MsWildEngineer

A blog about the wild world of engineering, science, and just about everything else... :)

[thebrainscoop]

I going into college next year and will be on the track to get my bachelors and masters in a biology related major. I want to work soon research either on the medical or environmental side. What advice do you have for being a woman and going into science? And what advice do you have for going to college in general?

Hey! Good for you. 

My advice for college in general is to enjoy it - not just parties or whatever, but the opportunities you’ll have to meet and hang out with likeminded people. When I moved away to college it was the first time in my life I got to meet people who I felt shared kindred spirits, as opposed to most kids I grew up around and with whom I was unable to identify. I got to be in control of selecting my awesome friend group (and they’re still my friends today!). College will be one of the richest intellectual environments you’ll ever be afforded, and it’s great because you just sit there and people will lecture to you about awesome stuff you’ve never known about or considered before and your mind will be blown. If it’s not, branch out and try some other courses. Embrace that. You’ll miss it when it’s gone. 

Giving advice for “being a woman and going into science” is harder, because, for one, I didn’t study science in college so I can’t even speak from personal experience. I will say that right now at this moment in time, being a woman – or as any gender nonconforming person for that matter – in science is better than it has ever been in terms of awareness from others about gender discrimination, unfairness, and biases. I’m not saying things are perfect or that there’s nothing left to improve because that’s not the case… but that today, there are more advocacy and awareness groups available to provide resources and support for those who need it, which I hope can give you some peace of mind. Also, not everyone is going to struggle or face gender-based adversity in their academic or career paths, so be aware of that, too. 

I get this question a lot and it made me think of one of my favorite moments from VidCon last year. I wrote this back in July and didn’t post it then, but now seems appropriate:

We all cried a little after that moment and it was really great. 

[scienceyoucanlove-deactivated20]

A female scientist uses a gauge interferometer to measure the length of light in wave-lengths at the Metrology Division of the National Physical Laboratory in Middlesex, England, 1944. Imperial War Museum Archives

source 

[1vhb]

Working with a team assembled by Professor David Orr of Oberlin College, we conceived the idea for a building and its site modeled on the way a tree works. We imagined ways that it could purify the air, create shade and habitat, enrich soil, and change with the seasons, eventually accruing more energy than it needs to operate. Features include solar panels on the roof; a grove of trees on the building’s north side for wind protection and diversity; an interior designed to change and adapt to people’s aesthetic and functional preferences with raised floors and leased carpeting; a pond that stores water for irrigation; a living machine inside and beside the building that uses a pond full of specially selected organisms and plants to clean the effluent; classrooms and large public rooms that face west and south to take advantage of solar gain; special windowpanes that control the amount of UV light entering the building; a restored forest on the east side of the building; and an approach to landscaping and grounds maintenance that obviates the need for pesticides or irrigation. These features are in the process of being optimized - in its first summer, the building began to generate more energy capital than it used - a small but hopeful start. Imagine a building like a tree, a city like a forest.

- Michael Braungart and William McDonough, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (via irferf)

[fyengineerbat-blog-blog]

via itsmissannmai

[reinamun]

Hoover Dam 

Hoover Dam spans the Colorado River in Black Canyon between Arizona and Nevada. The dam was constructed back in the 1930s with concrete arch-gravity structure. Such sturdy structures are aimed to prevent flooding as well as to provide irrigation and hydroelectric power to arid regions of states such as California and Arizona. Hoover Dam is also known as Boulder Dam. It was, however, renamed in 1947 in honor of Herbert Hoover (U.S secretary of commerce and the 31st U.S president proved instrumental in getting the dam built). 

Hoober Dam is 726 feet high and 1,244 feet long. It is one of the largest man-made structures in the world at the time of its construction, and one of the world’s largest producers of hydroelectric power. 

For more info, click the link below:

(Source)

[asapscience]

Hedy Lamarr, according to Wikipedia was an inventor first, actress second.

[matthen]

8 Earth years are roughly equal to 13 Venus years, meaning the two planets approximately trace out this pattern with 5-fold symmetry as they orbit the Sun. [more] [code]

[queer-feminist-quotes]

We do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We should all be feminists (via queer-feminist-quotes)

[token-white-friend]

my reaction to this dress business

[smithsonian]

As we remember actor Leonard Nimoy today, we wanted to share this from our Museum of American History’s collection. They’re ear tips Nimoy wore as Mr. Spock in the 1982 movie “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.” The authentication card is signed in green ink by Leonard Nimoy.

Margaret Weitekamp, curator of science fiction and space memorabilia at the National Air and Space Museum, reflects on his legacy for Smithsonian Magazine

[txchnologist]

For the First Time, Direct Observations Show Increasing Greenhouse Effect

The rising concentration of carbon dioxide at the Earth’s surface is increasing the amount of heat the air can absorb, measurements taken by scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab have shown. 

This phenomenon, they say, is being caused by rising CO2  levels from burning fossil fuels and fires, and the data fits with models that take into account the effect of human activity on the atmosphere.

