My "top model" doll has an author crush on Jonah Lehrer
As a fan of neuroscience in general, which coincidentally is a hot
topic in the bookstores (along with evolution), I do enjoy a good read on the topic. The above review is of both of
Jonah Lehrer's fabulous books, Proust was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide, which I happened to listen to on audio. He also has a fabulous blog called The Frontal Cortex if you are curious.He is editor of SEED magazine,which I also happen to love, love, love!
FYI,
I am currently listening to Krakatoa by Simon Winchester on audio as a reminder of what I had read back about five or six years ago. It is pretty much the seminal
book about geography out there, at least in popular book format
Back to the video, if you can't quite see it well, I pasted a pic of Jonah onto Malibu Ken to be the object of my
doll's affections. She's playing her diva self and making shoe comments--And Jonah is being such a good sport about it all!
I have maybe seen four episodes of America's Next Top Model, and those were while I was getting a pedicure or some such thing, not on purpose. Intriguing. At least people can
see some of the ridiculous things they put models through. And don't I know it: bikinis in ice plants, ski wear in 90 degree
heat at major shipping ports are just a couple of the more extreme things I endured personally. I guess the nice way to put
it is "creative".
NOVAScience NOW is a very good program and most certainly would be my choice over ANTM.
I have a lot going on, not one bit of it lucrative, so I've been a bit neglectful of my website. I promise
to get back into the swing of things shortly, which will include the book list from my students from this spring semester.
I drove to Ohio State University
(five hours there and five hours back, sun in my eyes both ways!) to the Injury Biomechanics Symposium in order to hear Mary Roach speak about the use of cadavers (rather, Post-mortem human subjects or PMHS) in research, as she had learned a lot about
them during the writing of her book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. I also managed an interview with her, but before I continue, let me tell you a little about this day.
At the same hotel was the 2009 Ohio Tactical Officer's Association Training Conference open to Law Enforcement, Military and Corrections Special Training personnel. Much like in the world of modeling*, here I saw a
fantastic example of form following function: Each of these guys were built almost exactly the same. Without a doubt, they
were physically fit and muscular (on the ready to fire on assailants, carry gear and take down the bad guys in hand to hand
combat with ease). They all were about the same height (maybe 5'8"- 6' ish as I guess that too tall makes you too
much of a target. They all had very close hair cuts and primarily fine features (for wearing head and face gear, I suppose
a large schnoz would not work so well) I will add, at the risk of sounding man crazy, that every last one of them was handsome.
Maybe it was the overabundance of testosterone in such a small area overpowering me and playing tricks on me, but hey, it
is merely an observation, subjective as it is. Mary did note that she felt very safe in the hotel. I believe we were!
At some point, despite me being quite enthralled with all areas of science and
especially appreciating bioengineering, Mary and I thought it would be fun to see what this collection of men were doing at
the hotel. We learned they were there to be kept up to date on strategies and tactics of controlling various situations
(that SWAT teams would control I suppose) including those specifically in tube-shaped vehicles with no lateral motion like
buses, planes and subways (who knew, right??). We also learned that, darn! we missed the weapons and gear displays the
day before. We were also invited to their get together the next day--twice! (Thanks, guys, for the invite--another time, maybe!)
Back to the Injury Biomechanics Symposium. At these things, we inevitably
have one quite inquisitive and opinionated researcher who makes his opinion known about every presentation...without fail.
At one point when Dr. Inquisitive stood up, the director coincidentally got up to leave and I turned to Mary and said "He's
going to get the Ohio Tactical guys to come take him down!" and that got Mary giggling during the session. So enjoyable
was this observation to her that she stole it for the Q & A after her talk which played out when one gentleman said "I'm
sorry to say, I haven't read your books...." and Mary retorted, "Someone get the Ohio Tactical guys on him!"
(audience laughter!) And, not one to disappoint, Dr. Inquisitive made absolutely certain to comment on the fact that we don't
call cadavers "cadavers" anymore, but they are now called Post-Mortem Human Subjects.
You can watch the interview in two parts. The second part features
a question from Carl Zimmer that Mary said had NEVER been asked before and she really appreciated it! It was a lovely interview, Mary is so wonderful.I'm
new at interviewing on camera and she was just perfectly gracious. I do apologize for the background wooshing sound. I have
a new mic and I thought this would help.
And in all cool-ness,
when we discussed a potential topic for her 5th book (nope, won't tell you what it is about) I was happy to share some
pertinent and interesting facts that could be useful. <ahem> No thanks required, Mary, just mention me in a footnote!
