“These exotic objects are more massive than the Sun, and can spin over 700 times a second,” says Maura. “They have extremely high magnetic fields – over a trillion times the Earth’s,” making them vibrant sources of radio waves, which are beamed like beacons of a lighthouse along their magnetic axes, she explains. Maura studies these remarkable stars with X-ray and gamma-ray satellites and with some of the largest radio telescopes in the world. Her work is helping to reshape current thinking on the laws governing the Universe. For example, in 2004, she was part of a team that discovered the only known double-pulsar system – two pulsars locked in close orbit around each other. And last year she received a $6.5 million grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch a research partnership with astrophysicists around the globe to directly detect for the first time the presence of gravitational waves. If this project succeeds, it stands to greatly transform physics by opening new vistas to understanding the universe, including its relationship to Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

How do you think the work of this noted astrophysicist will change the way science views the universe and the laws that govern it?

Read more about Maura McLaughlin here.

Learn more about pulsars and gravitational waves in Part 1 of Maura’s speech, Time-Keepers of the Cosmos:

Watch the rest if Maura’s speech here:

“I like to write books about subjects that greatly intrigue me –subjects that I want to get more familiar with,” says Carl who is also a contributing writer to the New York Times, Discover, Scientific American, Science, and Popular Science, and his award-winning blog, The Loom, keeps readers up to date on the state of research. “For example before writing Soul Made Flesh, I knew I wanted to learn more about the brain,” says Carl, but I didn’t want to write yet another book about new developments in neuroscience. It’s not that there aren’t some great books on that particular subject, but there are so many that I didn’t want mine to get lost in the crowd. It later occurred to me that there hasn’t been much written about the history of neuroscience in a way that’s geared toward the public.” As he researched the topic, he discovered a period of history, in the mid-1600s – a turbulent and innovative time when the science of neurology was launched and when people came to recognize the brain as we see it today, as the center of our existence. “Once I realized this, I knew I had to write the book,” says Carl, the author of 10 science books. His latest work, Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind, is a well-crafted electronic book that takes readers on a lucid journey inside the organ that makes us human.

What do you think it takes to be a good science writer?

Read more about Carl Zimmer here.

Watch this video and learn what Carl Zimmer has written about Charles Darwin and the study of evolution:

Learn more from Carl Zimmer about telling powerful stories about science here:

The challenge is a daunting one. As much as one-third of the world’s population
is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, yet relatively little is known about
how the organism manages to persist for so long, sometimes for decades, in so
many people.

Though tuberculosis can be fatal, in most cases the immune system controls the
acute infection. However, small numbers of the bacteria are often able to fend
off antibiotics and immune attack, and remain in the body to cause recurring
infections years later.

“What we are finding is that we can always kill almost all of the bacteria,” says
Sarah, Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard
School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s
Hospital.”Yet there are always a few bacteria that remain. Whenever we relieve
the stress on them, they come back.”

TB can spread from person to person through droplets expelled into the air from
infected respiratory systems. Many healthy people’s immune systems can control
the infection so that the illness remains latent, but the risk of developing active
disease climbs enormously among people who have HIV (the AID virus) or other
illnesses that compromise the immune system.

To merely say that the resistant TB bacteria are “hiding” is too simplistic, says
Sarah, who holds a degree in medicine from Columbia University College of
Physicians and Surgeons. “Our research is suggesting that the bacteria, while
in the human body, undergo changes in the sequences and the expression of
their genes and are able to divide and pass those changes down to the next
generation.”

What do you find interesting about the field of microbiology and the research that is currently taking place in this field?

Read more about Nifty Fifty Speaker Sarah Fortune here.

Watch more about Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Dr. Fortune below.

“Unbelievable,” you would probably retort. But that’s what happened when a cadre of 25 eight to ten year-old British students participated in an innovative hands-on undertaking in science education headed by Nifty Fifty Speaker Beau Lotto, founder and director of Lottolab, a cutting-edge science laboratory and art studio based at University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology in England.

The children’s research, which examined how bumblebees perceive color, was published in December 2010 in England’s Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Beau, a noted neuroscientist and artist, is known not only for his daring, iconoclastic approaches to science learning through his endeavors at Lottolab, but also for his groundbreaking research in shedding light on the mysteries of the brain’s visual system – work that is helping to reshape a wide range of perspectives related to eyesight, from how we perceive color illusions to how we interact visually with
technology, art, music and education.

