tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035628749235495032024-02-07T08:59:29.992-08:00Plasma Physics Momlife at the intersection of plasma physics research and motherhoodplasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-8774080149058831052012-12-28T13:44:00.000-08:002012-12-28T13:44:55.837-08:00AGU 2012: Science Highlights<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Conferences provide a multitude of opportunities for activities imperative to a research career, including presenting your research, learning about others' research, developing new ideas and collaborations, and networking with other scientists for career opportunities for yourself or your advisees. Such networking and research discussions help you when your papers and proposals for funding are being peer-reviewed, or you're being externally reviewed for a promotion, or you've been nominated for an award. In this blog post, I will discuss some of the highlights from the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting that I attended during the first week of December. <br />
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Monday morning was my <a href="http://ulysses.phys.wvu.edu/~plasma/pdf/SM11D-2319_Keesee.pdf" target="_blank">research poster</a>. I described my current
progress with several people, many of whom work with data from the same mission and instrument as I do. During my poster session, there was a highly anticipated press conference about the Mars Curiosity rover that I tried to watch some of via live stream on my iPad. There had been a lot of speculation about a big, groundbreaking announcement, but it was mostly initial results. I looked at a few other posters and went to a couple of talks. One interesting talk was on a substorm that occurred in 2010 that caused the Galaxy 15 satellite to stop responding to commands. They found that currents of 3 million Amps were driven in the magnetosphere during that substorm! Typical values are in the hundreds of thousands.<br />
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On Monday afternoon, I served as a panelist for a professional development workshop. It was hosted by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and the Earth Science Women's Network (ESWN) and was on Work-Life Effectiveness. I have presented this workshop, developed by AWIS, several times myself, sometimes with 2 co-presenters. However, the format of 2 presenters plus 3 panelists was nice because we were able to get a lot of discussion going and had a variety of experiences to draw from. I had several people approach me later during the conference to discuss work-life issues, so it was a great way to get my name and face noticed in a sea of over 20,000 scientists!<br />
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Monday also saw two additional events of interest: a press release from the Voyager mission as it is leaving the heliosphere and entering interstellar space (<a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/03dec_voyager1/">http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/03dec_voyager1/</a>) and another that NASA is already planning for another rover to go to Mars. There was a lot of discussion on the Twittersphere about this. Many planetary scientists were disappointed that the next planetary mission won't be going somewhere different, like Enceladus which is one of the best candidates for extraterrestrial life.<br />
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On Tuesday, there were a few sessions on dawn-dusk asymmetries in the magnetosphere. This is of interest to me because I study such an asymmetry in the ion temperatures and am part of a team that will be focusing on this topic through a grant from the International Space Sciences Institute. In the posters, I saw one on the cost of space weather effects on the power grid that she calculated to be $3-5 billion annually, and talked to another presenter about a possible collaboration.<br />
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In the evening, I attended a forum of people writing science blogs. After the forum, I attended the Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) section town hall. They discussed the results of the recent decadal survey, and the primary funding sources (National Science Foundation and NASA) discussed how they are planning to implement the suggestions from the decadal survey. After the town hall, I went to the SPA banquet. The banquet is another good networking opportunity.<br />
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On Wednesday morning, I gave <a href="http://ulysses.phys.wvu.edu/~plasma/pdf/PA31B-1974_Keesee.pdf" target="_blank">my poster</a> on using social media and blogging to teach science communication. I was next to a poster by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography about using art to teach about the oceans:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Po4Frg56UJ13XEE-GfJGc4cQAUk4w48rmZOMJCKg85cF-xSPezjdbSTabb2juKWcRYUe0hUF_ho_Kr7753LsI4A_XerBOGGtvXlYpFgcLLcB3i74J3OZeuZ4CAV6gNspSu0y1mPAqtg/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Po4Frg56UJ13XEE-GfJGc4cQAUk4w48rmZOMJCKg85cF-xSPezjdbSTabb2juKWcRYUe0hUF_ho_Kr7753LsI4A_XerBOGGtvXlYpFgcLLcB3i74J3OZeuZ4CAV6gNspSu0y1mPAqtg/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Another cool poster in my session was on the GLOBE program. They used a bunch of iPads in their poster. It took a lot of velcro tape to put them up:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRoWeEQFQaKbI13IBJ0TU9UmRiyT-Xw71pBQcakXfeM367_pEcVAhyphenhyphenJKE5aeXzZXzSFs8rkk8Nw6zDyzYWankuuUCh-4s1Hq0XRhVNDsqvqpdV3exBdck8WIhMfXRWgBCqIU2wtnkpkBM/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRoWeEQFQaKbI13IBJ0TU9UmRiyT-Xw71pBQcakXfeM367_pEcVAhyphenhyphenJKE5aeXzZXzSFs8rkk8Nw6zDyzYWankuuUCh-4s1Hq0XRhVNDsqvqpdV3exBdck8WIhMfXRWgBCqIU2wtnkpkBM/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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There were more presentations on Wednesday about dawn-dusk asymmetries. There was also a poster on a new technique to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in the data from instrument that I use, which I am now trying in my research.</div>
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On Thursday, I saw an interesting talk by Joe Borovsky. He claimed that the typical view that the product of the solar wind velocity and interplanetary magnetic field is the primary driver of magnetic reconnection where the solar wind comes in contact with the nose of Earth's magnetosphere is just a coincidence. Instead, he discussed that the solar wind ram pressure and density are the primary drivers, and that density can be rewritten in terms of magnetic field. Thus, the correlations that have been found between velocity times magnetic field are just coincidence. There were a number of talks on initial results from the recently launched <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/rbsp/main/index.html" target="_blank">Van Allen Probes mission</a> (formerly known as Radiation Belt Storm Probes). One interesting result was the measurement of three belts during a certain period of time. This is the first time a third belt has ever been known to occur. </div>
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At lunchtime on Thursday, I attended the NASA Heliophysics town hall. They discussed much of the same information as they had at the SPA town hall on Tuesday, but in more detail. I did find out that there will be a solicitation of the education and public outreach program in 2013 that I can now plan to submit a proposal to.</div>
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Finally, I walked around the Expo, where companies demonstrate and sell their products. A lot of the products are instruments that geophysicists use to collect data, so not much is relevant to me. However, there is a large NASA booth with a lot of posters, stickers, etc. I got a calendar and took a picture with Camilla-the rubber chicken mascot of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (that has been in space!):</div>
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<br />plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-58851188833434476512012-12-16T20:02:00.002-08:002012-12-16T20:02:42.568-08:00AGU 2012: Food<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Traveling for conferences gives me the chance to try a
variety of foods, especially things that I can’t get at home. And when I travel
without the family, I also don’t have the stress of worrying about <a href="http://plasmaphysicsmom.blogspot.com/2012/06/aw-nuts.html" target="_blank">peanuts</a>.
Here’s a tour of what I ate while in San Francisco at the American Geophysical
Union Fall Meeting.</div>
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Saturday: </div>
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I left Saturday afternoon so I was able to eat lunch at
home. I decided to eat during my layover. The first thing I saw near my gate
was a Mexican place with “California” in the name. Since I was going to
California where I knew the Mexican food would be better, I skipped that. The
next place was Firkin and Fox. Since I didn’t have a lot of time, I ordered one
of their grab n’ go items: a chicken wrap with a side Caesar salad. Then I
picked up some cheese sticks and Wheat Thins in case I needed a snack on the
plane. The wrap was really good. Because the flight was delayed, I ended up
eating the cheese sticks and some crackers before boarding. But I had a few
crackers left just in case.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Sunday: </div>
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Since I got in pretty late Saturday night (2 AM to my body,
11 PM local time), I had a lazy Sunday morning. Okay, not really lazy. I
actually ran 5K on the treadmill. But then I sat around the hotel room for a
while. By the time I had the motivation to take a shower, I realized I didn’t
leave much time for breakfast before I had to head over to the convention
center to set up my booth for Exploration Station. I went to the hotel
restaurant and there was a 30 minute wait! So I waited in the line at the hotel
Starbucks and got a blueberry scone, banana (my second since I’d picked one up
after running), and an OJ. </div>
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<br /></div>
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After we set up our booth, Troy, Carol, Jaime, and I went to
Oasis Grill, a Mediterranean place nearby the convention center. I had been there
during previous AGU meetings and knew it was good. This time there was no line!
I got a falafel wrap and a side of tabbouleh. Yum.</div>
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<br /></div>
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During Exploration Station, I tried to be good and not eat
too many of our edible MMS components. I did snack on a few graham crackers and
chocolate pieces.</div>
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<br /></div>
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After Exploration Station, I wanted to hit one of my San
Francisco faves: Lori’s Diner. There are several locations throughout the city.
