SO’09: Transitions in the blogging lifestyle

January 23, 2010 in Science | No comments

I was surprised by the ScienceOnline’09 session Transitions: Changing your online persona as your real life changes, moderated by Propter Doc and ScienceWoman. Privacy and professional respectability is one of the hot issues for some science bloggers / researchers due to the stigma their superiors and potential employers might stubbornly hold; they might not view them as doing credible work. Let’s admit it first, there’s a lot of nonsensical blogs out there, but the serious ones get no respect out of sheer and convenient generalization. Some people in the session sounded like they feared their advisor would find out that they write blog. One blogger came up to me after the session to ask if I would withhold posting pictures of this person online.

I’m sorry, but there was a moment during the session that I found amusing and I had to wrestle down a laugh. It’s a serious issue that I had never thought about, and I could not help but view some of the bloggers as dealing with coming out issues. It threw me off guard when my brain decided to draw this parallel between them and closeted gays and lesbians. Instead of standing atop of a dinner table to announce, “I’M GAY,” I envisioned a grad student standing on the table during a lab meeting to shout, “I BLOG!”

Honestly, I sometimes find it a little uncomfortable to mention that I blog, but I did not want to seem that I am cocky enough to believe that I would have an audience; it’s just a fun exercise even if only one or two friends read it. I never had to think that about science blogging while working in science—those two parts of my life never co-occurred. When I rise to the position of authority, not only do I have to ease people by telling them I’m accommodating to women’s, race, LGBTI and religious issues, but I also have to tell them that I write a blog and it’s okay if they also maintain a blog because they’re still the same person. What kind of world are we living in? Internet growing pains are a little too much for me sometimes.

One person in the discussion was quite adamant that people should always be open to their bosses.

ScienceWoman, Janet D. Stemwedel, Coturnix, James Annan have their own thoughts on this and related issues.

Gingerly Nauseous

July 30, 2009 in Science, Urban Legends | 1 comment

My best friend held his wedding on a 80 foot schooner on Sunday. Only 60 feet of it was deck space, but it was still the largest sail boat I’ve ever had the pleasure to ride. It was a beautiful day and the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding. As the best man, not only was I the bachelor party organizer, napkin folder, and backseat photographer, but I was also the investigator of scientific literature.

Since the ceremony was on a sail boat, a member of our party mentioned the night before that he’s had bad reactions to Dramamine, the motion-sickness medication, and brought up ginger as an alternative. I’ve never heard of ginger’s purported effects on alleviating nausea, upset stomach or other motion-sickness symptoms and I’m cautious of word-of-mouth only claims. However, I was careful to keep my skepticism to myself since I did not want to ruin anyone’s chances of taking comfort in the placebo effect. If the placebo effect can keep them from vomiting at a wedding, then the more power to them.

I make it a point to research these claims unless the person making them reassures me that they’re not merely parroting the information. Ever played the telephone game? It works kind of like that, so I want reassurance from the person telling me the information or from my own research. Fortunately, it did not take long to find this review paper from the British Journal of Anaesthesia: Efficacy of ginger for nausea and vomiting: a systematic review of randomized clinical trials (PDF).

The review paper covers several kinds of conditions that induce nausea and vomiting, but only one of these papers investigated sea-sickness. In the words, the conclusion is not strong because there hasn’t been a lot of research in it, but the overall verdict supports ginger as a herbal remedy for high seas. I say it’s a good enough conclusion for now, and it’s better than spending the wedding vomiting off the side of the boat.

Dancing the Color Away

July 29, 2009 in General | No comments

Every Monday I try to work on photos when I’m riding the train home, which is why I refer to this as Photography Monday since I edited these photos on that day.

Here are more experiments converting some noisy, grainy photos to black and white to give them a much more appealing texture. It doesn’t get rid of the noise, but makes certain kind of noise less apparent (chroma noise) and it gives it a somewhat film-like quality. The black and white conversion isn’t going to work with all photos, but I’m glad that technique now part of my toolkit.

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I also applied some split toning just for kicks in this photo: a subtle blue hue for the highlights and a slight red one for the shadows. It’s from the international portion of Stanford’s Cardinal Classic dance competition. FYI, international is a style of ballroom dancing, and speaks nothing to the nationalities of any of these dancers.

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This photo of Anya Garnis and Pasha Kovalev just cracks me up, but I’ve never been able to come up with a suitable caption for it, with the concerned way she’s staring at his chest and his mouth ready to devour her.

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This is my favorite photo from the 2008 Winter Showcase at Spotlight Dance & Fitness, and I think it looks a lot better replacing the difficult studio lighting with just black and white. This is the part of their Lindy/Charleston routine where the leader does something inappropriate that follower doesn’t take too kindly to.

Photography Mondays: Black & White Kittens

July 28, 2009 in General | No comments

Yesterday was photography Monday, so on my train ride back from work I experimented with the technique that converting a photo to black and white makes its noise and grain appear more pleasing and less distracting. I ran a metadata search for ISO 3200 on my photos to find the noisiest ones and picked a wide sample. The following are actually among the first photos I took when I converted over to Pentax with the K100D:

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Yes, all that is ISO 3200, and I like them a lot better as black and white. I could post the original colors ones, but I’m just too lazy right now. My best friend’s wedding was on Sunday and as much as I had fun I’m glad that it’s over with, and I am still recovering from it. Actually, it’s somewhat significant that I post these photos since since my best friend and his now wife used to foster kittens for the SPCA, and these adorable little ones were part of a batch that they were caring for.