“We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation,” said Daniel Feldman, a Berkeley Lab project scientist who specializes in comparing climate models with actual instrument observations. He is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature on Feb. 25.

Read More

[hopeisnotlosttoday]

Poetry Leonard Nimoy posted 5 days before he died.

[thebrainscoop]

I really liked what you wrote about the importance of making people more curious and interested in museums. I also agree that we need more Chief Curiosity Corespondents. My question to you is what needs to happen on both ends for this to happen? Meaning if you an interested person wanting to get involved in your local museum in such a way or if you work with a museum and want to help your colleagues realize that this is something we need?

Getting people to care about museum collections might not be exclusively a top-down effort, but getting a person like me in the position to begin communicating those values is totally something that comes from The Powers That Be — the people who make decisions about budgets and expenses, like a Board of Trustees, or the executive directors. 

You know who got me hired at The Field Museum? Our President, Richard Lariviere. It was his decision to get me on board, and since he basically calls the shots it went through as an executive decision. My hiring came at a fortuitous time as a result of the Museum’s overall mission commitment to broadening our educational digital reach. 

One major setback seems to be identifying people who qualify as Chief Curiosity Correspondents; those with video and communication experience, an established audience, a background or intense interest and comprehension of scientific research, and a willingness to work in a collection or for an institution that may have never thought in a million years that you would be their spokesperson - so, you’ve got to be flexible, gracious, and humble. 

Museums are eager to hire for similar programs, but it is still seen as a major risk to finance a project like ours if there’s no clear way of measuring its success. For example, I assume our Board finds value in the numbers of people we’re reaching based off of video views, but how do those views translate to Museum visits, donations, or funding for The Brain Scoop? 

 I think I’ve spoken with just about every major museum in the United States about bringing The Brain Scoop to their collections (who wouldn’t want us amirite) — so the interest exists, it’s just a matter of having those financial decision-makers committed to funding science communication, and the ease of identifying who would fit that role best — so, put yourselves out there! It might start off as a volunteer position, but I’m the optimistic sort. Museums are looking.  

[hopeisnotlosttoday]

Leonard Nimoy’s last tweet.

[arsanatomica]

I don’t usually do this, but I saw this on my facebook page today, and just can’t stand by and let this happen.  »This is from the fb page of the new museum opening in Florida. «

This is absolutely egregious. Artists, especially scientific illustrators are some of the most skilled people out there. It’s a craft that takes a lifetime of study and draftsmanship to master. Scientific Illustrators offer an invaluable service to all fields of science.  Sure, it’s just a coloring book….of anatomical illustrations. They cant be that hard to make…. what of it? The exploitation of artists in science is HUGE problem.

In the past 15 years, underpayment and non-payment for commercial work has single-handedly destroyed the paleo-art as a field. The artists responsible for the iconic dinosaur illustrations of your childhood now struggle to make ends meet. Many of them cant even make it to conferences anymore because they don’t have the funds.  Museums, as an institution have increasingly come to expect more and more of artists for less and less. 

Now it’s come to this…. For the first time, a museum, an institution for educating the public, PUBLICLY expects artists to work for free on products they will be selling for profit. This is absolutely shameful.  What does this say to the public?  DO NOT LET THEM SET A PRECEDENT OF EXPLOITING ARTISTS IN SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATION. Please visit their facebook page. Signalboost, and let them know that Artists Deserve to be Paid for their Work

[jangojips]

I went to the facebook page, but this post is gone from their feed. No mention of it ever existing. No commentary. Hopefully they realized this oversight?

[suzythered]

I saw the post last night and the majority of the comments were calling them on what they were trying to do. But there were also a few comments from people interested in helping them or recommending artists for them to contact….so either they realized what they were doing was wrong, or they did manage to find someone willing to work for free (but hopefully not).

UPDATE: Just checked their page again myself, and the post now has been changed into this:

[ecologicallybleak-blog]

Over millions of years, nature’s ecosystem engineers have been especially effective in the promotion of overyielding. They have coevolved with other species that exploit the niches they build. The result is a harmony within ecosystems. The constituent species, by spreading out into multiple niches, seize and cycle more materials and energy than is possible in similar ecosystems. Homo sapiens is an ecosystems engineer too, but a bad one. Not having coevolved with the majority of life forms we now encounter around the world, we eliminate far more niches than we create. We drive species and ecosystems into extinction at a far higher rate than existed before and everywhere diminish productivity and stability.

E.O. Wilson in The Future of Life, p. 112 (via ecologicallybleak)

[joannapaglino-blog]

Reflect for a few minutes on the large variety of materials used in building construction, the large list of materials and coatings used to decorate and furnish a building, and the large number of chemicals used during operation and maintenance of the building. How many of these structural materials, adhesives, sealants, floor and wall coverings, furniture components, and cleaning agents are selected based on the criteria to maximize the health and the productivity of the building’s inhabitants by minimizing the potential adverse impact to humans or the environment? Unfortunately the answer to this question is “very few.”

Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, Sustainability, Design by James R. Mihelcic and Julie Beth Zimmerman (via joannapaglino)