Twenty-five primary schoolchildren in Devon, England participated in the bumblebee science project funded by Beau at Devon’s Blackawton School. Dubbed the “Blackawton Bees” (or i, scientist) project, the ultimate success of the undertaking – culminating when the students’ work was published in the noted research journal — may have come as a surprise to many, but Beau says it all just shows what can happen when science education is made fun, hands-on and exciting for kids.

“When science is approached as play, or as an unpredictable adventure,” says Beau, “science education becomes a more enlightened and intuitive process of asking questions and devising games to address those questions.”

In the Blackawton Bees project, which investigated the way that bumblebees see colors and patterns, the children (under the guidance of Beau and the school’s head teacher Dave Strudwick) were given significant freedom and responsibility. “The students not only devised the experiments,” says Beau, “they also devised the questions; they reasoned an answer, and they did all the data analysis and then wrote up their findings to be considered for publication.”

The young scientists’ research results revealed that bees are able to learn and remember cues based on color and pattern in a spatially complex scene. “In other words, they discovered that bumblebees can use a combination of color and spatial relationships in deciding which color of flower to forage from,” says Beau. The field of insect color and pattern vision is generally poorly understood and the findings
reported by the school children represent a genuine advance in the field, he says.

The Blackawton Bees project is a perfect extension of the daring, provocative work Beau is conducting at his Lottolab Studio, an innovative research space which creates installations, musical performances and educational programs, and where he performs carefully controlled experiments on perception and behavior. Beau is also currently developing a ‘living lab’ at London’s Science Museum, funded by the Wellcome Trust, which enables the public, including school children, to participate, design and run real
science experiments on site.

“Through such projects,” he says, “we have learned that doing ‘real’ science in public spaces can stimulate tremendous interest in children and adults in understanding the processes by which we make sense of the world.”

What type of experiments would be useful to set up to understand various processes we use to make sense of our world?

Read more about Nifty Fifty Speaker Beau Lotto here

Watch a few videos about Beau Lotto and his research on visual perception and some cool optical illusions and how we perceive the world and some experiments from the Blackawton Bees project.

“Plasmas are hot gases containing a significant number of electrically charged particles, and are common in nature,” says Andrew, “as exemplified by lightning, the solar core and the aurora borealis.” Plasmas also make up such man-made devices as fluorescent light bulbs, fusion reactors, and plasma televisions, he adds. But while 99 percent of the visible universe is in the plasma state, Andrew says, “many schools still teach that there are three states of matter–solid, liquid, and gas– ignoring plasmas entirely.”

Because of the predominance of plasma in the universe, Andrew likes to say, “It’s not the fourth state of matter, it’s the first state.” But textbooks and state and national education standards, for the most part, don’t mention plasmas, so many high school teachers don’t teach them, says Andrew, who is also a lecturer in Princeton’s Writing Program.

To bring home the wonders of plasmas in an unforgettable way to learners , Andrew likes taking undergraduate students and K-12 teachers aboard NASA’s Weightless Wonder aircraft in Houston to conduct mid-air experiments in “dusty plasmas”(relevant to the rings of Saturn or the tail of a comet) and to examine whether hot air rises in microgravity (using a plasma ball or a lava lamp).

What cool experiments does your organiztion do with plasma?

Read more about Andrew Zwicker and his work with plasmas here

And watch Andrew conduct some cool experiments:

“Ancient DNA gives us new insight into the most fundamental processes of evolution and refreshing new information about our past,” says Beth, assistant professor of Biology at Pennsylvania State University and one of the top ancient DNA scientists in the world. “A better picture of the past may help us save species today,” she says.

Other aspects of ancient DNA research also include focusing more specifically on the influences of climate change on genetic diversity within populations. In this emerging field, scientists use genetic information gleaned from the remnants of ancient animals, plants, soil and other sources to discover how evolution happens over time and territory. By analyzing DNA samples from species at not just one, but many moments in time, researchers can trace changes in populations, and overlay those changes with concurrent environmental events. The precision this allows is unprecedented.

