind going to the coast and helping with that research!

I'm afraid some of the sound clip links may not be functioning, but an interesting article nevertheless
about how things sound on different planets! The thunder clips are my favorite!

I came across this video series (The Feynman Series) which serves as a compliment to the Sagan Series. Richard Feynman is another notable scientific communicator. This Nobel Prize co-winner was invaluable to the field of physics and made contributions both within his research and passion for teaching and popularizing the subject. What I really love about these series of videos is that they serve as such unique tools for inspiring interest in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). I want to soak up as many of these as possible so I can understand what I love about them most and try and use that to inspire my own attempts. I've found both more visual and awe-inspiring videos, such as the one above, and more silly attempts:

Another cool TED talk (can you tell I'm border-line obsessed with these?) by the author of Eat, Pray, Love. She talks about the notion of having your 'greatest achievement' accomplished and behind you, as well as the concept of 'being' a genius vs. 'having' genius. 

Question of The Day:

What are you going to do OUTSIDE this week?

Cool Stuff Sunday 4

What a long week/month. I'm reluctant to believe that April is already here. I was able to relax a bit yesterday and celebrate the Bluegrass Brawl basketball game with friends. I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am a fan of my home state and wanted to share some of the Kentucky enthusiasm. Even though I didn't post a Stuff Your Face Saturday, I did spend the morning creating an array of homemade snacks! I even brewed my own sweet tea! I'm not sure how long tea bags last, but this could be a real sweet treat on Mars!

After you check out all of the Cool Stuff for today, check out the newly added 'About Me' section. I also figured out how to add slideshows of the two Hubble's Hidden Treasures Flickr accounts to the blog sidebar. Employed some good ol' fashioned stubbornness and trial & error with that accomplishment!

Also, this week announcements will be made about who advances to the next round in the application process. 700 applicants applied to participate in the Hawaiian Mars Analog Mission and Food Study, and the review committee has spent the last month narrowing that pool to a mere 30 people! 

I'm pregnant. No, I'm dropping out of grad school. No, I'm not linking you to a story about the history of April Fools

http://hint.fm/wind/ Can't get a preview for this, but its worth checking out!

Found Apollo 11 Rockets

Pretty Underwater Volcano Eruption

A great Nat Geo clip about a dam removal. Just think about how much that area will change!

Decommissioning the Space Shuttles 

Reinventing Education: eTextbooks

Click to Enlarge

I was going to wait a bit until I talked more about this topic, but I'm excited to get it out of my brain onto a post! Earlier this week, I talked about how the Khan Academy has the potential to revolutionize education by allowing students to view video lectures at home and focus on mastering the concepts with help from teachers in the classroom. I've already watch a handful of videos myself and have found them very helpful and educational.

I've been watching videos though the Academy iPad app and have loved how convenient it is. I was able to download videos so that I could watch them during my bus ride (with no internet) back to New Mexico. I felt like could have been in a 'The Future is NOW' ad. I can't help but smile and shake my head in amazement and the products we have available to us.

What's even more amazing is the dedication that Apple and other companies have to the education system. My friend Cornelius received a refurbished iPad as part of a larger donation to Teach for America. He currently uses it as a teaching tool at .... Hopefully we can convince him to write a guest post in the future!

What I'd really like to share with you today is Apple's iBook2 announcement from January 2012. I was nerdy enough to watch the keynote speech the day this initiative was announce and was completely blown away and inspired by what they've created. I have long complained about the antiquity of textbooks, and it seems like the creative, talented people of the world are trying to insight a paradigm shift.















No heavy backpacks. No expensive, out-of-date texts. No boring walls of text.

Why did this take so long?!

Actually, I've already purchased two e-books as required texts for my graduate classes, but this announcement still got me all riled up in a tizzy. After my initial, giddy reaction, I began to spread the good news like it had been passed down from Steve Jobs on high (and he only needed the one tablet). I could see no flaw in the design and expected everyone to be just as excited as I. Most were. But then, gradually different criticisms emerged.