I’ve eaten at the one by Union Square and the one in Ghiradelli Square (awesome
view of the bay!) and know there’s one (not quite as exciting) at the airport. As
we headed up Powell St. toward Union Square, I kept looking for the sign, but
we got further and further without seeing it. Once we got beyond Union Square,
I knew we had gone too far. I had Jaime look it up on her iPhone, and we headed
back the way we came. When we got to where it should have been, we found a
“Walgreen’s coming soon” sign and saw the place on the wall where the Lori’s
Diner sign had been. I was totally bummed! I thought this was a San Francisco
tradition! How could it be taken over by Walgreens? So we used her iPhone to
look for another place and decided to try Biscuits and Blues. When we got
there, they were charging a cover for a concert, and we decided that we just
wanted to eat and head back to our hotels. So we just kept walking, looking at
restaurants, and what did we find? A Lori’s Diner! It was a smaller location
right around the block from the other one. Yay! We each got a milkshake: I had
strawberry, Jaime had orange dream, and Carol had malted chocolate. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
We also
each had hamburgers, I had the Edsel, which had mushrooms and swiss cheese, and
a side of sweet potato fries. It was perfect!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Monday:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For Monday’s breakfast, I met a group of women from the Association
for Women in Science (AWIS) to prepare for the workshop we were presenting that
afternoon. We met in the lobby of my hotel and decided to eat at the hotel
restaurant. The prices were pretty ridiculous. One of them said, “$22 for
oatmeal?” I had a spinach and mushroom omelet with hash browns and toast. It
was good, but not really worth what they charge for it, as is generally true
with high end hotel restaurants.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t have a lot of time for lunch between the morning
session and the workshop. The lines get pretty long at most places during
lunchtime anywhere near the Moscone Center because 20,000 people are all trying
to eat lunch at the same time! I went into the Metreon where there are several
fast food places (not McDonalds-type, but several Asian options and a
soup/salad place). Just inside the door was a Creperie with only a couple of
people waiting. I was a little ahead of the lunch rush, but not by much. I
figured if I spent time wandering through trying to decide, I would waste a
bunch of time and lose out on the opportunity to get something fast, so I went
there. My friend, Susie, often <a href="http://castleblake.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blogs</a> about the tasty crepes she gets, so I
figured this was my chance to try them. There were a number of choices that
sounded good, but I wanted to make sure that I got something that would last me
through the workshop. I picked one with chicken, and I can’t remember what
else, especially after reading through so many options. (Either Susie has the
most amazing memory or she writes down what she gets because she always
describes the full list of ingredients!) They make them on circular pedestal
griddles while you watch. It was really good, and fast. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After the workshop, AWIS and the Earth Science Women’s
Network (ESWN) hosted a networking reception at Jillian’s that included food.
There were chicken skewers, meatballs, quesadillas, and pizza. At the end,
there was a dessert tray with a variety of options, including chocolate covered
strawberries, brownies, several types of tarts, Mexican wedding cookies, and
some sort of ginger/molasses cookie.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tuesday:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
AGU provides Donor Lounges for anyone that donates a minimum
value. The lounges include a place to put your coat and bag, places to sit,
wifi access, a printer, and breakfast in the morning and snacks in the afternoon.
I find that this is the most convenient way to get breakfast during the
conference. It’s quick, on-site, and there are no lines. Unfortunately, they
had posted that they are going to increase the minimum donation for access to
the Donor Lounge to $500 next year. I discussed with several other people in
the lounge that the increase would probably make the level unattainable for
many and thus decrease the number of people that make donations. This year, I was able to eat breakfast there, but we'll have to see about next year.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For lunch, I went to the Metreon again. This time I tried
the Korean BBQ place. After looking at the menu, I was originally going to get the BBQ chicken, but when I saw
the actual food, I picked something else, which happened to be beef stew. It came
with clear noodles and broccoli. Well, this is not Rachel Ray’s Less than $10 a
Day where she never said any food was bad. (And I also don’t reduce my tip as
the food price goes up to stay under a certain amount.) It was a disappointing
choice. Almost every piece of meat had a bone in it (they had sliced it
bone-in) and the broccoli was cold. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tuesday night was the banquet for the Space Physics and
Aeronomy Section, which is a good chance to meet people in my field. It is
always held at the Four Seas Restaurant in Chinatown. We get a 12 course meal
served family style. The first year, I ate too much at the beginning and barely
got to taste the last few dishes, so now I know to pace myself better. The meal
includes a cabbage/peanut salad, hot and sour soup, a spring roll, a fried
shrimp, vegetable fried rice, sweet and sour pork, shrimp with honey walnuts,
beef with vegetables, tofu with vegetables, fish, lemon chicken, and a sesame
ball and fortune cookie for dessert. Everything was delicious! The honey
walnuts seemed particularly good, probably because I don’t get to eat nuts with
meals very often.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wednesday:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I ate breakfast at the Donor Lounge again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For lunch, I met up with a friend, and we went to Tropisueno
Mexican restaurant. I found this place last year, tucked in a walkway about a
block from the convention center. I always like to get Mexican food while I’m
in California because the ingredients are much more fresh, making everything
tastier. Ella got mole, and I got a pork tamale and a chile relleno. They come
with rice and beans, and they have a salsa bar so you can try a number of
different salsa with your chips. It was all very good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ESWN had set up get-togethers each evening, having people
meet at a given time and location so they would have someone to eat with and
could meet new people. I found one other person, so we headed to dinner. We had a nice dinner, discussing our
varied career paths. We picked an Indian and Pakistani restaurant about a block
away from Union Square. I had lamb rogan josh. It was a tad spicier than I’m
used to, but it was good. I also had a mango lassi to drink. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thursday:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Breakfast, again at the Donor Lounge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I planned to attend a lunch-time town hall on Thursday, so I
headed out a little early for lunch. This also gave me time to go to a sit-down
restaurant since I was beating the crowds. I couldn’t resist having Mexican
again, so I went to another place, right across the street from the conference
center named Chevy's. This place is more like a chain, but still has fresh ingredients. I
wanted something different than the day before, so I got a carnitas taco and a
chicken enchilada, with beans a la charra (I hadn’t had this before-it was
beans with bacon, onions, tomatoes), and some guacamole. I wasn’t that thrilled
with the enchilada, but everything else was very good, especially the beans a
la charra. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For dinner, I had originally planned to meet up with my
graduate student, but he decided he wanted to grab something simple to save
money. I considered going to another ESWN dinner, but didn’t really want to
wait until 6:30. So I hopped on the historic F-line streetcar and rode out to
Fisherman’s Wharf. I walked to Ghiradelli Square to get some chocolate to share
with my husband. (Can’t get it for the kids because it all has peanut
contamination.) I had thought about heading back to Pier 39, but wanted to ride
a cable car back, so I just stayed there and ate at the seafood restaurant. I
had salmon stuffed with crab, shrimp, and brie, with a side of mixed vegetables
that was very good. I tried a new kind of wine, a German sweet wine called Wernesgruner. It was
decent, but I think I still prefer Riesling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Friday:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had an early flight Friday morning, so I finished the week
the same way it started-with a banana and OJ from Starbucks in the hotel (minus the blueberry scone). I had hoped to
have time for some breakfast at the airport, but I ended up with just enough
time to grab something to take on the plane. I got a banana nut muffin, a
granola/yogurt/fruit parfait and a bottle of water. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During my layover, I picked up a panini sandwich and bottle of water from a small coffee shop. I didn't want to eat too much because I knew my husband was cooking dinner for when I got home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I got home, my husband had made a tasty lamb leg roast! It was nice to end the week away with a good, home-cooked meal with my family.</div>
plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-90576440003341065692012-12-02T21:53:00.001-08:002012-12-02T21:53:31.830-08:00AGU 2012: Exploration Station<br />
Today I hosted a booth at the Exploration Station, a free public event for people to discover cool Earth and Space science. It is affiliated with the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Normally on the Sunday preceding the meeting I attend the Geospace Environment Modeling workshop, but this year I wanted to bring my Sun and Space Weather activities to Exploration Station. I co-hosted the booth with Troy Cline, the Education/Public Outreach Lead for the NASA Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission. Two of the teachers that took my summer course on the Sun and Space Weather, Carol and Jaime, came to assist with the activities.<br />
<br />
Troy brought all of his awesome MMS displays, the paper models of the
satellites, and the smaller version of the Lego model designed and built
by <a href="http://www.marsfirst.org/" target="_blank">MARS Robotics</a>.
I brought my set of iPads to view data from solar missions to learn
about the Sun and geomagnetic storms. I also brought supplies to build
the edible MMS models. It was a lot of fun! Check out all of the awesome budding scientists.<br />
<br />
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<br />plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-83798871013751903552012-12-02T08:41:00.002-08:002012-12-02T08:41:17.817-08:00AGU 2012: Travel day<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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As a professional scientist, I receive a number of publications
from the professional societies that I belong to. There’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">APS News</i> from the American Physical Society, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">EOS</i> from the American Geophysical Union, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Physics Today</i> from both, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">AWIS
Magazine</i> from the Association for Women in Science, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Radiations</i> from Sigma Pi Sigma (the Physics Honorary Society), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Gazette</i> from the APS Committees on
the Status of Women in Physics and Minorities. When do I have time to read
these? Usually never, so they stack up on my desk, in my backpack, wherever I
put stuff that I might get a chance to read them. Occasionally I go through
them, but find an article I want to read thoroughly, so the entire thing still
has to be saved for later.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Well, it turns out that a >5 hour flight from Dulles to
San Francisco (to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting), plus the
preceding hour and a half flight delay spent at Dulles is a great time to catch
up on these publications. Oh, and I also threw in my absolutely favorite (non-scientific)
magazine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brain, Child</i>, which almost
succumbed to the current struggles of the print industry but was thankfully
resurrected by one of its loyal readers. I got through all of it, with almost
two hours to spare. So I broke open my laptop to write this blog post about it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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My backlog went to the August issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Physics Today</i>. Wow, 4 months behind. Well, what I brought along
wasn’t all-inclusive. For instance, I usually get through the EOSs, so I only
had 1 to fully read and 2 with articles that I was saving to read. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Physics Today</i> is usually the last one I
get to, so it has the worst backlog.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I learned two very useful items in all that reading (along with several tidbits). </div>
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<br /></div>
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First, I teach workshops on the Sun and Space Weather.
