My “day off” in the mine has been anything but. Well, to be fair, I volunteered. I had planned to spend the day catching up on news, listening to some statistics lectures from SLAC [SLUOStats], and generally take photos of all the cool stuff down here in the Soudan Mine […]
Science
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A great draw of physics, especially particle and astrophysics, is the list of exotic locations available to study the origin of the universe. Jodi has traveled from the soaring heights of the Antarctic plateau to the depths of the earth in the Soudan Mine (a total vertical distance of 12000 […]
On the last night of the parallel sessions at ICHEP, a group of us went out for dinner. We were under the leadership of one of our Russian BaBar colleagues, Dmitriy, who wanted to do something a little “touristy” and go to a tram restaurant – a restaurant on rails. […]
Symbols are important to nations, and often horribly abused in politics. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, from the state that avoided teaching science by redefining it, gave a tedious presentation during the recent stem cell debates. In it, he made the following analogy: bald eagles come from eggs, and it […]
The back-and-forth in the Senate and the White House these past few days had me thinking, thinking about life and what it means to be alive, to take a life. I kept thinking about what the President said, that he would execute his only veto in six years should the […]
Summertime is the worst time of the year for physics. I’ve said this many times before, but no season is busier. I suppose it’s timed to coincide with professorial “free time”, when classes end and researchers can get back to their life of labs and meetings. For a post-doc or […]
The past few months have been crazy, by normal scientific standards. My instincts as a scientist tell me to be cautious in all proceedings, to carefully weigh and study choices and make decisions based on a balance of return and investment. For instance, if I have a choice to do […]
When media outlets fail to employ reporters with either a grounding in science (no pun intended, as you’ll see), or the wherewithal to contact several sources in writing a story, I furrow my brow and wag my finger. While browsing my Sunday morning blogs, I found a “lovely little story […]
Last year, I expressed my personal concern about action by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led by Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), to personally investigate the careers of three climate scientists [TAOMPH83]. I did so not just in this blog, but also in a series of faxes to my elected […]
“Talk of the Nation: Science Friday”:http://www.sciencefriday.com is an excellent weekly national radio program that brings experts and callers together to discuss current science issues. This week, Ira Flatow discussed the politicization of science – the perceived increase in policy influencing science, rather than science influencing policy – with guests Chris […]
This weekend has been stressful. The worst part of it is that it was the *least* stressful part of the past week, and the coming weeks are forecast to be quite a bit worse (partly nutty with a chance of insanity). I can summarize why in one word: ICHEP. Well, […]
Late last week, “Ray Davis died at 91 from complications due to Alzheimer’s”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/nyregion/02davis.html?ex=1150171200&en=40a0b519ebe85d99&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERFEATURES. Dr. Davis is legendary in the field of physics for his painstaking devotion to the study of neutrino production in the sun. His work with physicist “John Bahcall”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Bahcall demonstrated that the prediction of neutrino flux from the […]