Strings to Wings

What?

2008-11-21T13:16:00.001-08:00

Calming Familiarity

2008-11-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

There is a Firefly-worthy familiarity in this image that has not escaped the notice of Cornell University scientist Jim Bell, as quoted on the National Geographic Magazine website. Sunsets on Mars cast a faint bluish-glow over the dark red cliffs. This image is not a terraformed planet, but it does suggest that we are not as geologically unique as we may seem.

Medical Animations

2008-11-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

My biology instructor presented this link to us in class this week. Hybrid Medical Animation is a company designed to provide quite accurate imaging of biological phenomena--basically its the Pixar of biological modeling.

Enjoy!

Fluids and Turbulence (link to Discover mag)

2008-08-28T19:23:00.000-07:00

I really love the study of intersections of fluids. Its too late for me to delve into a discussion about these phenomena, however enjoy this link.

So, I have a birthday today . . .

2008-08-15T05:14:00.000-07:00

And this morning my sisters woke up early to give me their gift. I think its perfect.

Some More Music

2008-08-11T17:33:00.001-07:00

For some reason, this song makes me smile. I don't know what inspired this 'music confessional,' but I hope these songs make you as exceptionally giddy and carefree as they make me.

What's YOUR iPod Shame?

2008-08-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

I have a-not-so secret love of Alanis Morissette. Okay, I'll admit that pop music radio overplayed "Ironic" and "You Oughta Know," and I can attest to feeling quite anti-Alanis after listening to an entire album at once. But, her music takes me back to Ottawa, to Canada in general actually, and when I am frustrated with my life down here, its quite a relaxing escape. I might write more later, but I did absolutely nothing today on account of having very little to do at work, and a slight stomachache that was completely self-inflicted.

Here's the new vid. I like the imagery, so don't comment negatively.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

2008-08-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I took the day off from studying to go see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with my own sisters. I loved the books as a thirteen year old, but now they no longer provide countless hours of entertainment and romantic fantasy. (There is something to be said for time.) In any event, I strongly disliked the flick. What I loved about the books is that they captured what I thought was the human side of American adolescents. By this I mean, the girls endured true hardship, lost, victory, and happiness. They weren't simply jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend or experimenting with drugs, sex and alcohol. They did not lack academic or family or employment-related responsibilities. They did not fool around or party excessively or emulate any of the traditional "riot grrl" stereotypes of America's teenage girls. Instead, they were normal, dimensional, easy to relate to. (Especially, my personal favorite, Tibby.)

And, while the movie did make a strong and obvious attempt to capture that honest, real spirit, the screenplay fell short. Oh, and Brian was never supposed to be ripped. But on more pressing matters, the dialogue was awfully cheesy in some spots. The language used to describe romanticism stressed the girls' naivety while disregarding their strength of heart and endurance. I will add, however, that it has been quite a while since I sat down with an Ann Brashares novel and relived the epic tales of Bee, Tibby, Carmen, and Lena and the feminist in me may have clouded my thoughts with respect to their maturity. I still think that the novel illustrated the growth of the characters with respect to understanding love and friendship and guys in a more meaningful manner than did the film. But then again, this is a Hollywood chick flick and not the coffeehouse indie that Tibby would have written.

I think I would have preferred that version.

On Sunday, I woke up just before seven and headed to the Y with my sister and mom, and then we went off to church. I had wanted to get more studying and programming done this weekend. I am trying to recreated my accountability by increasing my productivity. I took on so much this year that I stopped being accountable and honest with myself. I managed to get everything done, but I stopped investing all of my effort into my work. There was a time where I would get such a high off of school work and testing. I love turning my academic studies into hands-on, malleable activities. I think this is why the AP program has never worked out for me. Its too rigid and lacks a level of creativity. I think math is an art that requires its students to work exceptionally hard to see a plethora of patterns that have infinite numbers of universal implications. However, when such a powerful discipline loses its ability to connect with individuals through the structure of an AP class. My solution is to not lecture all of the details of solving a problem with your students. On the contrary, allow them to explore the problem and create the connections on their own. It is the only way that they will truly learn it.

Well, that entry was a little all over the place! And I'm off.