Coronal mass ejections and other stuff from the Sun interact with Earth’s
magnetic field to cause geomagnetic storms. During these storms, charged
particles in the bubble of space created by Earth’s magnetic field get
energized and flow around this bubble. These energetic particles can damage
satellites and overload power grids on Earth. I point out that Earth would be
hit directly by loads of energetic particles if we didn’t have the magnetic
field to slow things down. I often get asked if we’d be in trouble if the
Earth’s magnetic field reverses direction, as it does on an irregular basis of
approximately 10,000 year intervals. Until now, I didn’t know the answer to
this question. But a “Backscatter Image” in one of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Physics Today</i> issues answered the question. (The Backscatter Image
is a 1-page image with a brief discussion of the physics that image portrays,
appearing on the last page of each issue.) Earth’s magnetic field is usually a
dipole, it has two poles (North and South), like a bar magnet. But it also has
a quadrupole (4 poles) mode. The image was created by a computer simulation of
Earth’s magnetic field that demonstrated two dipole modes, one for each
direction, with the quadrupole<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mode
occurring between the two. Thus, the magnetic field will never go to zero
during a reversal, it will just have a more complicated quadrupole geometry.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The second useful thing that I learned was in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Radiations</i> magazine about a project
called Career Pathways that is studying and compiling best practices in
preparing physics majors for a variety of careers. I am currently leading an
effort to implement such practices on an interdisciplinary level at my
institution. Now I have another source of information to look into as we
develop our program.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And when I get to San Francisco, I can dump a bunch of
weight into the recycling bin, except for those two articles that I want to
save. Now what am I going to do on the return flight?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Going to the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting
provides a unique experience. When you are one of over 20,000 scientists
heading to the same place, you easily run into a bunch of them during your
travels. As I boarded the plane, I heard a couple of people discussing how they
were getting to the meeting from their hotel. As I got to my seat, the person
next to me asked if I was heading to AGU. My poster tube was a dead giveaway. He
is a freelance science writer heading to the meeting to write stories on
exciting science. As we discussed AGU, the couple in front of us said they were
headed there too, the husband a hydrologist. It can be an overwhelming meeting
with that many people, but the variety of science that is covered is amazing.
From earthquakes to oceans to volcanoes to climate to the Sun and the planets! </div>
plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-38419168865136054442012-11-29T18:59:00.000-08:002012-11-29T18:59:27.098-08:00Weekend of gluttonyMost days, cooking dinner isn't very fun because it's an attempt to get something on the table quickly after getting home from work at 6 that is reasonably healthy (most days) and that the kids will eat. There are a few meals that we enjoy that fit this bill, but day in and day out, it can get old to try to come up with options for every single day. Also, when my husband, Sean, works the late shift, I really have no motivation to make a nice dinner.<br />
<br />
But when there is a free day and Sean is going to be home, I enjoy cooking, especially when we can do it together. Since Sean was scheduled to work for half of Thanksgiving weekend this year, I invited my family to come celebrate at our house. This gave me a chance to cook several meals for a group of people, so I could make (and eat) some tasty meals. The challenge was that my mom and two brothers are now semi-vegetarian: they generally try to avoid meat, but will eat it in certain situations. They all said they were eating turkey, so I didn't have to worry about that meal (no tofurkey!). But for the other meals, I had to come up with something that could include meat or no-meat.<br />
<br />
We're also a big pie family. I sent out a "pie poll" asking them to rank apple, pumpkin, and pecan pies. I was originally planning to make two. Well, everybody ranked them differently, with different top choices, so I decided to make all three.<br />
<br />
Sean had to work through Friday, then had 4 days off starting Saturday, so I decided to do the turkey meal on Saturday. So that meant we couldn't count on turkey leftovers for the other meals. However, I also realized that I could make a pie each day and could easily eat all three pies.<br />
<br />
My parents and younger brother arrived on Wednesday, which was also Mitchell's sixth birthday. For that meal I wanted something that he liked, so I made salmon, broccoli, and rice. I got a big salmon filet, seasoned it with salt, pepper, dill weed, and paprika. Then I placed lemon slices on top and baked it. I make frozen broccoli spears in chicken broth, and the kids like to put Molly McButter cheese sprinkles on it (they didn't eat broccoli until I introduced them to it). We still had some of the Lego cake left from his birthday party the previous Saturday, so we just used that to sing and do candles again.<br />
<br />
To make the Lego cakes, I used two cake mixes and poured it into two bread pans and 12 cupcakes. I cut the tops off of the cupcakes and used the bottoms for the circles on each Lego. I just started making theme cakes this year. In the past I went low-key and just let the kids decorate their own cakes, which they enjoyed doing. But we always ended up with sections of cake overloaded with sprinkles and other decorations! My first theme cake was in July for Jason's third birthday that had monster trucks on it.<br />
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On Thursday, my older brother arrived to complete the family. Mom and I made an apple pie (we made three crusts, and refrigerated two). Ever since we got an apple machine, making apple pie is incredibly easy because I can outsource the manual labor to the kids. They love to do the apple machine, and fight over who gets to do it. The apple machine produces long strands of apple peels. My brother and the kids ate them like Lady and the Tramp ate spaghetti:<br />
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We always make apple pie with a crumble topping (instead of a crust or lattice top) that makes it extra yummy! And it keeps me from having to do the difficult task of getting a crust on top of a pie.<br />
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For dinner on Thursday, I made lasagna. I used Barilla no-boil, home-style (no squigglies at the edges) noodles. I consulted two recipes (the one on the lasagna box and a Johnsonville sausage recipe on Allrecipes.com that included spinach) and augmented with extra ricotta, mozzarella, and sauce than either called for. I used (2 1/2 jars of) locally-produced Oliverio's spaghetti sauce and sweet Italian sausage and fresh spinach. To accommodate the semi-vegitarians and my kids who won't eat spinach, I made the left 3/4 with spinach mixed in the ricotta/egg/mozzarella mixture and the right half with the sausage. That way the semi-vegetarians could eat just spinach, my kids could eat just meat, and the rest of us could have both. It was delicious! We also had a tasty salad to go with it.<br />
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On Friday, Mom and I made the pumpkin and pecan pies. The recipe on the can of pumpkin didn't call for ginger, but Mom made sure we added it-a flavor that makes a pumpkin pie. The pecan pie was made from pecans ordered directly from a pecan farm (<a href="http://www.deltapecan.com/" target="_blank">Delta Pecan Orchard</a>) so they would be peanut-free. Most nuts are processed (shelled) on equipment that also processes peanuts, so there's no guarantee that there won't be some pieces of peanuts mixed in which can ruin your day if you or your kid has a <a href="http://plasmaphysicsmom.blogspot.com/2012/06/aw-nuts.html" target="_blank">peanut allergy</a>. The pecans were nice, large, whole nuts-yummy! My mom is very particular about the pecans and turns them all so the convex side is pointing up (she says it looks nicer that way).<br />
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For dinner, I had a big pork roast that I put in the slow cooker with some sliced onion and two Old El Paso reduced sodium taco packets. When it was done cooking, we pulled it and stuck it on the stove with its cooking juices and some vinegar (I left some out for the kids so it didn't get too spicy). I also heated a can of Bush's Seasoned black beans and a can of Cocina Latina refried black beans (with some other tasty stuff in it). We had tacos, and I figured the beans would make some non-meat options. I had Old El Paso Stand and Stuff taco shells and flour tortillas. For toppings we had shredded cheddar and quesadilla cheeses, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, avocado, black olives, and two types of salsa. There was corn on the side too. My older brother said tacos were his favorite food, so I chose well!<br />
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On Saturday, we had the turkey dinner and went totally traditional. I stuffed the bird with corn bread stuffing, and we also made some out-of-the bird "stuffing" because that's the way my brother likes it. We had mashed potatoes, and Sean made the tastiest gravy. We had green beans, and cranberry sauce the way it should be: shaped like the can that it came in!<br />
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I am thankful for a great weekend with my family!!!<br />
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<br />plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-72269670993633431902012-10-15T20:00:00.001-07:002012-10-15T20:00:16.967-07:00Publishing in a scientific journal, part 1On Friday, I submitted a paper to the Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics. This gives me the opportunity to blog about the process of getting a paper published in a scientific journal. When you do scientific research, you have to share your results with other scientists, which is done through presentations (talks and posters) at conferences and through peer-reviewed publications. Publications are especially important because of the peer-review process during which other scientists read your paper and provide critical feedback on the merits of the paper, methods of research, and conclusions made based on the results.<br />
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A paper generally consists of an introduction that provides a background to the topic(s) discussed in the paper with references to other research relating to the topic, a description of the data used and methods with which they were obtained as well as analysis methods, a presentation of the results, a discussion of the results and what they mean for the topic being discussed, and final conclusions of the paper. Most papers include multiple authors, each of which has contributed in some way to the data collection, analysis, and or writing. All authors must agree with what is included in the paper.<br />
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Most journals have an online submission process. The author uploads an article file and enters information about the authors and details about the paper, including keywords that describe the paper topics and suggested reviewers. After submission, the journal editors get a basic idea of the paper to make sure it meets basic standards, then requests that other scientists in the field review the paper. Most journals have 2 reviewers for a paper. The reviewers have several weeks to read the paper, then provide a decision about the paper from the following options (there is some variation among journals): publish without changes, publish with minor revisions, may be suitable for publication after major revisions, reject. The reviewer also provides comments to support that decision, including suggestions for revisions and questions about information that needs to be explained or clarified.<br />
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So now we wait to get the reviewer comments back from the editor. The identities of the reviewers remain anonymous, except in some journals when a reviewer agrees to be acknowledged in the final publication.plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-88846353547335775772012-09-13T20:02:00.000-07:002012-09-13T20:02:00.376-07:00Blog about ResearchThis article:<br />
