Fun with Mathmatical Modeling

Have you seen this paper on modeling a zombie infection outbreak? It's awesome.

"In summary, a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often. As seen in the movies, it is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble."

Sure, having a published paper on Zombie attacks is like the coolest thing ever when you're a grad student, but I bet it raises a few eyebrows when these guys go up for tenure.

via Freakonomics via The Park Bench

Galileo vs. Newton

File this under "funny because it's true" or maybe "sad because it's true"?

"The point of the comparison is to contrast two competing modes of scientific communication, as embodied by our two heroes."

Why is making science accessible such a crime in academia? Why are those who deign to speak to mere mortals looked down upon by so many of their colleagues?

On a lighter note, my favorite part of this blog post is that the majority of the comments revolve around whether or not Newton died a virgin. Seriously.

Thanks for the link Emily!

Countdown to the Moon day at the Air & Space Museum

Yesterday I spend the day manning a table at the National Air & Space Museum as a "Lunar Expert" to help them celebrate the 40th anniversary of the day that Apollo 11 launched. According to the little counter they gave me, over 800 people stopped by my booth to learn about "Moon dust". I had a bunch of images of soil grains from my own research, plus some lunar soil simulants and a handful of 3D analglyphs donated from a colleague at Lehigh (which were clearly the hit, man people really love those 3D images). I love doing these public outreach things, but I have to say I am always amazed by both the sophistication and the sheer ignorance of some of the questions I get asked.

A few of the things I was asked yesterday:

Is this real Moon dust? - referring to the two jars of soil simulants I brought (yeah, I'm sure NASA would have no problem with me leaving half a pound of lunar soil on an table in the middle of a museum full of people).

Was Night at the Museum II filmed here? - turns out it was, I didn't know that at the time though, and also, I'm not an information booth. There was also a question about the new Transformers movie, although I'm pretty sure that one was not filmed in the museum.

Is Moon dust radioactive? - I get this question from time to time and I don't understand where that comes from or why people would think that.

Have we figured out any good uses for Moon dust yet? - There were at least a dozen people who asked me some version of this question, because apparently there is no reason to go back to the Moon unless we can mine it for something. I tried to turn their question into a discussion of in situ resource utilization and explain how the soil contains all the elements we need to survive and make rocket fuel, so if we can figure out how to extract it we can "live off the land," I think that worked with about half the question askers, the others just seemed disappointed, apparently "oxygen" was not the answer they were looking for.

Did you collect these samples yourself? - I swear, I'm not making this up, there were two people, two, adults, at separate times, that genuinely thought I might have gone to the Moon myself and brought back my soil. One seamed really taken aback when I said that no one had been to the Moon in my lifetime, the other was like, "oh yeah, that's right". Wow, it's interactions like that that really scare the bejeezus out of me. How do these people function in normal life? It reminds me of a hairstylist I once had that thought the Sun and the Moon were the same thing, it just got dimmer at night (true story).

Not to worry though, for every left field question, there were plenty of bright and curious types of all ages with good questions. There was one guy who stayed for like half an hour just firing one question after the other, he was awesome, he kept apologizing to the gathering crowd for monopolizing me and they were like, no, we're learning so much from your questions, keep going. And the kid who was allergic to dust and wanted to know if he would be allergic to Moon dust too - that's a great question. (For the record, probably not, most terrestrial dust allergies are due to dust mites, which lunar soil doesn't have, but at least two people during Apollo one astronaut and one flight surgeon, experienced "hayfever-like" symptoms after being exposed to lunar dust.)

All in all, it was a good time. The museum was crowded, people mostly seemed interested and engaged. This was the first "Moon day" the museum has done, they normally do a "Mars day" but made an exception this year for the anniversary. I hope they don't wait until the next bit anniversary to do it again. I mean, Mars is cool and all, but come on, give the Moon some love too!

LCROSS impact might upset the aliens

According to this guy, the LCROSS mission which launched last week (That's it in the picture. I was there! It was awesome!) and will impact into the Lunar South Pole on October 9th of this year (mark your calendars), breaks international law, and may rile up the Moon's alien colonists.

I've got to tell you, the thing that bothers me most about this article is not the ridiculousness of the whole alien thing, it's that he talks about this supposed alien base being on the "dark" side of the Moon. People, the Moon doesn't have a "dark" side! It has a near side and a far side (or "backside" but I've been told that because "backside" had other connotations I should avoid using it). The far side has a two-week long night, followed by a two-week long day, just like the side we get to see.

Also, and I realize this is a minor point in the scope of his overall arguments, but the US never signed the Moon Treaty, and therefore, even if LCROSS did violate it (which it doesn't), it still wouldn't matter.

Defending Peer Review on the Floor of the House

Thank God for the levelheaded members of the House Committee on Science and Technology!

Today's hero is Rep. Baird, who, as the Chair of the Research Subcommittee, successfully defended the peer review process from overzealous republicans yesterday by helping to defeat two ridiculous amendments to the NSF Reauthorization Act that would have cut the funding for several specific studies that were considered "frivolous", such as a study of "accuracy in the cross-cultural understanding of others' emotions". Mr. Baird pointed out that "The scientific merit of a federal research grant often isn't obvious from "a cursory examination of the title or an abstract, that's why we have peer review." The man had clearly done his homework too, he went on to explain that the emotions study, for example, has been endorsed by the U.S. Army Research Institute because its findings could help soldiers correctly read the emotional expressions of people from other cultures and so avoid an accidental firefight that could kill fellow soldiers and innocent civilians.

The amendments were defeated by votes of 195-222 and 126-292, which I find a bit scary.

Way to go Mr. Baird!

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a good article about it today.

What is a "scientist"?

The note below popped up today on a listserve I subscribe to. The author, Emily Monosson is writing a book on balancing family and science tentatively titled Motherhood: The Elephant in the Laboratory.

Hi all. A couple of weeks back, while talking about the women/science/motherhood book someone asked how would I define a scientist. It seemed like a good question - and I didn't have a really good answer. Some women with Ph.D.s who now teach high school science, write text books etc. wonder if they are still "scientists," I would say yes, others may not.

For the book I am working on, I'd like to discuss how the scientific community defines "a scientist," who would AAAS, NSF etc. consider a scientist? How would you define a scientist?

Additionally, what does it take to be considered a "successful" scientist? Or how would one define "success" in science?

What is a scientist? What a great question. It's one of those deceptively difficult things that you assume you know the answer to, until you actually try to put it into words. Kind of like, what is a planet?

For my part, I'm in the "once a scientist, always a scientist" camp. Being a scientist isn't about how much time you spend in the lab or how long your list of publications is. It's about how you think, how you approach a problem, the way that you see the world.

Being a "successful scientist" though, is another thing altogether. I would say that requires such things as well cited publications in peer reviewed journals, successful grant proposals, the respect of colleagues, successful graduate students, etc. Of course, you can be a scientist and be successful in other fields (like being an astronaut, or a senator, or both if you're really ambitious), but that's different from being a "successful scientist".

What do you think? Leave a note in the comments and I'll forward them to Emily.