A Glimpse of our Space Future
The American Museum of Natural History‘s new exhibit, Beyond Planet Earth, which opened last Saturday through August 12, 2012, provides a window through the past and an optimistic glimpse at the future of space exploration. As I moved through the historical portion at a press preview last Tuesday, Russian spacecraft pinged, and news reports captured [...]
Seeing the forest for the Birch reduction
This post is a part of the Chemistry Carnival hosted by Chemical & Engineering News in celebration of the International Year of Chemistry. Check there later in the week to see what others have blogged or look for the #chemcarnival hashtag on Twitter. I spent nearly a decade of my life doing organic chemistry. [...]
Around the Web: June 3 edition
Considering my eclectic web-based reading habits and my broad interests in the science world, I’ll be posting an occasional roundup of interesting science-y tidbits I’ve been consuming recently. Welcome to a glimpse into my webby world. Science career reality check: Chemjobber keeps regular tabs on the chemistry employment scene. On Tuesday, CJ offered a reality check [...]
From the Petri Dish to the Backyard Grill
Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t buy test-tube hot dogs for your Memorial Day barbecue, but maybe in a decade or so we’ll all be noshing on barbecued goodies raised in the sterility of a laboratory near you. Doesn’t that sound tasty? Or yucky? For me, it’s a little bit of both. I’m fascinated [...]
Pondering medium and “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams”
I’ll admit a kind of mixed relationship with 3D movies. Done well, I love experiencing the depth, but it seems to me that 3D should be an artistic choice for its ability to convey an experience, rather than just a way to make sure that people see a movie in the movie theater. Cave of [...]
San Diego Zoo mother & baby snapshots
In honor of Mother’s Day, I wanted to share a few snapshots from our trip to the San Diego Zoo last month. Here’s a giraffe calf and mother: Capybaras are the largest living rodents: there’s mom and a young upstart. Capybara mom and baby at the San Diego Zoo And the best for last: hippos [...]
Biology on a Dinosaur Scale
Last week, along with a group of other journalists, I got a sneak peek at The World’s Largest Dinosaurs, an exhibit that opened on April 16 at the American Museum of Natural History and will be open until January 2. This exhibit departs from the traditional dino-formula of towering skeletons by asking questions about the [...]
A ruler among science books
Though I’d read the excerpt adapted for the New York Times magazine, picking up The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, with its regal and imposing title, was just a little intimidating. But open the first page and the language propels and compels the reader to follow the disease, its [...]
A leaky pipeline postmortem
I was just a couple of years into my chemistry Ph.D., when a good friend forwarded me a copy of an article about this MIT report: A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT. I wasn’t surprised when I read about the inequalities in resources and that many of the women faculty had felt [...]
Whales in NY Harbor, Part III
In our corner of Brooklyn, we’ve been waiting for our local whale sighting. But it looks like it just might be a matter of time. According to a NY Daily News article, local boat owners are already making money off a revenue stream that seemed confined to calmer waters: whale watching tours. I’ve posted before about [...]