<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/2012/07/28/self-citing-bloggers-my-research-is-the-coolest-thing-ever-let-me-tell-you-all-about-it/">http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/2012/07/28/self-citing-bloggers-my-research-is-the-coolest-thing-ever-let-me-tell-you-all-about-it/</a><br />
talks about blogs that promote the author's research, and that women are less likely to blog about their research, and cite their own work in blogs at an even lower rate. And since my brother wanted me to start this blog to talk about what I do, I figured I should talk a bit about my research this week.<br />
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One of the projects I'm currently working on is to compare how hot ions get during two different types of geomagnetic storms. The news has started to talk about solar flares and coronal mass ejections, so hopefully you have heard at least a little about them. Solar flares are blasts of high energy radiation from the Sun, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are big chunks of energetic particles (ions and electrons) that are blasted off the Sun. The Earth's magnetic field creates a protective shield that keeps the CME from hitting Earth directly. Instead, the energetic particles enter the region around Earth, called the magnetosphere, only in places where the magnetic field breaks. Once inside the magnetosphere, these energetic particles flow around, creating currents and causing the aurora. This is called a geomagnetic storm.<br />
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But CMEs are not the only driver of geomagnetic storms. Another driver is called a high speed stream (HSS). The Sun is constantly expelling particles, called the solar wind. The speed of these particles varies, but ranges from about 300 to 1000 km/s. If a region of slow solar wind is heading toward Earth, followed by a region of high speed solar wind, the fast solar wind will catch up to the slow solar wind. The interaction between the two regions can also drive geomagnetic storms. I wrote a paper describing how hot the ions get during one of these high speed stream-driven storms <a href="http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011JA017319.shtml" target="_blank">[<i>Keesee et al.</i>, 2012]</a>.<br />
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Now I'm trying to do an analysis of the average ion temperature over all of the storms during late 2008-early 2012 and compare them during the two types of storms. So one of the things that I have to do is figure out when storms happened and which type of driver, CME or HSS, the storm had. Papers often get published that identify this for a set of storms, but it usually occurs for a previous chunk of time, so nothing has come out for this interval yet. First, I tried to look at criteria that other people have described to decide for myself what the driver was. But that was incredibly difficult! Using different resources led to conflicting designations, and some were just totally ambiguous. I had a lot of question marks in my notes!<br />
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Then this week while I was looking through more references, I found the most awesome resource ever! NOAA-the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (they bring you the weather)-has a Space Weather Prediction Center that publishes a <a href="http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/weekly/index.html" target="_blank">weekly report</a> on all of the solar and geophysical activity for the previous week plus a prediction for the upcoming week. The report gives a play-by-play of the geomagnetic storms and what caused them. Super Awesome!!! So now that problem is solved. Yay!<br />
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This week I also finished a draft of a paper that has been in the works for awhile and really needs to be finalized and submitted. I sent it to a co-author for comments.<br />
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And tonight we had a panel that I organized as a part of the <a href="http://www.awis.org/" target="_blank">Association for Women in Science</a>. It was called What Can I Do With a Science Degree? and consisted of 3 women scientists in a variety of careers: a Congressional Science Policy Fellow, a Research Scientist for the US Forest Service, and an Independent Consultant that does project management and software/equipment validation. It went really well: we had a good audience and some great conversation!plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-58770891481504697912012-09-10T19:42:00.003-07:002012-09-13T19:00:54.016-07:00Liebster Award!Thanks to Susie at <a href="http://castleblake.blogspot.com/2012/09/liebster.html">CastleBlake</a> blog for giving my blog the Liebster Award!<br />
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<img border="0" height="90" src="http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r572/Rollingontheriverinheels/Liebster.jpg" width="243" /><br />
<i><b>The Rules of the Award:</b> The Liebster Award is given
to bloggers, by bloggers. It is a way to acknowledge each other and
say, "You are doing a great job." It is for blogs with 200 or less
followers, so it is also a great way to spread the word about smaller
blogs and get them more readers and followers! When you receive the
award you post eleven random facts about yourself, and answer eleven
questions from the person who nominated you. You pass the award onto
eleven other blogs, (make sure you let them know they were nominated,)
and ask them eleven questions. You are not allowed to nominate the blog
that nominated you.</i><br />
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So let's see, 11 random facts about me...<br />
1. I'm a military brat, born in England and lived in Germany, but moved back to the States just before I turned 2. There's a little Brit left in me-I like to drink hot tea with milk in it!<br />
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2. I have a big, black furry dog-a Newfoundland. Her name is Nanny's Bella Notte, named after the song in Lady and the Tramp. ("beautiful night" in Italian)<br />
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3. I'm allergic to melon. I developed the allergy while I was in grad school, so I know how incredibly tasty melon can be :-(<br />
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4. My oldest kid has a peanut allergy. He doesn't know the taste of peanuts, but he has told me that he's excited to go to heaven so he can eat M&Ms :_-(<br />
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<i>Enough with the downer facts! </i><br />
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5. I play the cello. Well, "play" is an overstatement at this point as my poor cello hasn't seen the light of day since before by second child was born. Someday...<br />
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6. I love tangrams!<br />
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7. My favorite magazine is Brain, Child. It almost died due to the financial woes that plague most print media these days. But some awesome person swooped in and saved it. I'm so excited for my next issue. I call it my mommy porn! (Note: my husband and I use the term "porn" for anything you spend way to much time looking at, and has been upgraded since we became parents to also mean anything that causes you to ignore your children as they run around you like wild banchees.)<br />
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8. I have a 45 minute commute each way to work. It's not a stuck-in-traffic commute, so it's not terrible, but takes some time. I usually listen to NPR so I know what's going on. I drive a Honda Insight (hybrid) that gets >40 mph on average!<br />
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9. I have an awesome nanny whom the kids love. I couldn't survive in this career without her!<br />
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10. If you watch 30 Rock, I am so like Liz Lemon. (I want to go to there!)<br />
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11. It's a dry heat! I spent a big chunk of my childhood in Tucson.<br />
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<i> </i>The 11 questions asked by Susie:<br />
<i>1. What is the best vacation you've ever taken?</i> While I was in Australia doing research, I took some time to do some sightseeing: Sydney, surfing Bondi Beach, snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. It was awesome.<br />
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2. What is the most daring thing you've ever done? </i>Took a nine month old on an airplane by myself, complete with carseat.<br />
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3. What is something you wish you could do better? </i>Play the piano.<i></i><br />
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4. What are your favorite food flavors? </i>Oh man, so many good flavors, I don't know if I have a favorite, but recently I've discovered the power of vinegar in making things pop!<br />
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5. What is your favorite dessert? </i>Pie! (rhubarb is my favorite pie)<br />
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6. What is your favorite thing to actually cook? </i>Pie! (especially after I got an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fox-Run-Peeling-Machine-Suction/dp/B0002BFWCS/ref=sr_1_8?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1347160783&sr=1-8&keywords=apple+machine">apple machine</a> and a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Andersons-Crust-Maker-11in-14in/dp/B006H2RDT6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1347160729&sr=8-3&keywords=pie+crust+bag">pie crust bag</a>)<br />
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7. What do you long for? </i>I wish people of faith would accept each others' beliefs as legitimate. <br />
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8. How do you celebrate your favorite holiday? </i>Christmas is my favorite, and there are so many things I love-decorating, singing carols, being with family. My husband calls me "Christmas Crazy."<br />
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9. When/how/why did you know your spouse was "the one"?</i> Cuddling on the couch at Davidson, watching TV, discussing math (my major) and biology (his major). Nerds in love :-)<br />
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10. What is your favorite beverage? </i>normal: Coke; legal: pina colada<br />
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<i>11. What is one tradition your family had when you were growing up that you'd like to continue with your family?</i> Playing games. It all starts with kiddy board games and Uno, and eventually leads to Euchre! The spark has already been lit in Mitchell. <br />
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And now I get to bestow the award on 11 blogs! Well, I don't actually follow 11 blogs, so congratulations to<br />
my little brother, Todd, at<a href="http://www.dailyclimb.org/about/"> Daily Climb</a><i> </i><br />
Ann at <a href="http://annes3rs.blogspot.com/2012/09/bloggy-birthday.html">Reflections, Recipes, and Rants</a><i> </i><br />
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Update: I realized that I forgot to come up with 11 questions for the awardees to answer!<br />
1. What is your favorite childhood memory?<br />
2. If you could visit anywhere in the world (that you haven't been yet), where would it be?<br />
3. What is your favorite place that you have visited?<br />
4. What is your favorite food (non-dessert)?<br />
5. What is your favorite dessert?<br />
6. Who has inspired you?<br />
7. Who is your favorite scientist? (I don't count :-P)<br />
8. What is your least favorite chore?<br />
9. What teacher changed your life?<br />
10. What's the best book you've read recently?<br />
11. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?<br />
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Happy blogging to all those that have received this award!<i> </i> plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-80075580506183486762012-08-25T14:41:00.001-07:002012-08-25T14:41:21.703-07:00Race Day!Today was my triathlon! It's a sprint distance-there are sprint, Olympic, Half-Ironman, and Ironman distances-although it definitely doesn't feel like a sprint to me! Lengths of sprint triathlons can be variable (especially the swim), but this one is 330 yard swim (in a pool that's strangely 33 yards), 11 mile bike, and 5K (3.1 miles) run. The bike and run are along a rail trade with very little grade. I've been doing this triathlon since its beginning, minus a few breaks for a trip to Australia, two babies, and last year when the trail was closed by a landslide. Today I had my best time ~1:18. Unfortunately they didn't have timing chips this year, I don't know why. But we didn't get splits (times for each leg of the race plus transitions), which was really annoying. Hopefully they'll post final times online so I know my exact total time. I only know from looking at the clock.<br />