In her work, Beth has scoured remote landscapes in Alaska, Kenya, Siberia, Canada and other locations to collect small samples from bones, teeth, skulls, and tusks that will be brought back to the lab, ground up, dissolved, altered and “cooked” so DNA can be extracted. “I do a lot of my work in the Arctic because the frozen ground preserves the bones the best,” says Beth. “We get some of our samples from museums as well.”
From samples and statistical models, ancient DNA scientists can pinpoint when a species’ genetic diversity changed, she says. “We can see if that change may have been influenced by a specific event such as a new predator or shift in climate. By sampling populations across time, we can actually see diversity being lost or gained as animals evolve and disperse.”

Over the years, there have been many hypotheses about why populations maintain or lose diversity. “Now, for the first time, ancient DNA lets us explicitly test those hypotheses and propose new ones. Answering these questions can help form strategies to protect and conserve species today,” Beth adds. Already, ancient DNA has proved several long-standing assumptions wrong. “It was commonly accepted that the reason bison have no diversity today is that almost all of them were killed by human hunters in North America 200 years ago,” Beth notes. Instead, her ancient DNA analysis proved that even when there were millions of bison, they had very little genetic diversity. In fact, their decline began not 200, but 35,000 years ago as climate changed and they passed through the last Ice Age. In addition, by comparing DNA of the dodo with the genes of forty other species, Beth’s research established that the flightless bird was a distant relative of the pigeon. Ancient DNA has also shed new light on the decades-old debate over what caused the mass extinctions of mammoths, saber-toothed cats, mastodons, and other distinctive species about 10,000 years ago.

What ancient material do you think should be analyzed and why?

Read more about Dr. Shapiro here:

Learn more about what Dr. Shapiro is learning from ancient DNA here:

For a more in depth lecture watch here:

–Overcoming formidable cultural and personal obstacles to become the first woman from the Gulf Region to earn a Ph.D. in biotechnology.

–Becoming the first Arab woman in 2009 to win a fellowship in the respected American
innovation network PopTech.

– Being chosen under the White House initiative to be featured with other innovators around the country in “Connect a Million Minds,” an online documentary film project to motivate K-12 students toward STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers.

– Receiving the prestigious Prince Khalid Award from her country in 2010 for her innovative approach to the sciences.

As impressive as these achievements are, perhaps the milestone that means the most to
her is the current path she is on: combining her lifelong love of science with her skills in
biotechnology to improve healthcare in the Gulf Region and other parts of the developing
world.

“I’m committed to my principles,” says Hayat, a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, “and I believe that a person must leave a mark that benefits the human race, however I want to begin this benefit in the lands where my roots are.”

Her dream took a major step forward in 2007 when she co-founded Diagnostics For All, a non-profit company that develops inexpensive, disposable medical tests capable of efficiently diagnosing diseases in remote areas of the world where people often do not receive adequate medical care. Using inexpensive and readily available paper and adhesive tape, the small devices are capable of reliably measuring protein and sugar levels in the blood for signs of illness. “Through nanotechnology techniques we were able to micro-fabricate tiny diagnostic tools in the paper, says Hayat, “helping to create medical tests that allow healthcare workers to monitor the treatment of the 60 percent of people living beyond the reach of medical infrastructures.”

Read more about Hayat Sindi here

Watch a bit about how she has broken boundries and what she has done for science.

Hayat Sindi: The Science Entrepreneur from Spark Project on Vimeo.

“I first thought I could be successful automatically just by following techniques used by my college science professors — lecturing and writing concepts on the blackboard – but that wasn’t very engaging for seventh graders,” laughs Alan, who serves as professor of Science Education at San Diego State University in San Diego, CA, and as president of the National Science Teachers Association, the largest organization in the world committed to excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning.

Alan then tried to reach his students by learning to play the banjo and writing science songs that he performed in class – which still didn’t work.

“Eventually, I learned that approaching science as a largely hands-on, doing sort of enterprise worked much better,” says Alan. “Kids became involved as they solved problems, manipulated materials, and created ideas for themselves. I also became enchanted with using discrepant events as ‘hooks’ to begin classroom laboratory investigations.”

Then he discovered magic. “I found that theatrical magic could provide the ultimate ‘hook’ in grabbing kids’ attention since, in many cases, magic is accomplished through clever uses of scientific principles.” Alan proceeded to embark on years of training to learn, hone and employ his sleight-of-hand skills in the classroom.

So when the Harry Potter books arrived on the scene, they were tailor-made for Alan to incorporate into his magic presentations which he had already begun performing locally and around the country at schools, education conferences and other gatherings while serving as professor at San Diego State.

