(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This… Continue reading PNAS: Cush Copeland, High School Teacher
Category: Science
PNAS: Lucy Rogers, Freelance Journalist and Science Writer
(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This… Continue reading PNAS: Lucy Rogers, Freelance Journalist and Science Writer
Where I’ll Be at Worldcon
The Worldcon program has been posted, but only as a giant, confusing PDF. I was getting cross-eyed trying to figure things out, so I ended up creating my own blank grid sheets, and making notes on those. The following is a by-no-means comprehensive list of things I think look interesting enough to attend. There are… Continue reading Where I’ll Be at Worldcon
Science Blogging: The New Science Journalism?
I’m a late addition to a Sunday panel at Worldcon: Science Blogging – The New Science Journalism? Touted as a new way of reaching the public, has science blogging matched its initial promise? Has it caused more problems than it solves? Well? What do you all think?
What’s Your TED Talk?
Last weekend, I was talking with Ethan Zuckerman at a party, and we talked a little bit about the TED conferences and similar things. A few days later, there was an editorial in Nature suggesting that scientists could learn a lot from TED: [P]erhaps the most critical key to success is the style of the… Continue reading What’s Your TED Talk?
Precision Measurement Smackdown Explained
Yesterday’s historical physics poll was about precision measurements. Who were those people, and why are they worth knowing about?
The Witten Thing
I had a bit of a discussion via Twitter with Eric Weinstein yesterday, starting with his statement: Ed Witten has no Nobel Prize. Now tell me again how this era’s physics just feels different because we are too close to it. Basically, he appears to feel that Witten is sufficiently smart that he ought to… Continue reading The Witten Thing
Optics Smackdown Explained
Yesterday, I posted a silly poll about optical physicists. Who are those people, and why should you care about them? In inverse order of popularity:
The arXiv: When You Can’t Plot Well Enough for Analog
There’s another paper about the Fermi Paradox highlighted on the arXiv blog today. This one describes extensive numerical simulations which purport to show that no more than 1,000 spacefaring civilizations can be exploring the galaxy with non-replicating slower-than-light robotic probes. Of course, this is highly contingent on a bunch of assumptions about the behavior of… Continue reading The arXiv: When You Can’t Plot Well Enough for Analog
PNAS: Off-Site Edition
The semi-nonymous Phillip H. at DC Dispatches liked the idea behind the Project for Non-Academic Science, but he didn’t want to reveal his secret identity. So he wrote up and posted his own interview: 1) What is your non-academic job? I’m the National Program Coordinator for Protected Species at my Federal Agency. This means I… Continue reading PNAS: Off-Site Edition