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First is the swim. Since it's in a pool, 10 swimmers go in each heat, separated by 10 minutes. If you can't finish the swim in that time, they give you a time penalty. The water was a bit chilly when I got in. Sometimes I have psychological issues with breathing in really cold water, but I was able to calm myself down before starting and keep from freaking myself out during the swim. I shared a lane with a 19 year old that was way faster than me, but I had a pretty good swim. My time when I crossed the step where the timing pad usually is was 5:25.<br />
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In the first transition I put down my cap and goggles, put on my bike helmet, quickly dried my feet, and put on my socks and shoes. I don't use clip pedals on my bike, so this is the only shoe change I have to do. Pulling a bike off the rack is hard when it is squeezed with all of the other bikes and your arms are tired from swimming!<br />
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Next is the bike leg. This is where I wanted to try to improve my time. In the past I had never done much bike training. This year I went on several family rides, not really great training because it's pretty slow going to allow Mitchell and Sean pulling Jason in the trailer to keep up, but it's somewhat helpful for the muscles. Then I also did several morning rides around my neighborhood. These involved long, uphill climbs (followed by lots of downhill coasting) that really built my bike legs. I pushed pretty hard on the bike when I could. There were a few places that you couldn't push too hard-some bumpy places in the trail, some tight curves, and especially my encounter with a deer! A deer was standing to the right side of the trail, looking like it wanted to cross. I yelled at the deer to try to scare it away. It worked, but it couldn't find a place to turn back into the woods, so it ran along the side of the trail for several yards. We were coming to a bridge and I was so worried it was going to jump onto the trail, get trapped on the bridge, and totally freak out, but luckily it turned away from the trail just before the bridge. During the bike you can really get an idea of where you are in relation to other people in the race. Everybody has a number, so all the people in your heat have numbers in your decade. The person that had been in my swimming lane was the only person in my heat that was in front of me. I passed 2-3 people during the bike (one I wasn't sure if she was actually in the race) and was passed by none. When I got to the end of the bike leg, I checked the clock and saw that it was 46 minutes past my start time, so if my transition took about 5 minutes or less, then my bike split was 36 minutes-almost 10 minutes faster than my previous bike split!<br />
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The second transition is much faster without a shoe change. I just hung up my bike, a little easier since most of the bikers in my heat were still on the bike leg, except the person across from me who had annoyingly set their bike on a kickstand and the front tire was turned sideways, taking up a lot of space right in the way, then took off my helmet and put on my shirt with my race number attached. The shirt I could put on as I started to run out of the transition area, so that saved even more time.<br />
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Then the run. Let's just say that running hurts a lot after a long bike ride. The entire first half of the run was pretty miserable. The first half is on blacktop trail between buildings, and with the sun out, it was pretty hot. After a bit it crosses a street and then is next to a creek, which is a bit nicer, and then turns to crushed limestone through the woods, which is even nicer. But this direction has a bit of an uphill grade, so it hurts the whole way. After the turnaround, it feels awesome to have a bit of a downhill. It still was miserable on the sunny blacktop section, but so close to the end. As I came to the finish, my husband and two boys were there to cheer me on! I picked up the pace a bit to the finish. My run was about 32 minutes, which is a reasonable time for me (I usually try to run 10 minute miles during training). I was passed by a few people on the run, one was one of the bikers that I had passed that was from the heat before me, so I still may have beat her time.<br />
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Here's a picture from a previous triathlon (they didn't have a photographer this year either). This was on my old bike that I bought at a yard sale for $25. The first year I did the triathlon (while I was a grad student), I had used my old teenage-years bike that was terrible for a triathlon (big tires). On the way home from the triathlon, there was a big neighborhood yard sale. I saw this and bought it! A few years ago I got a new road bike for my birthday.<br />
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The fun thing about this race is that people are very nice-everybody says "good job" or other words of encouragement as they pass each other. Friends and co-workers have good competitions among each other. It's lots of fun (at least during parts of it, and definitely when you finish), motivates you to get exercise, and generally supports a good cause. This one supports Habitat for Humanity. I highly recommend checking out sprint triathlons in your area. If you're not up to all three sports, you can find two friends and do a relay.plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-84646522843504034282012-06-26T19:43:00.000-07:002012-06-26T19:43:01.282-07:00Aw, nuts!My 5 year old has a peanut allergy. People often ask me whether he reacts to airborne peanuts as some do, and I always said no. We've been to football, baseball, and basketball games where people near us were eating peanuts and even tossing the shells nearby, and he never had a problem so I thought he wouldn't have that problem.<br />
But I was wrong.<br />
Last week we all went to Colorado while I attended a work-related meeting. We flew Southwest which serves peanuts on the flight, along with another snack. Of course, we didn't give Mitchell the peanuts, and he did find on the way out. But on the return flight, he started getting itchy legs soon after the peanuts were served. We looked for bug bites, then my husband realized that it was probably a reaction to the peanuts.<br />
I had a small first aid kit that a couple of items with lidocaine, which we tried but didn't help much. We asked the flight attendant if they had hydrocortizone or benadryl, which they didn't. They seemed surprisingly unfazed when we said he had a peanut allergy. One mentioned that I could ask them ahead of the flight not to serve peanuts, but otherwise didn't seem at all prepared to deal with any sort of first aid or worse emergency. I'm not sure what would have happened if he had a more severe reaction. (I had 3 epi-pens which theoretically would give us 45 minutes to get him to an ER.)<br />
A woman suggested an ice pack, so we used that and it helped a little. It was mostly his legs, but occasionally he rubbed his eyes and other places on his face, which made it a bit scarier. It was a very long 2 hours, and it didn't help that our younger kid was quite restless too.<br />
My husband figured getting him off the plane as soon as possible would be best, so we asked a flight attendant if there was a way to get off quickly. She moved the two of them to seats at the front of the plane as we were getting ready to land so they could get off first. We landed after 11 pm so nothing was open in the airport.<br />
After we got our bags, we stopped at a gas station and gave him two types of histamine blockers. Halfway home, we stopped at a WalMart to buy a pulse oximeter to monitor his heart rate and oxygen since he fell asleep in the car, occasionally scratching. When we got home, we gave him a bath to wash off any remaining peanut proteins, slathered him in hydrocortisone creame, and gave him some benadryl and steroids.<br />
We continued to worry that he could still have a bad reaction and were afraid to go to sleep. We thought about monitoring occasionally with the pulse-ox, but one time his heart rate went up from what it had been. We tried calling our allergist, but he doesn't really do overnight call. I knew he would tell us to go to the ER, so we did (at about 3 AM).<br />
The ER doctor was mostly concerned about the way the rash looked on his arms. Since we had been hiking in Colorado, there was some discussion of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The typical MO for kids in the ER is to run every test possible to make sure nothing is missed. So he had a chest X-ray, he peed in a cup, and they wanted to put in an IV to get blood work and then have access for giving medicine later.<br />
Yeah, putting an IV in a 5 year old who is already afraid of getting shots is interesting. The nurse was really nice and tried to make him calm by showing him everything she would be using and talking about everything. He was really brave as she put the needle in his arm, then kept asking when she was going to take it out. Unfortunately, the needle went through the vein, so then we had to tell him that he would have to do it over on the other arm. He bawled and said he wanted to go home.<br />
My husband held him and said that we couldn't go home until we got his blood for the tests and finally convinced him to try again. Another nurse came in to do the needle this time. We were all around him, trying to calm him and take his mind off what was going on. This time it worked and he watched as they collected several tubes of blood. They taped and wrapped it up so he wouldn't mess with it. The nurse gave him a stuffed animal for being so brave and he went to sleep.<br />
The labs trickled back. My husband and the doctor discussed that we could have him admitted if we wanted or could go home if the labs were all okay. So he decided to go home and take a shower while we waited for the rest of the labs, then come back and take a nap at the hospital until he started his 12 hour shift for the day. I sat on a chair next to my kid's bed and leaned forward to lay my head on the pillow next to him to try to sleep.<br />
They gave him a dose of antibiotics through his IV and an oral dose of an antibiotic that fights the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. When the labs had all came back, the doctor gave me the choice of admission or going home, and we chose to go home.<br />
My father in law had gone with us on the trip and was at home with my youngest kid and watched the kids after we got home so I could get a few hours of sleep. It's hard to recover from an all-nighter at this age!<br />
<br />
While we're on this subject, I'll post an essay I wrote about the peanut allergy last year. I had submitted this to my favorite magazine, <i>Brain, Child</i>, which, unfortunately, is closing shop (and interestingly includes a debate about nut-free schools in the final issue that I received today), but they did not select to publish it. I wrote it after reading an essay in that magazine called "Sweet Somethings" about getting treats from the ice cream man. The same day I read that article, an ice cream truck came by. At the time, I hadn't checked to see whether there was anything peanut-safe to get, so I worried about taking my kid to the truck only to find we couldn't get anything. As he has gotten older, he understands his allergy and that there are limits on what he can eat. He generally asks if there are peanuts (although doesn't always understand possible contamination or when there's no label to check). And we have checked and eaten ice cream from the ice cream man!<br />
<br />
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<h1>
<span style="color: windowtext;">Sweet Nothings</span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
heard the tinkling music briefly in the distance, but I pretended not to
notice. I hoped nobody else had heard it. Jason was busy riding his tricycle up
the street and Mitchell was talking to Sean, so they didn’t seem to notice. I
breathed a sigh of relief that included a twinge of disappointment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“I
heard the ice cream truck go up the other street!” Evan, the neighbor kid, had
noticed. Now I hoped Mitchell hadn’t heard what he said. I tried to talk
quietly, “Mitchell probably can’t get anything from there because we don’t know
if it has peanuts in it.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">“I’m
going to go see if I can catch it.” Evan ran off down the street. Luckily he
didn’t say anything more and Mitchell didn’t notice that he took off. He
returned shortly, realizing that the truck had headed away from our street. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ice
