education
grrlscientist | August 31, 2009tags: Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Coccyzus americanus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Coccyzus americanus, photographed at High Island, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 19 May 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/500s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
esiegel | August 30, 2009
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And she's always gone too long anytime she goes away.
Bill Withers' song Ain't No Sunshine has been covered by over 100 major artists since its release in 1971, but I think the original is still the best (sorry, DMX).
Those of you who've been following this blog since the old site know that I don't write very often about my personal life. But there's a big life change that's happening for me right now that's related to the Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics.
You see, back in the spring of 2006, I…
grrlscientist | August 30, 2009tags: Yellow-crowned Night-heron, Nycticorax violaceus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Yellow-crowned Night-heron, Nycticorax violaceus, photographed at Bolivar Flats, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 24 July 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/750s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | August 29, 2009tags: Common Bulbul, Pycnonotus barbatus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Common Bulbul, also known as the Pepperbird among other names, Pycnonotus barbatus, photographed in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Dan Logen, 7 August 2006 [larger view].
Nikon D2X, 200-400 VR lens at 400 mm. ISO 400. 1/250 f/5.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | August 28, 2009The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.
The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.
A vastness, as a neighbor, came,--
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,--
And so the night became.
~ Emily Dickinson
This is the cutest event I've heard of for NYC: a night spent counting crickets and katydids.
What: NYC Cricket Crawl (counting 7 species of crickets and katydids in NYC)
Where: New York City area
When: Friday, 11 September 2009 at 7:…
drorzel | August 28, 2009The Female Science Professor is thinking about what advisors owe their students:
When I got my PhD and went out into the great big academic world, I felt that I had the respect of my adviser, but I knew not to expect anything more from him in the way of support in my career other than the standard recommendation letter.
I never minded because he was that way with all of his students. He had a sink-or-swim philosophy of advising, and this continued after students graduated.
Now that I am an adviser with former students of my own, I think his approach makes some sense because it is a very fair…
mikethemadbiologist | August 28, 2009In a bunch of different contexts, I keep reading about how poorly the U.S. is doing in science. And that's true at the national level--we do fare poorly in comparison to other countries. But it's worth remembering that the U.S. is a really large country, geographically and in terms of population, and that certain regions do very, very well. I don't just mean the occasional affluent county, but entire states.
A while ago, I discussed a re-analysis of math test scores that compared individual U.S. states' scores to other countries--in other words, states in the U.S. were treated as if they…
grrlscientist | August 28, 2009tags: Ross's Goose, Chen rossii, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Ross's Goose, Chen rossii, photographed at Tom Bass Park, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 11 August 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1000s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
[Mystery bird] Ross's Goose, Chen rossii, photographed at Tom Bass Park, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 11 August 2009 [larger view…
drorzel | August 28, 2009Dave Munger on Twitter drew my attention to this blog post on college costs, and I really wish he hadn't. The post in question is really just a recap-with-links of an editorial by John Zmirak, blaming the high cost of college on an unlikely source:
[W]hat if universities began to neglect this basic charge, and instead turned into featherbedding, unionized factories that existed to protect their overpaid workers -- who were impossible to fire? What if these factories botched the items customers paid for, and spent their energy generating oddball inventions no one wanted?
That is exactly what…
grrlscientist | August 27, 2009tags: Grabs-U, Grabula, software, technology, optical illusion, offbeat, streaming video
Wow, here's two hot new Finnish software programs for your mac that you can use to allow the world to touch you (Grab-U) and that you can use to reach out and touch the world (Grabula) -- I can hardly wait to get these for my Powerbook!
Grabs-U software demo video (allows the world to touch you):
And here's the Grabula demo (you can touch the world);
Okay, you are saying, that's just not real. Well, you're right! Neither is real, both are an optical illusion. How did they do it? This video shows how (I…
grrlscientist | August 27, 2009tags: Grey Crowned-crane, Balearica regulorum, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Grey Crowned-crane, Balearica regulorum, photographed in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Dan Logen, 4 August 2006 [larger view].
Nikon D2X, 200-400 mm VR lens at 280 mm. ISO 100 f/4 1/500.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | August 26, 2009tags: Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan, newsreel footage, human behavior, learning, streaming video
Helen Keller, the American author, political activist and lecturer, and her instructor and lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan, appear in this Vitaphone newsreel from 1930. In this rare footage, Sullivan demonstrates how Helen Keller learned to talk. The final line of this footage, "I Am Not DUMB now!" is touching.
rallain | August 26, 2009I re-watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and my wife and I noticed something about teaching. Of course I mentioned that this would make a good blog post (and she may still post it on her blog, but I can't help myself). If you have not read the book or seen the movie, I don't think I will give away any serious spoilers - but who hasn't at least seen the movie? If you were going to see it (or read it) you would have done so by now - right?
The Order of the Phoenix shows at least three different examples of teachers and teachings in the movie. Here they are:
Dolores…
grrlscientist | August 26, 2009The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.
The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.
A vastness, as a neighbor, came,--
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,--
And so the night became.
~ Emily Dickinson
This is the cutest event I've heard of for NYC: a night spent counting crickets and katydids.
What: NYC Cricket Crawl (counting 7 species of crickets and katydids in NYC)
Where: New York City area
When: Friday, 11 September 2009 at 7:…
grrlscientist | August 26, 2009tags: Carolina Chickadee, Poecile carolinensis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Carolina Chickadee, Poecile carolinensis, photographed at Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 2 July 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/500s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | August 25, 2009tags: Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Moulting adult female Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris, photographed in Brandon, South Dakota. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Terry Sohl, 12 August 2009 [larger view]
Photo taken with Canon 50D, 400 5.6L.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
esiegel | August 25, 2009There's a new book out there, Why Does E=MC2 (and Why Should We Care?), by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. One of Seed's editors, Elizabeth Cline, took a read through it and wrote about her experiences and what she learned. Is relativity, particle physics, and all the related science really incomprehensible to all except the scientists working on it? Cox and Forshaw don't think so, and neither do I. So I wrote an article for SEED Magazine here. Here's an excerpt:
Inside of every atom -- every proton, every neutron, every electron, even every neutrino in the Universe -- lies the secret of…
grrlscientist | August 24, 2009tags: White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher,, Melaenornis fischeri, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher, Melaenornis fischeri, photographed in Nakuru National Park, Kenya, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Dan Logen, 29 August 2006 [larger view].
Nikon D2X, 200-400 VR lens at 310 mm ISO 160, f/4.5, 1/160 sec.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | August 24, 2009The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.
The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.
A vastness, as a neighbor, came,--
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,--
And so the night became.
~ Emily Dickinson
This is the cutest event I've heard of for NYC: a night spent counting crickets and katydids.
What: NYC Cricket Crawl (counting 7 species of crickets and katydids in NYC)
Where: New York City area
When: Friday, 11 September 2009 at 7:…
grrlscientist | August 23, 2009tags: Black Tern, Chlidonias niger, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Black Tern, Chlidonias niger, photographed at Galveston's East Beach, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 14 July 2009 [larger view].
Nikon D200 ,Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/800s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
[Mystery bird] Black Tern, Chlidonias niger, photographed at Galveston's East Beach, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48…