________
*Following
Mary's lead, I figured a footnote would be appropriate here. Models would be primarily tall and thin, and there are good reasons
having to do with optical illusions created by clothing why this is the prefered body type, but that's a discussion for another
day.
A quick post just to share some fun news. The AP picked up
on the story about me by Christine DeGarennes at the News-Gazette and I've been popping up all sorts of places including the Chicago Tribune online.
Also exciting is the fact that I will be traveling to Ohio State University on Monday
to meet Mary Roach (my favorite author)! and hear her speak at the Injury Biomechanics Symposium. I plan to interview her, so look for that. Also, I will have my books signed!
Below,
I copied part of my July 12, 2008 post where I proclaim that Mary is my favorite
author for the first time!
Speaking of science outreach,
I am FINALLY reading the first book by Mary Roach, called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
The first one I read (her third book) was Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which I just enjoyed with every cell in my body. Her humor is so
awesome "Again with the pyrex tubes."---read the book to find out what this means! WAIT!
First, a disclaimer! This book is not for everyone. You know who you are, and if you don't
know, I will tell you: if you are a middle schooler or maybe even a high schooler with a parent who would not approve, or
your religious affiliation will not approve--DON"T READ IT or I will personally come snatch that book right out of your
hands and give you a disapproving look and ground you from emailing or texting anyone for at least a week!
Mary Roach is now officially on my list of people I most want to invite to dinner. I'll add her to Reza Aslan (author of No god but God-a great book describing Islam--while I'm not a Muslim, I like how he expressed himself)
and Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe--about string theory) and Alan Alda. They don't have to come all at once as I'm not necessarily the "hostess with the mostess", but I'd
certainly try and definitely hope wonderful conversation would be the centerpoint of the evening.
I've been reading Stiff during incubation times of some experiments
and microscope training I've been doing (sometimes sitting on the mysterious disappearing Beckman Institute couches and sometimes
lying on the benches and walls on the engineering quad--yes, that long person stretched out looking like me is really me!).
I found, strangely, that I can read about decomposition and other gruesome things even while eating. I suppose if it
was a "scratch and sniff" book, I probably would not be nearly so stoic about the whole thing! The full body
dissection course I took in grad school with the medical students helped me come to terms with death and dead bodies, at least
on one level. I have no macabre fascination or anything like that....I just stepped a little closer to accepting this
as a fact of life, and Mary Roach found a way to make the whole thing respectfully entertaining. If you have the stomach
for this or the curiosity, I highly recommend it! I think all you pre-meds will especially appreciate it.
Kate from Intrigued Host, a new podcast about interesting people and things, will interview me next week because
I guess I have intrigued her. This is all so exciting and fun.
Look at the people she has interviewed.....I'm
impressed!!
Some of my interviewees have included Tony, Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar winners/nominees such
as, Sir Ian McKellen, documentary filmmaker Malcolm Clarke, Alan Cumming, Rachel Evan Wood, Richard Jeni, Arthur Marx, Michael Constantine, Garry Marshall, Peter Guber, Eric Stoltz, Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar, Bruce McDonald, Harvey
Pekar, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Doris Roberts, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano, Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Donald Sutherland,
Gloria Gaynor, and even the Dalai Lama
What else? I did
review the Star Trek movie for Nerdabout.com and you can see that here!
I will leave you with a video that got the women scientists
I follow on twitter all excited about an automatic pipetting device. Hmm, I wonder why that would be?
Bad fake scientist
guys, throwing pipettes like that! Tsk, tsk
I have now been called to jury duty five times. Four petit juries and
one coroner's jury (that was very interesting!) in my adult life. People in the office are stunned I get called so often!
Three of those times were in the past five years. As it turns out, I am running the GEM4 Summer School Cell Biology lab portion exactly at that time so I need to reschedule. I requested a letter. I am posting it because
it makes me happy. I hope everyone can get a letter like this in their life! Here it is:
It is so nice
to know that I am on occasion indispensable, and not just to the courts!
I
am grading, but once that is done, there will be a new book list from this year's students as well as musings on this
face recognition project!
All this comparing me to women with dark hair, high cheekbones, and striking
eyes is getting old. And Dr. Isis from ScienceBlogs has added the last straw by finding what I now will unfortunately have to say is the best match yet!
I don't pout or glare (usually, but maybe I'll take it up if this comparing continues!) and don't
tote a pistol but thanks to my bro, an ex-marine, I can fire one and hurt you if you stand really, really still. Good
thing you'd run because I'd never have the guts to do it anyway! I'll just aim at the fake cardboard guy.