cream trucks, ice cream parlors, cake at birthdays and weddings, trick or
treating at Halloween, neighborhood Easter egg hunts, entire tables of desserts
at pot-lucks. There are many things that I took great pleasure in as a child,
and some that I still do, that I have had to keep Mitchell from because he has
a peanut allergy. For most of these, he doesn’t realize what he’s missing out
on, so it hasn’t been too difficult. There has been the occasional party,
wedding, or church pot-luck where he has seen the treats that he can’t eat, but
I usually have an alternative treat for him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We
first discovered Mitchell’s peanut allergy when he was 17 months. I was eating
a PB&J sandwich and gave him a bite. Soon after lunch, we got in the car
for a short meeting that I had with a colleague. While we were at her office,
he sneezed a couple of times. Because it was one of the first nice days of
spring, we went outside and he continued sneezing, repeatedly. After the
meeting we got in the car. Mitchell fell asleep, but sounded completely stuffed
up, breathing noisily through his mouth. That evening I mentioned to my
husband, Sean (an internal medicine doctor), that Mitchell must have pretty bad
seasonal allergies and I described his profuse sneezing. He replied, “He can’t
have seasonal allergies yet, he had your immune system last year.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">My
heart sank when I remembered, “I did give him a bite of peanut butter today. Is
sneezing a possible allergic reaction to peanuts?” We jumped on the internet,
hoping that it wasn’t, but found that allergic reactions to peanuts could
manifest as a multitude of different symptoms, including rhinitis. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
next day I made an appointment with an allergist and cleaned out all of the
items with peanuts from the kitchen. Sean gave me detailed lectures on
endocrinology and how doctors think allergies develop. If your body decides a
certain protein is harmful, it creates an antibody against it. This can happen
at any stage of development, including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in
utero</i>. I thought back to all of the Snickers bars that I had eaten during
the twice-weekly non-stress tests that I had leading up to Mitchell’s birth,
and the PB&J sandwiches and Massaman curry that I had eaten while
breastfeeding him. I felt like I had ruined my child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
we finally got to see the allergist, I told him the story. He tried to be
comforting, “We’ll test him, but I don’t think he’s going to have a peanut
allergy.” They pricked Mitchell’s back in three places: one with peanut
protein, one with histamine that would definitely react, and one with saline
that should have no reaction. Then they told me to keep him from scratching his
back for twenty minutes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">What?
Keep a toddler from touching his back that itches for 20 minutes? We went back
out to the waiting room, Mitchell shirtless, and I tried to keep him occupied
with crayons or looking at things in the room, but not leaning against a chair
or the wall, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or scratching that itch on his
back</i>. And not only was the histamine spot red, but I could see the peanut
spot turning red too. After twenty long minutes, we were called back into the
room where the nurses measured the size of the red spots with a ruler. The
allergist came back in and told me what I already knew.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
allergist told me that only a small percentage of kids outgrow peanut
allergies, that there were trials in progress to desensitize kids to the
allergen but they weren’t ready for mainstream use (one child in the trials had
recently died!), and showed us how to use an Epi-pen with the tester.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Take off the cap and stab it into his thigh,
then you have 15 minutes to get to the ER. Make sure you don’t put your thumb
over the end just in case you get flustered and have it upside down-you don’t
want to stab your thumb and waste the Epi-pen. Don’t leave the Epi-pen in the
car-it can’t get hot or cold.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He
wrote a script for four Epi-pens so we could keep some at home and some at
daycare. When I went to pick them up, the pharmacy had only filled two. “Your
insurance doesn’t pay for these and we weren’t sure you would want to pay for
all four because they cost $160 for two.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yikes! I bought the two they had and later called the insurance company
and was told the only injectable they cover is insulin. Sean wanted to call
them to ask if they would rather pay for intensive care, but knew after many
phone calls to insurance companies that it would be a waste of his time and
breath. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On
Christmas Eve, a month after Mitchell’s second birthday, I went to the pet
store to get dog food and treats. While I was picking them out, Mitchell was
walking around nearby. He came over and I saw he was chewing something. First,
I worried that he would choke. I started to grab the pieces from his mouth, but
realized he’d already chewed it up and would be able to swallow it fine. Then I
remembered seeing many dog treats with peanut butter in them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
quickly went around the corner where he had been and found a display of open
bins with dog treats. The two flavors on the bottom row were chicken and peanut
butter. I frantically asked, “Which box did you get that from?” as if a
two-year old would answer that. I didn’t want to freak if he’d eaten the
chicken-flavored one. What could I do?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It
occurred to me to smell his breath-definitely peanut butter. I quickly bought
the dog food, got in the car, and headed straight for Sean’s office, adjacent
to the hospital. I tried paging him, but he didn’t return my call. He must have
been busy with a patient at the hospital. I could see in the rearview mirror
that Mitchell was rubbing his eye. It was turning red and swelling up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
we got to my husband’s office, I found him chatting with his office manager.
“Why didn’t you answer my page?” I was pissed, as if he knew that this page had
been an important one. He gave Mitchell some Benadryl and steroids and we kept
an eye on him while he played in the office, just a few steps from the ER in
case it got worse. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">We
didn’t use the Epi-pen. The thought of stabbing my child with a needle freaks
me out. Sean has shown me the studies that show the statistics of better
outcomes when using the Epi-pen, although he wasn’t reaching for it either.
Okay, next time, we’ll definitely use it, we told ourselves. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">When
our first set of Epi-pens expired, I tried one out on an orange, as suggested
by others on the peanut allergy message boards. The spring action that ejects
the needle upon pressing the Epi-pen against the flesh sent a surprising jolt
through my hand. I pulled it away from the orange to reveal a needle over an
inch in length. Sean was surprised at the gauge of the needle. It seemed big
enough to pass right through my child’s precious little thigh. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">One
afternoon when Mitchell was three, he was playing in our backyard. I looked out
the window to see him sitting in the grass by the fence and I hoped he wasn’t
sitting in a pile of dog poop. A few minutes later, he was still sitting there
so I went out the door to ask what he was doing. “I found chocolate!” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
thought, “Holy crap, he’s eating dog poop!” and ran out to him. There in his
lap was a plastic Easter egg and chocolate wrapper that he had found on the fence.
The neighbors had had an Easter egg hunt and that one must have been
overlooked. So then I had to worry whether that piece of chocolate had peanuts
in it. What’s worse to eat-dog poop or a protein that could send you into anaphylactic
shock?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Now
at age 4, after much discussion and multiple readings of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Allie the Allergic Elephant</i>, he understands that eating peanuts
would make him sick, and he often asks whether foods are safe. The difficult
part is when someone tells him that there aren’t any peanuts in an item, not
realizing that we avoid all items from bakeries because they all have the “may
contain peanuts” warning. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
also usually avoid giving him items baked by other people unless I’ve had a
detailed conversation with them about the ingredients in those items and any
other items baked at the time. One Christmas, my sister-in-law baked several
things and brought them to share, including peanut butter fudge and a cupcake
made from a mix carefully checked to not include peanuts just for Mitchell. When
he ate the cupcake, his face turned red. It was likely that peanut from the
fudge had contaminated the cupcake, either during the baking or in transport to
our house. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For
now, it is relatively easy to keep him from peanuts. He attends a peanut-free
preschool where one of the teachers has a peanut-allergic child, so she “gets
it.” Otherwise, food is only given to him by a limited number of relatives and
our nanny. I know that someday soon, he will have to become his own advocate
and make smart choices about the foods he eats. Hopefully, nobody will ever
have to stab an Epi-pen into his leg.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
day after I heard the ice cream truck, I was sitting in my office and my eyes
rested upon one of several comics that I have taped to the wall. It is a Far
Side comic of several scientists running out of the lab to the ice cream truck
that can be seen through the window, leaving a beaker on the bench and
unfinished equations on the chalkboard. That’s me in a nutshell. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
have to remind myself that there are other simple pleasures in life that I can
share with Mitchell, and lots of tasty foods that are safe. Maybe someday he’ll
even beat the odds and outgrow his allergy, or the desensitization tests will
become a regular treatment. Until then, we’ll be sticking to soft serve ice
cream cones, handing out peanut-free candy at Halloween, and hunting for Easter
eggs in our own backyard.</span></div>
<br />plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-9178378429807940162012-06-04T10:06:00.000-07:002012-06-04T10:06:16.876-07:00Transit of Venus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhd1rmHzCzC-WcAiQ5LzM-0hLXLCrKjd8yJ4QZyyZlCSiMMVa71H6YtUy_6a9oEKpd5z2nIMZYBtfzS11uyidmYfRMXuvjxB5J3RbgYtzYWEwWbyY63oVcg3i8iOWtJohvIPDSAAx6O-o/s1600/venustransit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhd1rmHzCzC-WcAiQ5LzM-0hLXLCrKjd8yJ4QZyyZlCSiMMVa71H6YtUy_6a9oEKpd5z2nIMZYBtfzS11uyidmYfRMXuvjxB5J3RbgYtzYWEwWbyY63oVcg3i8iOWtJohvIPDSAAx6O-o/s320/venustransit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
On Tuesday, June 5, 2012, the planet Venus will cross between the Earth
and the Sun such that Venus can be seen as a small disk on the face of
the Sun. A Venus transit occurred in 2004, but will not occur again
until 2117. The Transit of Venus has been used historically to calculate the size of the solar system, and such work funded global expeditions, in particular by Cook. Planetary transits are also how the Kepler mission currently finds planets orbiting other starts. There is a wealth of information about the transit, past transits, and the Kepler mission being put out by NASA:<br />
<a href="http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/"> </a><a href="http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/">http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/</a><br />
<a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/04jun_arcofvenus/">http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/04jun_arcofvenus/</a><br />
<a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/02jun_jamescook/">http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/02jun_jamescook/</a><br />
<br />
If you are near Morgantown, WV, the WVU Physics Department will be hosting a viewing and several stations to learn more. Solar Scopes will be set up
on the patio along Willey Avenue for safe viewing of the transit. <span class="caps">NASA</span>’s
live webcast will be shown. An iPad station for learning about the Sun
and viewing data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and STEREO missions will be available.