• eTextbooks are only available though iBooks 2 on the iPad
• iPads are too expensive for most schools
• Teachers will be reluctant to adapt new learning platforms
• Students already have limited contact with print media. Too many 'gadgets' will actually prevent advancements in certain areas of their education. 
• Just a new way for students to be distracted in the classroom. 

I believe many if these issues will be addressed in the years to come. Even just allowing access to the texts on a Mac computer will placate many naysayers. I've seen predictions of the Retina Display coming to the next generation of MacBooks, so I wouldn't be surprised if that jump is announced alongside the new lineup of computers in the Fall. Certainly, there will need to be a transition period and different platforms will most likely attempt similar version (Kindle), however it is important to remember that initially teachers were not assigning schoolwork that required the internet or even word processors, but those are not integral parts of the classroom.

I'm already growing impatient with the current stale, lifeless textbooks I'm using this semester. After watching that first keynote, I turned my focus back to my studies. Assigned reading in my Statistics textbook.

I felt like my brain was moving in molasses in an attempt to learn the concepts.

I had seen the future and now instead of reading and retaining information, all I could think about was how I could transform the text into an entertaining, interactive experience. I eventually got the chapter read, but it was very clear to me that hey, I could do this! And so, it is now that I announce, nay declare, that I, Meridith, will one day author a completely awesome eTextbook.

Until then, I'll have to manage with the current system.

*        *       *

Perhaps, if selected, I can convince the Hi-SEAS program to compile the joint experiences of the 6 Astro-Nots and 2 alternates into an iBook. I can easily envision a healthy collection of reports, media, and blog entries that would serve as content.

Can't get to ahead of myself. Still one more week until the first announcements!

Questions of the Day:
Do you think such a radical change can occur in the public school system?
Are you a supporter?
What do you think are the biggest challenges to this idea?
What would you want to see in an end report/book from the 120-day Hi-SEAS food study?

CSULB: Graduate Research Project

My time in Long Beach has come and is now fleeting with a speed that terrifies me. Does time speed up in the months before your defense? How cruel. I still have so much to do! A short, but very sweet, adventure has produced some fun posts. This will be my last Spring Break post and since I'm graduating soon, I don't know when I'll even have another Spring Break! Oh, Real World, you are trying to get a hold of me and I won't let you!

We've talk about lab and field work in the previous posts and today I'll wrap up the series with one more spotlight on research. My friend, Rachel, was kind enough to take time from her insect identifications to answer a few questions about her research. 

Rachel displaying proper bird handling.

Rachel's Master's Thesis research studies the impacts of an invasive weed species, Lepidium latifolium, on marsh food webs. For her, 'the field' is a brackish marsh on Rush Ranch Open Space Preserve, a component of San Francisco Delta Estuary. She measures environmental parameters of the vegetation, in addition to sampling birds (via blood and feathers), invertebrates (bird food), and plants (invertebrate food) for stable isotope analysis.      
                                                                                            More fancy science talk. Stable isotope analysis. This technique follows the notion that you are what you eat. Isotopes of certain elements (Carbon and Nitrogen, in Rachel's research) get passed along when organisms are consumed and become incorporated into the predator's tissue. Rachel can compare the plant, bug, and bird isotopes to figure out the food web.

Marsh at Rush Ranch Open Space Preserve. White 
plants are the invasive weed species she studies.
 Photo Credit: Christine Whitcraft

Rachel's field component in the marsh requires a seven hour drive into northern California. With drives that long, she has to concentrate her efforts for the weekends. A typical outing includes measuring environmental parameters of vegetation, and the aforementioned sampling for isotope data. She has modified a leaf blower so now it serves as a 'bug vacuum' for collections. Her lab work consists of lots and lots of processing. According to Rachel, "It's just the right amount of mix between the two, by the time I'm tired of being up at 4 am, it's time to be in the lab for a while. When I'm sick of being indoors it's time to go out to the field again." In addition, she must also devote several hours per week with other graduate students in her lab working on the restoration efforts mentioned yesterday.

Questions of the Day: 
Do you know of any invasive species in your area?
Have they caused problems for the natural flora and fauna?