This is Baroness, an intelligence officer for Cobra from the GI Joe series. She's
evil and ruthless. I'm not. I'm the nicest person you'll ever meet....probably, or so say my students.
When you vote for the ladies I am accused of being similar
to, Baroness is NOT on the list! I don't know that the facial recognition software would work on a cartoon. But, I will
ask!
It looks like I am driving
to see Reza Aslan speak in Chicago this evening. I really enjoy his writing style. Along with Mary Roach (and others), he is an author I am looking forward to meeting (at least for a book signature). I know this is not science
(and some readers could possibly be seething that I dare mention a book about religion--but why not, there's a pic of
me in a Catholic School uniform next to Pope JPII, so I'm not exactly breaking new ground here), but I enjoyed his book
about Islam called No god but God. It was a clear and logical, intelligent and exhaustive explanation of Islam. Just the facts but with a marvelous
writing style (as a good science book should be, too!). He has a new book out called How to Win a Cosmic War: God Globalization and the End of the War on TerrorI just started it, but so far, so good.
Finally, I came across a video I enjoyed by a young man who entered the Discovery Education 3M
Young Scientists Challenge last year. Here, Michael Koehler explains Bernoulli's principle. Future professor? What
do you think?
While we are presently concerned about the Swine Flu, which hopefully
can be prevented with common sense measures, I think a look at a more pervasive infection is worth your time.
An ingenious website has been created to identify the symptoms of a NERD infection and to help support those with such an infection. It
is high time that this has been done. I wrote to them telling them of my symptoms and they thought it best I write something
up for them. However, liking the visual aspect of things, I decided to film something. Above is what I came up
with. Naturally, I could go on and on, but kept it relatively brief or we'd be here all day!
Watch my video, visit their site, tell your story. The world must know.
The State Science Olympiad is done for another year. It is always a ton of
work, but fun for everyone!
Our bioengineering department head
is pretty cool (Mike Insana). He walked by my office, pointed at me with a laugh and said "My vote is for Racquel
Welch!" LOL! thanks!
Julia Roberts is in the lead....still.
I don't see it, I really don't, but don't let my opinion stop you.
Last lab of the year, so need to tend to that! Until next time,
Second, now that I've been out on video for a bit, adding
to other information from years past, I have been accused of looking like some of the most beautiful women ever to walk the
planet. Those who know me think I find this hilarious, a little flattering, but mostly hilarious.
Sandra Bullock Lynda Carter
Audrey Hepburn
Vivian Leigh Julia Roberts
Racquel Welch (Sarah Palin)
So, lets be scientific about this. I will post pics of these beauties in the BIOE
hall (3rd floor of DCL) and you can come by and vote on who you think I most look like. I will collect data until the
end of the semester. If you found me here by chance, use the comment form to send me a comment...you won't be anonymous,
but I make no judgments on what you think.
Then, I will look
to see if I can find someone who can run some sort of software analysis to compare % similarities between my facial features
and those of these women. We will match that to my other collected data and see what we come up with. If you know
someone with this software, let me know!!
Still working on
Science Olympiad...only a few days until the big event!
Via Twitter, I have made contact with some very interesting people
(and I thank freelance science writer David Bradley of Science Base blog for convincing me to be more active with it). Just recently I started following history_geek, a professor
who studies the history of medicine. Those who know me, know I love the history of science, but I am particularly drawn
to the history of medicine and am excited about this new interaction. She has a website called Wonders and Marvels:A community for Curious Minds who Love History, its Odd Stories, and Good Reads
My question is: How did she know I was out there???
She
is heading to Paris shortly and I told her about my "nerdy" trip to Paris about a year and a half ago where I tried
to visit mostly scientific spots of interest. One place I decided to go was La Musée d'Histoire de la Médecine (The Museum of the History of Medicine). There, one could find all sort of ancient medical artifacts
including trepanation kits (for drilling into the skull) and other antique medical equipment.
The most fascinating item there was a table
made of petrified body parts. Here we go:
Translation: Created by Efisio Marini, Italian physician/naturalist
and offered to Napolean III
This table is formed
of petrified brain, blood, bile, liver, lungs and glands on which sits a foot, four ears and cut vertebrae which are also
petrified.
If you are now grossed out, let's look at something
less gruesome, a sample of penicillian!