There will also be videos about historical Venus transits and how they
were used to determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun; and how
the Kepler mission uses transits to find planets orbiting other stars.
The Tomchin Observatory in Hodges Hall will be open for viewing the
transit. Physics Department members will be available to answer
questions and direct visitors to each activity. These events will occur from 6pm until sunset (about 8:30pm) when the transit will be viewable from our area.<br />
<br />
If you are not near Morgantown, you can find out when the transit will be viewable in your area, search for viewing events near you, watch the live webcast from Hawaii, or learn how to make a safe solar viewer (do not look directly at the Sun!) at <a href="http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/">http://venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus/</a>.<br />
<br />plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-64675125866993323552012-05-11T20:54:00.001-07:002012-05-11T20:54:51.484-07:00On travelSo here I am, on travel! Because science is a collaborative enterprise, it involves quite a bit of travel. This travel can be to conduct research, present research results (and see others') at a conference, or learn about something new that you're trying to figure out how to do and start new collaborations.
This week I'm in California to do the latter. I received some funds from EPSCoR (a program to improve research infrastructure in states that don't get a lot of research funding -yeah West Virginia is one of those states) to establish some collaborations with people that have built instruments for micro satellites to support our current collaboration to provide the science instruments for some planned microsatellite launches. So yesterday we visited NASA Ames to talk with people that have been doing these for awhile. While we were there, we visited the lab of another person that I did some collaboration with back in grad school. To make the trip even more worthwhile, today we visited a company that does plasma processing of wafers to get some ideas for relevant experiments that we could do in the lab. This was all piggybacked onto a conference that our postdoc and grad student were presenting at this week.
I have had the opportunity to travel to some great places throu my job. As a grad student, I got to do research for a summer in Australia. I have traveled above the arctic circle in tromso, Norway and saw the midnight sun. Through all of this I have worked with and met lots of scientists.
My husband thinks this is all a big boondoggle, and everything should be done by Skype. Now, we do a lot of meetings by teleconference or web conference, but some things just need to be done in person. At conferences, you're likely to see a talk or meet a person that you never would have if you were just checking out select talks online. Plus your own research is more likely to be seen by a wider audience when they're all there in person. This is especially important for younger scientists trying to network for jobs. Similarly, our meeting with the second person at Ames yesterday allowed us to tell her about previous work that our group had done that will help her out with her current research, and we may have found a solution to her two-body problem (finding jobs for both spouses in the same city).
Next week, I am doing another short trip that seems a lot more like a boondoggle, but is not supported by federal dollars. I am working with a team that is developing educational materials on the science of cycling and zip lining, so we're going on a trip to do some zip lining and mountain biking to understand a bit more about the location that we will be working with so we can figure out how to integrate the educational materials with the terrain. We will also be meeting with e people in charge of the site to discuss our ideas and plans.plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-9747716647280671362012-05-02T19:54:00.001-07:002012-05-02T19:54:43.290-07:00Proposals 1I previously mentioned that I would eventually get to proposals, and here we are. Scientists that don't work for a company that directs their research have to write proposals describing what they want to do. These are submitted to federal funding agencies (like NASA, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health, etc), private foundations, internal university funds, and other sources of funds. There is typically a solicitation describing what kind of projects the agency is looking for. The proposals are reviewed by scientists that are experts in the related field for federal agencies or the board of a foundation (sometimes with input from related experts).<br />
I recently started working on two proposals. One is for funds supported by the university's ADVANCE grant to support women faculty in science fields, and the other is a big one to NSF to increase majors in science fields. The first one will be a rewrite of a proposal I wrote earlier this year but was not selected for funding (some say you have to write 3 proposals for every 1 you need to get funded, and that could get worse in today's federal budget climate). The budget available is about half as much, so I'll have to cut something out, probably the funding for 1/2 a grad student. The second one will involve work with a bunch of other people at the university, so I'm currently in the process of making lots of contacts. I'm also doing a literature search to get the necessary data on best practices in increasing science majors.<br />
I'll try to keep you posted as the process goes along.plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-988168565866715692012-04-18T20:17:00.003-07:002012-04-18T20:17:39.114-07:00Tooting Your Own HornThis evening I attended an award ceremony where I was very honored to be given an award for service to women at my university. It is very nice to be recognized for the work that I do with the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) to support women in science fields and outreach to encourage girls to pursue science careers. It is also good for an academic's career to receive awards (although there is some disparity among the credit given for research vs. teaching vs. service awards, especially depending on the institution).<br />
Admittedly, I played a large role in being selected for this award. I received notice about several awards for women from the university and the state a few months ago. I sent the information to my AWIS chapter listserv, suggesting that, as a woman's organization, we should be nominating people for them. One member suggested nominating me. As we looked at the information needed, they decided it would be best for me to complete the information since I know the most about what I do. So I compiled the information, answering each required question, while another chapter officer wrote up the nomination and got the supporting recommendations.<br />
I think it is important for women to be willing to toot their own horns to get the recognition they deserve for their hard work. Sometimes this is hard to do, and may be part of why the number of awards for research given to women has not increased as the number of women researchers has increased. (The percentage of teaching and service awards given to women is more on par with their representation.) AWIS has recently received a grant to work with professional societies to ensure that women are recognized for outstanding research.<br />
About a year ago, I asked someone to nominate me for an award that is given to an early career woman for research in my field every 3 years. While someone else was selected for the award last year, I will still be eligible in the next cycle and plan to ask to be nominated again. Of course it is important to be doing good research to be deserving of such awards, but it never hurts to remind other people what you are doing and why it is awesome! <br />
<br />plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-80787125886880230892012-04-01T16:24:00.002-07:002012-04-01T16:24:59.434-07:00StrawberriesStrawberries are back in the grocery store, and I've been buying them the past few weeks, even though they're not quite at their peak. The first time I bought them, a couple weeks ago, was one of those days when all you have time to carry in the door are the items that need to be refrigerated. The poor baggers get many curses on those days: What moron would put one yogurt in with a bunch of canned goods? Reusable bags of meat, ice cream, milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs draped over every inch of my arms as I hobbled toward the door and plopped them into the kitchen. Hope I didn't drop those eggs too hard. Shove everything into the fridge and tend to the kids.<br />
That evening, after finally wrestling the kids into bed, I came downstairs, looked for my laptop, and realized it was still in the car. I walked out into the unseasonably warm night, opened the car door, and was washed over by the smell of strawberries. I suddenly remembered that I had groceries to carry in.<br />
But I paused and inhaled the sweet smell that reminded me of my grandparents' garage. Every summer when we visited, the shelves in their garage would be full of baskets overflowing with plump, red strawberries. They grew apples and tomatoes and a few vegetables, but the strawberries were the best. Store-bought strawberries don't do justice to the true experience of eating fresh-picked strawberries. These berries were red throughout and dripped as you bit into them. <br />
Yesterday, I introduced the kids to a fun way to eat strawberries: dipped in powdered sugar! Grandma taught us this trick. She knows everything is better with sugar. She taught me to eat tomato slices with sugar. When I got hiccups, she gave me a spoonful of sugar.<br />
Grandma still grows fruits and vegetables, though not on the scale they did when Grandpa was alive. She still makes her yummy strawberry jam that we get to eat when we visit. For now, I'll have to recreate the simple pleasure of strawberry desserts for my kids with mediocre berries. Maybe it's time to find a berry-picking farm nearby!plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-35382985940140827162012-03-27T10:45:00.000-07:002012-03-27T10:45:35.328-07:00Outreach and Women in STEMYesterday I got to do public outreach-sharing my science with non-scientists-which is one of my favorite parts of my job.<br />
I was invited to present a workshop at an All Girls STEM Workshop for a group of middle school girls. The girls' teachers had requested an event to get this group of girls interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. I have developed a workshop that utilizes iPads to access data from satellites that are observing the Sun and other regions of space around Earth to learn about the Sun and Space Weather, which is how the Sun affects our local Earth environment. We also used solar scopes to look at the Sun and saw a couple sunspots and a cool prominence! I was the last of several workshops that they did during the day and wrapped up with some encouragement to take math and science courses in high school.<br />
As a part of the Association for Women in Science, I am also organizing a state-wide event for middle school girls in April that includes hands-on workshops. I'll be presenting my Sun and Space Weather workshop again there. <br />
Women continue to be underrepresented in many STEM fields. There are many factors including conscious or unconscious bias against girls' ability to do math and science, the image of scientists portrayed in our culture, and barriers (either real or perceived) of the difficulty to be a scientist and have a family or enjoy other parts of life. Exposing girls to a variety of STEM fields and getting them excited about science is important.<br />