I’ll post more photos in the coming days, including ones where I desaturated (but did not convert completely to black and white) for a similar effect.

Lep Photo

July 1, 2009 in General, Photography | 1 comment

Unknown Lep

Unknown Lep

Butterflies (and other lepidopterans) have never been my strong suite. If you can identify this lep, you’ll earn a nice congratulatory comment.

This was from the California Academy of Sciences earlier this year. Notice the curled proboscis (kind of a long sucking mouth-part), so it probably uses it to reach deep inside recessed nectaries in flowers to feed.

Pretty Parasites

June 18, 2009 in Photography, Science | No comments

Orobanche fasciculata

Several years ago I was with botanist on a plant collection trip at the UC Davis McLaughlin Reserve. She spotted and identified a tiny yellow blur that streaked passed us on the drive. We were probably traveling at about 20 mph.

On Sunday, I hiking on Mt. Tamalpais at about 2 mph when I spotted this yellow beauty off the trail. I immediately recognized it as a member of the boom-rape family (Orobanchaceae), and I asked my friend Neovenator to take this picture of it. I forgot to ask  him to take more photos at different angles, but this one was adequate enough for me to key it out with the California Jepson Manual. I believe it’s clustered boom-rape (Orobanche fasciculata), and it is parasitic. There are no leaves or other chlorophyll-stuffed goodness for photosynthesis. Just above-surface flowers and below-surface roots tapping into some poor botanical soul. I also forgot to take note of the plants around it, so I can’t tell you which plant it might be leeching off of.

I was giddy about this find. The last time I saw any kind of boom-rape was five years ago in my Sierra Nevada flora class. My teacher identified this as California broom-rape (Orobanche californica):

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In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t updated in four months. I blame it on a combination of school, apartment robbery, transition to a new job and a very long commute. Once I move in a few months to be a lot closer to my job, I will free up a lot of time and hopefully I’ll direct some of that to this blog.

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Happy 200th Chuck D!

February 12, 2009 in History, Science | 1 comment

Charles Darwin (1859 or 1860)

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (and Abraham Lincoln). Blogs, museums and science writers have been celebrating the father of natural selection all week.

I myself will be attending the Darwin Day Celebration (PDF) on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Varsity Theatre in Davis, CA. It is a free public lecture from UC Davis professors Maureen Stanton and Jonathan Eisen, and cake will be served.

There is already a lot on the Internet on Darwin’s birthday and evolution, so there is not too much point for me to try to list them here. I will highlight Evolution Weekend, which organizes churches and various religious organizations to celebrate science and faith. In mist of attacks on science education by creationists and intelligent design proponents, it is too easy to forget that there are many people who do not subscribe to the myth that their faith and evolutionary theory are somehow incompatible. I say this as a secular humanists who does not object to religion in general.

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SO’09: Photos @ Flickr

February 2, 2009 in Photography | 3 comments

It’s been a busy two weeks, then I had to battle a fever for a few days, but I finally uploaded my ScienceOnline’09 photos onto Flickr.

I’m going to rest now.

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Leaf on wood

January 27, 2009 in Photography | 2 comments

Leaf Photo 1

It seems that one cliché in photography is the golden leaf on a wooden surface. At least, I’ve seen enough of them that it appears to be cliché, and my good writing teachers have taught me to avoid them.

As you can see above, I’m shaming my teachers. This is from Old Town when I was on a photo outing with Carrie about a month ago. It’s the only place in Sacramento where you’ll find modern day mailboxes encased in wooden decor as to not clash with the mid-19th century buildings and the SUVs parked in front of them.

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In my defense, the shadow caught my eye first. I felt that it created a nice and mysterious contrast by running across the leaf. My further defense is that the photo on the right is actually the first one I took of the leaf; it’s not nearly as interesting with the wooden lines running so vertical. I took the second photo above but canted and tighter framed, which is much more striking. Regardless, I think the real seller is the shadow and the ambiguous feeling it suggests.

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Math is no fun for lobsters

January 27, 2009 in Science | No comments

“A lobster doesn’t get to think about the laws of nature, and so I’ve often thought to myself that it’s a blessing that we live in a certain window of intelligence. If we were infinitely smart—God-like—we’ll have such powerful brains we can see every implication of everything, so math wouldn’t be fun for a being that’s too smart. And of course for the lobster that’s not smart enough, math is no fun for them, either. It’s in this intermediate window where math and science become something to rejoice in.”
—Steve Strogatz, mathematician

I’m finally listening to the most recent episode of Radio Lab, “Yellow Fluff and Other Curious Encounters,” and I just fell in love with Steve Strogatz’s quote. I had to pause, rewind, and play the podcast over a dozen times before I was able to write it down, word-for-word. It embodies some of the reasons why I love science, and why I’m capable of being fascinated by it. Enjoy.

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