OK, gotta run! Lots to do this week to get ready
for the State Science Olympiad. I need volunteers for the day (Saturday the 25th! Contact me if you have a few
hours to help these kids!)
Theo Gray, author of the book TheoGray's Mad Science, of which I wrote a few days ago, showed me a video that was to appear online the next day in his Gray Matter PopSci column
the next day when I visited him to pick up a copy of his book.
He
made a thermal lance out of bacon. Why? To demonstrate the properties required to produce a high heat flame sufficient
to cut through iron. Those who are vegan or trying to keep kosher or halal can also make one out of a cucumber as well.
When I was a kid, there were not many science magazines available.
Scientific American, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics were the only ones I was aware of at the time. My dad had
the Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, so I would read through those and as I got older, would buy my own copies of Scientific
American. Now there are so many choices!!
The NEW vid from BIO-RAD!!! I am in geek heaven! If you can't get
to the vid from here because of such high trafffic, go straight to the BIO-RAD site HERE!
I've ordered from them for years for my SDS-PAGE supplies.
And don't forget
the original. The only problem is I swear they say Polymamases and not polymerases
Read about it here, at PopSci, where Gray contributes to the Gray Matter column. If I read it, I will probably review it. This review
may have me doing the experiments....I think it will be required! I may seem like a mild mannered biologist, but there is
enough of the fascination with fire, chemical mixing and freezing things with liquid nitrogen in me that needs to be expressed,
that it looks like this book is one I will savor!
I am
a little disappointed however, that the author of the article, Mike Haney, is not the electrical engineer Mike Haney who runs
the Senior Design Projects for us in Bioengineering....oh well.
But less disappointed now that I found out that Theodore Gray co-founded Wolfram Research based in Champaign and
is JUST down the street from me. I'm going to pick up a copy of the book from him IN PERSON!
Thank you to mycitytalk who corrected the first sentence of their feature about me, for which I am most grateful.
David Bradley at his Sciencebase blog has been posting science safety stories,
which seems quite timely given the boxes for shoes incident in the lab!! You can check his stories out here. They are amusing. And as we know, this can be serious
My
safety blunder story happened as an undergraduate in a plant biology/microbiology lab I was working in. (One day I'll
share about it--acid rain and bacteria that clean up oil slicks--a lab that cared about the environment!)
We all know that wafting a chemical is important, as is labeling your beakers and
bottles. Cleaning copper grids for scanning electron microscopy involves a dip in acetone followed by a dip in each of three
beakers of dH2O. The phone rang, I answered it, returned to my task, and, having not labeled the beakers all containing
clear liquid, I couldn’t remember which direction I was working. I picked up a beaker at one end, wafted my hand
carefully over the beaker and thought I detected acetone. Certain that this was the acetone beaker, picked up the one on the
other side, assuming it was water and put my nose right up to the contents and took a big sniffing inhale. Imagine my shock
as my nose immediately began bleeding and didn’t stop for 20 minutes!
Of course I don't put boxer shorts on anyone's feet!
This is just a quick response to the kind feature about me presented
on mycitytalk, which is an up and coming web news site. I am flattered they chose to feature me. I truly can't complain because
it looks like a good forward thinking site.
I
only have one small issue. A noun in the first sentence.
If you look at the April 2 post (You've been Eric-ed!) you will clearly see that I wrote that Eric put boxes,
not boxers, on the offending student's feet. I had imagined Kimwipe boxes in my joke, but Eric found some corrugated
cardboard boxes that did the trick and apparently decorated them with tape to look like laces.
Although boxer shorts would be quite goofy and humiliating, I'm absolutely certain
that I would not have that much forethought to store those in the lab. And I feel pretty confident that I've never
humiliated anyone on purpose, but they have squirmed and blushed when I've caught them doing something they're not
supposed to such as texting, chewing gum, or forgetting their shoes. If they forget their shoes, I usually send them
home, or sometimes lend them the shoes in the prep room.
I
now imagine the Division of Research Safety is having a fit at this point. Yes, I agree, boxes on feet could be hazardous
due to tripping issues (although I expect they were sitting at the biosafety cabinet for most of the time). I take full responsibility
even though I wasn't there for the incident because the buck stops here. We promise (right, Eric?), it will never
happen again, because forever and ever, students will know that we mean it when they MUST wear closed toed shoes in the lab.
And that is NEVER a joke.