Coincidentally, I also received an email yesterday with a graphic created by some women in engineering advocate that was being shared for posting on websites. Most of the data on the graphic was useful-demonstrating girls loss of self-esteem/self-confidence in their abilities in STEM fields and the effects of stereotype threat (studies have shown that if you tell a group of test-takers that a particular minority performs poorly on that test, that minority will perform worse on that test than if they were not told). However, it was titled "Girls are Smarter than Boys" and contained a picture of a young girl reading a book and a picture of a young boy holding a cigarette. I felt that this was totally missing the point. My email in response included the following:<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
<span>I do not support women in science because boys are stupid, which
is the sentiment portrayed by this graphic. All children should be
encouraged to pursue the fields that they like. Yes, we need to support
girls' self esteem, but not by denigrating boys. As the mother of two
boys, I definitely would not want them to see this. If you create a new
graphic, please share it with
me.</span></div>
<span>Hopefully they update it with a more positive message. </span>plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-52071661622128810982012-03-23T11:00:00.003-07:002012-03-23T11:00:31.794-07:00publicationsI am happy to announce that my paper submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research was accepted today! This seems like a good opportunity to talk about publishing. You may (or may not) have heard the phrase "Publish or Perish." Publishing journal articles is how scientists share their results with other scientists. We do share some information through talks and posters at conferences, but journal articles are the official communications of scientific work because of the peer review process.<br />
When a person submits an article manuscript to a journal, the journal editors send it to (usually 2) referees with knowledge in the field to read the manuscript and provide a review. The referee usually selects from several choices (there is some variation by journal, but in general): Publish as is, Could be published after minor revisions, Could be published after major revisions, Reject, and provides comments on what revisions should be made. This is an anonymous process (referees are sometimes acknowledged when the article is published) so the referee feels free to provide an honest critique of the work without fear of ramification from a poor review or without the ability to benefit from a positive one. I have found that the review process generally makes papers much better. There is currently legislation in the works to mandate any government funded research be made publicly available for free, with quite a bit of controversy. There are costs to the publishing process, most of which is paid for through subscriptions to journals (often paid for by university libraries). However, there has been some testing of "open access" where the author pays the publishing costs (much greater than the current page charges of anywhere around $500-$1500 that authors pay per article), currently done by the choice of the author. <br />
In a journal article, the author(s) cite any relevant previous work that has been done. When a person publishes an article, it is available for the scientific community to read and cite their work. Generally in academia, a research career depends on publications, usually the quality of the journal is taken into account; and the number of citations a person's publications receives is important because it indicates that the work is relevant to the field.<br />
As a research professor, my job is to obtain research funding (through writing proposals-will have to write another blog post on that in the future) and publish my research results. I am currently trying to increase the amount of publications I write as I have been somewhat slow in that area (published one article in 2011). Looking back, I think conference travel may have kept me busy, so I am reducing the number of meetings that I am traveling to this year to focus on writing and publishing. Proposal writing also has taken a big chunk of my time, but I recently had a proposal funded, so I can take a bit of a break from that for now. <br />
In addition to my job requirements, I'm on the science team of a NASA satellite-based mission. Every few years, NASA reviews the current missions, and chooses which ones will receive a piece of the (limited) funding for extended missions. Demonstrating the benefits of a mission is done primarily through publications, so that is another reason to push my publication rates.<br />
I am already working on another article. This one has actually been in the works for about a year, but was put aside while I worked on the one accepted today, because that was submitted as part of a special section of the journal that had a deadline. I hope to get this one submitted soon and help my graduate student write his first first-author paper as well.<br />
So, I should probably explain what I mean by "first-author." Many papers have a list of co-authors, all who contributed some to the research discussed in the paper. (Ethics guidelines say that all co-authors are responsible for verifying the authenticity of anything published with their name on it.) The first author is the person that contributed the most, and generally wrote the bulk of the paper as well. Journals that use name citations in the text [<i>First author et al</i>, 2012] as opposed to numbered citations, really help get a person's name recognized in the community. So first-authored papers are a big milestone for students!plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-8250488603367745422012-03-21T19:05:00.002-07:002012-03-21T19:05:48.394-07:00How did I get here?I often start my story about how I ended up in my current job with the caveat that my path is not typical. But I hear that a lot, so maybe everybody's path is atypical! It took me awhile to figure out what I really wanted to do, but looking back on my childhood, I can recall enjoying math and science (though there were other things I enjoyed as well).<br />
All the way back to preschool/kindergarten, I went to a Montessori school and I remember playing with one of my favorite "works" (as they're called in Montessori) called The Golden Beads. (Now, I don't remember that name from way back, I am blessed to have a Montessori school here that my child attends, and I got to rediscover all of the Montessori works!) The Golden Beads consist of single beads that are the ones, a bar of 10 beads, a square of 100 beads, and a cube of 1000 beads. It is a very sensory-based way to learn and understand our base-10 number system. This is an example of why Montessori education is so awesome: you learn everything through sensory activities! When I visited the school here, I saw two related works, the binomial and trinomial squares that help to visualize several math concepts. I had totally forgotten about them, but it was like having flashbacks when I saw them! If you've ever seen the TV series, Alias with Jennifer Garner, you'll understand when my husband and I joked that my Montessori education was like the spy school.<br />
Throughout elementary school, I remember doing cool science stuff, including rat mazes and shark dissection and a summer science "camp." In high school, I was selected for an accelerated math program, taking pre-calculus during the summer, AP Calculus in junior year, and Multivariable Calculus in senior year. I had an AWESOME teacher, Mrs. Irwin. One favorite memory of her class was when she brought in Pringles to teach us about saddle points! I knew then that I wanted to major in math, and I was thinking that I wanted to be a veterinarian. I got the chance to help in a vet clinic and almost passed out during a very bloody spaying surgery. I'm not sure if that totally killed my interest in being a vet, but that was definitely a factor. I took physics as a senior in high school, which I enjoyed somewhat, but the teacher was definitely not as enthusiastic. She kept saying "you all are so much smarter than me," which was not a good thing to say to a bunch of high school students!<br />
So my great math experience inspired me to major in math at college. I had a number of great professors and I did an Honors project in mathematics. I also minored in music, playing the cello. While I loved taking math classes, I didn't really know what to DO with math. I was really interested in astronomy and space physics (the Mars Rovers were a big deal!) so I started trying to take as many physics classes as I could fit into my schedule. During the summer after my junior year, I did a Research Experience for Undergraduates in Solar Physics in Tucson (where I had spent a good amount of my childhood so I was excited to go back). There was a big learning curve-I had to learn UNIX, C, and IDL along with some solar physics to be able to do a research project in just a couple of months. But it was great. I hung out with all of the other REUs, mostly doing astronomy. We did some observing on Kitt Peak and visited the National Solar Observatory, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and Very Large Array in New Mexico.<br />
I applied to several astronomy graduate programs, and was accepted to UVA. But then I decided to get married, my husband to be was 2 years ahead of me and already in medical school. UVA said they would keep my application supporting documents for 2 years, so I could easily reapply. Since I needed to catch up on physics courses anyway, I figured I'd take some physics courses and then we would move to UVA together. I was accepted into the physics graduate program where my husband was, eventually joined a research group in plasma physics, and what was my first research project? Space physics! (using the IDL that I had learned during my REU!) So we never went to UVA, we stuck around. I did my dissertation work in laboratory plasma physics.<br />
My husband finished his residency 1 year before I finished my PhD, so he got a job in the area-that included a 3 year requirement to stay in the area. Plus, I wanted to start a family when I finished. Luckily, my phd adviser had funding for a half-time postdoc doing space physics, so that's what I did. Eventually, I wrote a proposal that was funded, providing me a promotion to a research professor. And that's where I am!<br />
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Since this blog is about my work and the other parts of my life, I'll throw in some tidbits about non-work here too. Today my second kid is the age that my first kid was when the second was born. They grow up so fast!<br />
For dinner, it's been so nice we decided to use the grill. We had tuna steaks and they were yummy! We'll have to do that again. And last night we had some strawberries, cut up, lightly sugared, on top of vanilla ice cream. Such a simple dessert, but one of my favorites.plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203562874923549503.post-64994560386345938792012-03-20T18:40:00.000-07:002012-03-20T18:40:37.869-07:00WelcomeMy brother said I should write a blog about what I do at my job. I am a Research Assistant Professor in the field of plasma physics, currently focused primarily on magnetospheric physics. What? Well, maybe I can use this blog to help explain some of that, plus what it's like to be a scientist. I'm also a mom of two boys, currently 5 and 2 1/2. I hope to also write about the joys and challenges of doing all this! I had originally planned to call this blog "Physics Mom," but that was already taken (both physicsmom and physics-mom) so I know I'm not alone!plasmaphysicsmomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07593271166313225547noreply@blogger.com1