“I truly believe in incorporating storylines into science teaching — they enhance both the
science content and promote student interest,” says Alan, “so Harry Potter episodes are
perfect! They chronicle magical events that I can simulate and use as hooks to immerse
students in hands-on science explorations.”

For example, when Hermione and Harry learn to levitate a feather in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Alan uses this as an opportunity to simulate the action in the classroom byemploying magical means to levitate a feather, and that becomes a hook leading to instructing students on the principles of aerodynamic lift — a scientific form of ‘levitation.’

Read more about Alan McCormack here:

Learn about science taught through magic with Alan McCormack below:

NASA astronaut John Mace Grunsfeld knows the experience well. He’s flown on five Shuttle missions between 1995 and 2009, including a 16-day mission of ultraviolet observations with the Astro observatory, in addition to the fifth mission to the Russian Mir space station, and three servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope (including the final Hubble servicing mission in 2009). John has logged more than 58 days in space, and 58 hours and 30 minutes of extravehicular activity in eight space walks.

“I absolutely love spaceflight,” says John, “but there is no escaping the fact that getting to space is physically demanding on both machine and astronaut.” He adds that the eight-and-a-half minute period between liftoff and getting into Earth’s orbit is particularly critical.

John explains what this thrilling, but important, part of a Space Shuttle mission is like:

“We train upwards to a year to be an astronaut and a lot of people are involved in getting us and the craft ready, so when launch day arrives, a lot of things are on the line.
The Shuttle crew, wearing space suits weighing about 85 pounds, climbs into the Shuttle two hours before liftoff. The ground crew then closes the door. We are lying on our backs in our seats, and our pre-flight checks begin. The Shuttle, loaded with 4.5 million pounds of explosive rocket fuel, is ready to go.

Eight-and-a-half minutes following liftoff, we are outside the earth’s atmosphere that’s when the engines turn off, and instantaneously we go from feeling like we weigh 700 pounds to being totally weightless. The transition is so sudden, it almost makes you giddy. At this point the Shuttle is essentially in orbit, and that’s when you can really feel the joy of having survived the launch.

Read more about John here.
Watch more about him here:

Learn more about being an astronaut here:

Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Natalie Angier has spent her entire career
translating complex scientific research information into engaging, stimulating
prose that the average person can understand.

In fact, says Marcela Valdes of Publisher’s Weekly: “She is the kind of woman you
wish you’d had beside you in high school chemistry–tiny, ferociously intelligent,
she’d eye you over a boiling beaker and explain exactly what the experiment was
all about.”

Simplicity, clarity, passion, vivid imagery, combined with an uncompromising
respect for scientific accuracy are the hallmarks of Natalie’s writing as she helps
readers navigate their way through the complex, ever-changing and always
fascinating world of science.

“Trying to elucidate the ideas of science to others — that’s what drives me,” says
Natalie whose impressive compendium of writing has covered the breadth of
science, ranging from the Big Bang and interstellar space travel to medicine,
genetics, evolutionary biology, human behavior, insects, and the animal kingdom.

Her writings have not only taken the form of numerous magazine, newspaper
and essay pieces, but also four major books -the most recent one being The
Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. This work examines
fundamental concepts of modern scientific thinking, giving readers fascinating
insight into major scientific disciplines — including physics, chemistry, biology,
geology and astronomy– via interviews with researchers who explain what they
wish everybody understood about their work.

Says Natalie: “To really understand scientific ideas, readers need not just facts,
which anyone can find on the Internet. They need an overarching narrative that
pulls facts and ideas together into a cohesive whole.”

Natalie got her first break in science writing at age 22 when she was hired as a
founding staff reporter and writer for Discover, the science magazine that Time
Inc. launched in 1980. In the 1980s she also worked as the senior science writer
for Time magazine; an editor at the women’s business magazine, Savvy; and a professor of journalism at the New York University’s Graduate Program in Science
and Environmental Reporting.

And then In 1991 – just 10 months after starting as a science reporter for the
New York Times — she won a Pulitzer Prize in the category of Beat Reporting,
for a series of 10 feature articles on a wide array of scientific topics. These
included: the biology of scorpions, disputes over the Human Genome Project, the
importance of parasites in evolution, and mating habits in the animal kingdom.

Read more about Natalie here.

Watch an interesting video about her below.