I finally put together another book review. I had a cold that
had decided to nestle into my throat, so was a hindrance. This book, Mean and Lowly Things caught my eye at the library
(one of my favorite places) and I picked it up. I think it was because there was this waif of a girl on the cover holding
a snake but doing this courageous field work that intrigued me initially. You can check out Dr. Kate Jackson mimicking Medusa
on her Whitman college webpage!
Sometimes people ask how I get so much reading done.
First, I read quickly. Part of this is due to the example set by my mom. We used to say that she belonged to the
"Book of the Hour" Club because she read so quickly. I recall a time when I was a preteen and I said "Mom,
would you like to read this book? It's really good!" Her reply was "I took it from your nightstand and
read it one night while you were asleep!" My other method is to keep several books going at once. I have one that
I usually try to focus on and power through, but then I keep one that I generally read before going to bed and another that
I might leave in the car or read at the gym.
Kate Jackson's
book was my read before bed every night. I loved the tone of her book and the idea of what she was doing and looked
forward to it every evening until I finished it. I think you will, too!
Switching gears. I am happy to share with you a note from the mother of a young girl I was privileged to talk to
a few weeks back.
Hi Joanne - My daughter (EM) and I had the
pleasure of meeting you met when you were speaking with Dr Barbara Oakley at our local book store in Northville, MIchigan.
We were with our Girl Scout troop on Saturday afternoon. I wanted to tell you that you really impressed E! She
thought you were fascinating and she was very surprised that you could be that excited about science! Although E does
well in all of her classes, she generally prefers writing, reading and creative projects. And your description of G.A.M.E.S.
was so vivid that E went home, jumped on your website and researched more about the Bioengineering Camp. And today,
she submitted her application to attend the camp in August. I don't know whether E will be accepted or what her
ultimate decision about attending will be - but I wanted to thank you for encouraging E to look at science camps in a different
way. Perhaps - we will see you again this Summer but - if not - thanks again for being so enthusiastic and encouraging
E (and all of our scouts) to expand their interests.
I
was thrilled that the timing of my visit with Barbara Oakley coincided with a bookstore talk and that Barbara asked me to
share a little about what I do with the people there, including the girl scouts. I suppose anyone would be happy to know that
they have inspired someone. Even better if it is just from doing what they love. Nothing could please me more
than to know that people can see my enthusiasm for science....I'm glad it shows, because it is the one thing I know is
perfectly true about me.
Augmented Reality books and being named a Sexy? Scientist
I remember a lot of my dreams. Recently I had one where I was buying
mascara. It was a good, practical dream that did not require me to shake off any weirdness upon waking. And the
nice thing is I can make it come true one day soon!
One memorable
dream involved one of my former students as a matured scientist who wanted to show me his discovery before he showed anyone
else. In a darkened room, so the technology could be seen best, he opened an 8 x 11" envelope, reached in and made
the motion to remove a piece of transparent, well, something. It looked like he was holding nothing, but suddenly in
glowing green and blue, up came a 3D hologram of a molecule (somewhere in size between a softball and basketball). He
seemed quite proud. I was in awe of both the technology and of the molecule, which seemed to be of great significance.
After the article came out in the local paper about my video reviews of science books, I was contacted by Dr. Alan Craig here at the U of I who is working on a pretty neat project called augmented reality books. He directed me to his website, and right there was an image of a hologram hovering over a regular print book.
I was struck by how much this reminded me of my dream. Dr. Craig invited me to come see his work. With a camera
and some software (i.e. your cell phone) and some code imprinted on a page of a book, one can see a 3D representation of just
about anything. This video shows some work by the team in New Zealand he is collaborating with. Amazing Stuff!
ScienceCheerleader and I are following each other in Twitter...hard to say who started following who first, but she likes what I'm doing
and I like what she is doing (science outreach). You can check out her site and see her collection of cheerleaders dispensing
scientific information, among other clever items. She flattered me
by asking if she could put me on her Sexy Scientists and Engineers page. I'm trying not to giggle as I write this. Some days I find it tricky to reconcile sexy and science as well
as the fact I could embody this in any fashion, especially while IN the lab and maintaining a professional tone (why do I
hear some of you laugh? OK, the lab is a little bit less than professional, but not sexy, more like goofy!). Many of the gals are shown in their super cute cheerleading outfits.
While there are in existence many, many swimsuit photos of me, you will not be seeing them on this site, EVER. Except
the one of me in the Miss Guam World contest...you'll have to go mine for that one if you didn't run across it already.
You've been Eric-ed! or Woe to you in improper lab attire
I informed my Teaching Assistants before spring break that when students
return in April and the weather is warm, many will arrive to lab in sandals and shorts. Uh oh! Any savvy lab person
knows that is completely against the rules! I told the TAs to point them out the door and send them home to change.
