July 3, 2008
Category: environment
Gas prices keep going up, and don't kid yourself that they're going to go down again anytime soon either (enjoy those profits, ExxonMobil shareholders...). Some places in the US are looking down the road at $5/gallon, and of course Europeans have been paying vastly more than that for years. The news is rife with stories of police departments worrying about going broke because gas is too expensive, and schools that can't afford the food they cook to give kids lunch at school because food costs are going up too much (which of course hits the poor kids more than the rich kids - yeah, that seems fair).
And yet, outside of asking for a larger mileage reimbursement for personal vehicle use, academia doesn't seem to be having discussions about how we will continue to educate the public and do important research as gas prices continue to rise, and global warming continues to get more severe.
For example, I'm on my way to a conference in Switzerland where 90% of the papers are being given by people from the US. So we are all carting ourselves over to Europe, using a huge amount of gas and making a huge amount of carbon dioxide, to have a conversation with mostly Americans. This seems to be a silly idea.
So let me ask the question: what will academia need to do to get itself ready for the end of cheap energy? How will we have to change our patterns of teaching, research and service to have a smaller carbon footprint?
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Posted by Alice at 7:20 AM • 15 Comments
July 1, 2008
Category: ScienceWoman says... • travel
The Science family is somewhere near here...where the hills are steeper, the rocks are flatter, the green is bluer, and the weather is a good 15 degrees F cooler than Mystery City.
Our trip so far has been a bit rocky...It took us 31 hours to accomplish what should have been 8 hours door to door. Let's just say that I've been left rather unimpressed by Chicago's weather, air traffic control, and a certain airline. But at least I didn't have to deal with any currency exchanges...
Posting is going to be sporadic for the next few weeks, as my internet access and time without a clingy, displaced toddler will be somewhat limited.
Posted by ScienceWoman at 5:22 PM • 1 Comments
June 30, 2008
Category: Alice shares... • Pawley pix • travel
This is another excerpt from our travel journal to Isle Royale. The first day is here; second day here; third day is here; fourth day is here. Photos by me, text by my husband.
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Posted by Alice at 8:17 AM • 1 Comments
June 27, 2008
Category: engineering education • environment
Some longtime readers may know I'm enormously frustrated at the corporatization of engineering, and think that if engineers say they solve problems then there are some enormous problems of housing, lack of clean water, and energy use in impoverished communities across the globe that need solving and we engineers as a profession should get cracking on them. Here are two couple of examples of people who are doing just that:
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Posted by Alice at 8:49 AM • 7 Comments
June 26, 2008
Category: ScienceWoman says... • academic adventures
For the last two weeks, I have been utterly consumed by logistics. I've come home from a trip to Utopia and a research project there, have been in the field twice locally scouting a project here, and am preparing for field work in Midwest next month. I'm starting to have dreams about losing boxes of field equipment to the airlines. At the same time, I've been continuing to do lots of thinking about "what I want to be when I grow up" - when I go up for tenure, or go back on the job market, what will my research program have become, in which subfield will I fit or which subfields will I straddle.
I'm coming to realize that it's not enough to think about research in terms of grant X or paper Y, but I need to think about how the pieces reflect a coherent and self-sustaining research program. It's nice if I have an idea and can get a grant to do a project and write a paper, but if that grant/project/paper doesn't mesh with the rest of my scholarship, then I am spending a lot of time learning about field sites, relearning techniques, and reading the literature, rather than actually, you know, advancing my science.
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Posted by ScienceWoman at 2:38 PM • 7 Comments
June 25, 2008
Category: environment
You may have heard that honeybees in this country are dying off. You may know that scientists have called this epidemic "CCD," or colony collapse disorder, where honeybees seem to lose the ability to find the hive again, and disappear forever. Scientists think CCD may be caused by a virus, or a combination of other factors, such as the presence of pesticides or the poor nutrition and high antibiotic use of commercial bee populations. There are other theories too.
Nature on PBS reports that, if the rate of collapse continues, all honeybee populations in the US will die out by 2035.
But did you know there is an area in China where this has already happened? And pollination has to happen by hand?
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Posted by Alice at 7:33 AM • 13 Comments
June 24, 2008
Category: engineering education
We've been having a couple of interesting conversations on this blog about what makes an engineer, or who becomes an engineer. The National Academy of Engineering has been facilitating a conversation about this too, and have just published a report about it.
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Posted by Alice at 9:19 PM • 5 Comments
Category: ScienceWoman says... • travel
In a few days, I'm leaving Mystery City for a whole month. Wow, that's a long time. It's a trip combining visits to family with a workshop and some field work, and Minnow will be along for the whole incredible journey. Fish will be with us for a week and then he'll return home to care for the Princess Pup.
Needless to say, I've got a lot to get done before we go. In lieu of real content today, below the fold, I've got a partial to-do list for today. Maybe I'll update this as I proceed through the week, maybe not.
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Posted by ScienceWoman at 11:54 AM • 2 Comments
ScienceWoman is a first-year assistant professor in -ology. She blogs about the intersection of science and real life - primarily based on her first-hand experiences. Her older posts can be found 
Alice Pawley is an assistant professor of 