I also jokingly said "Or, make them wear boxes on their feet!"
Well TA Eric took this to heart. Yesterday a few students
showed up in improper attire. He made one wear HIS shoes. He took my deck shoes from the prep room and put them
on himself (I think I will stock pink ones with flowers on them now just for entertainment value). He made one student wear
boxes on their feet over their sandals, and the person in shorts was forced to wear a labcoat as a skirt!
Nothing like a little humiliation to drive the point home! And Eric said he wanted
to be a verb, too. Soooo, if you show up without your shoes and he forces some silly but safe requirement on you, we
will now say "You've been Eric-ed!".
BTW, Eric is responsible for this on the top of my beer cooler style fridge
in the lab. I was not pleased that the company I ordered the fridge from had their name up top. They didn't
pay me to advertise for them. I asked students to create an image. It was to be a contest but Eric was the only contestant,
apparently after destroying all other entries, he claims. Now you know who you are dealing with....
The foil on the glass doors blocks the fluorescent lights which create toxic by
products in our cell growing media, in case you are wondering...
I don't care if it is 97o outside! Bring proper lab shoes, please!
Here I am with a fellow chaperone (such a wonderful lady!) and one
and a half of my three very well behaved charges. This was at the final ceremony held at the Hollywood Studios park (formerly
MGM) where our prizes were distributed for our band competition. This is me, happy with sun and warm weather and hardly
any sleep for a week!
Guess my favorite park! Did
you guess Epcot? Science, innovation, travel. Yeah, that's the place! And Soarin'--oh, so fun!
I was hoping to film today, but my voice is not cooperating thanks to being quite
run down from that crazy week!
I keep thinking about science
TV. I watched some last night while in my misery from a head cold. I am continually reminded of this interesting
feel to these shows that try to invoke a sense of fear or anxiety when discussing scientific issues. (When will the next earthquake
strike? Will the dog bite?) You can hear it in the narrator's voice, the choice of words, the music, the editing of the
scientists' comments. I guess fear = serious in TV land. I don't agree, of course. Our other option for
science TV seems to be "goofy" which works sometimes. Mythbusters comes closest to striking a balance between serious,
fun and showing how engineers attack a problem.
I'm reposting
now a study done about French science television that discusses "What kind of science TV viewer are you?"
Enjoy!
Friday, June 13, 2008
What kind of science TV viewer are you?
I found an interesting article a couple of weeks ago called "Science
on TV: forms and reception of science programmes on French television" by Suzanne de Cheveigné and
Eliséo Véron in the journal Public Understanding of Science (vol 5 (1996) pp.231-253).
Science programs, of course, are BIG here in the US and in the UK and less so in France (they hardly have any TV channels
to watch--even fewer in 1996!) Regardless, these researchers were able to conduct interviews and categorize reactions that
the general public had to watching science programs.
Overall, the reactions depended upon two factors: 1) "the legitimacy accorded to television as a source of knowledge; 2) the type of memories
left by their school experience"
From these two, they were able to schematically plot four
main readings:
I am completely exhausted after a fun but intense week of chaperoning
the middle school band down in Orlando for Festival Disney music competition! We did quite well!
Before I left, two things happened:
First, I was featured on the front page of the living section for our local paper,
The News Gazette. You can read it here. I think they did a good job with it and
I am grateful.
Second, I created a video recommending
two books, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics by Sherry Seethaler. I didn't get the chance to post it on my website because I had so little time at a computer
during the trip. You can see it featured up top of this page for a while.
I finished
reading Mean and Lowly Things by Kate Jackson on the bus down to Disney and will review that as soon as I catch my breath. I am currently reading
Doubt is Their Product by David Michaels--very good!!
Awesome! Watching this Colbert Report from March 17, 2009 was quite entertaining for myself and my TAs in our weekly class meeting! A good use of our time, I think.
As a reminder, I had posted the link to the US News and World Report article about Tissue Engineering our meat back in August. Tissue Engineered meat has no texture, it's like snot or slime
as the cultured muscle cells require stress and strain to create the fibrous texture. You should also be aware that meat also
has a good portion of connective tissue fibers as well, and those are most likely missing from this engineered meat.
A side note: since Fetal Bovine Serum in the growth media is currently used to
culture the meat, it is not yet animal cruelty free.
There
IS serum free media, but cells grow less able-y in this.