Sci-Fi Music Mix

2008-07-31T10:39:00.001-07:00

What I spent yesterday thinking about. Sci-fi . . . in music.

read more | digg story

"I'm the Son of Rage and Love"

2008-07-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

If you say so . . .

I think that he belongs in the nerd camp.

Happy Birthday DH and OotP!

2008-07-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

Hehe! HP reading marathon starting the moment I have time!

Lunar Modules Get Remodeled (Orion '20)

2008-07-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

This is kind of old news, but I am really excited about NASA's potential rendezvous to the moon so I'm going to talk about it anyways.

First of all, the name of the new lunar mission is 'Orion.' If you aren't into astronomy or you live under a rock and can't see the stars there exists a constellation by the same name and if you know me personally you will also know that there is a nebula within the aforementioned constellation that I've been obsessing over for the past year.

Anyways, NASA is currently preparing to start building its first lunar landing devices in over twenty years, and, naturally, technological enhancements made during that time period will come into play when designing the new spacecraft (see image on the left).

I'll write about it in more detail later.

Quick Hit: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Anniversary!

2008-07-16T09:23:00.001-07:00

Happy 2nd Birthday, Half-Blood Prince!

So, you want to be a scientist . . .

2008-07-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

We all know that personal interests and academic plans are shaped a lot by the teachers, professors, and peers we interact with on our rides through academia. If you have a brilliant science teacher or math teacher in high school and you do well in his or her class you are probably more likely to continue to study that field in college and later in life. As a freshman in high school, I fell in love with biology by the virtue of a particularly brilliant teacher who had spent the vast majority of her thirty-odd years exploring the life sciences as a nurse and researcher. Her expertise in that regard was inspiring and helped her to portray unique insight into the practical relevance of the various areas of our studies. The point is that by the end of my freshman year in high school I was hooked on science, and there was no turning back.

So, the question is, what do you do now? It's summer and school's not in session until late August or September and you know the material of your biology course so soundly that you would ace the final if it was handed to you today. No worries. I spent the summer after my freshman year in high school teaching preschool through elementary students about ecology at my local Audubon society. It was a rewarding experience that I would probably never do again, but I really enjoyed explaining the basics of wildlife ecology in the Northeastern US to a crowd of fidgeting listeners (seriously). I learned a lot, and I discovered that I really enjoy both teaching and the hands-on aspects of science.

But, then again, I was fortunate enough to have that experience. So, what do you do if you can't spend six hours a day in the woods with a troop of six-year-olds explaining the differences between amphibians and reptiles? The best advice that I can think of is to go online and google your brains out. Do you live on Cape Cod? Well, then email the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Are you on the west coast? Find a local biotech company. At this stage in the game, I don't think that it is necessary to start emailing professors and asking for research internships, etc. You are still really new to the field of science, in general. I think that its time to enjoy yourself on the sidelines. To read about research before you start doing it, and to help inspire others to get as excited about amino acids as you are.

No matter how intensely passionate you are about a given subject, over time your interests will change. As a sophomore in high school, I rediscovered space science, and I was going to be a physicist. Actually, I was going to be a chemist first, but that phase did not last very long (I hated my high school chemistry class). In middle school and when I was younger I wanted to be an astronaut and as I delved further into biology, I realized that I preferred to study systems in terms of inorganic activity versus life itself. I started to scan the internet for opportunities to explore this new interest outside of school and stumbled upon a program at MIT.

This is where it helps to be persistent. As you explore your interests it helps to find as many opportunities as possible to surround yourself with people as excited about various ideas as you are. After all, this is what science is all about. The program I found at MIT called the Chandra Astrophysics Institute was only offered to students in the greater Boston area (I lived about an hour outside of that region). I contacted the program in December when I was told that they weren't accepting non-regional applicants at this time. But, in March, I received another phone call inviting me to apply, and I was psyched. After a year learning about astrophysics and stars, I attained a research project with a CAI adviser for the following school year.

The moral of this story is that if you are a high school student interested in science and you have little to no scientific experience, find science-related activities to keep yourself occupied with whether this be during the summer or the school year. I think that a lot of college admissions sites are tossing around the idea of actually conducting 'real' research during high school. But I have found in my experience that there is a lot of time in the future that you can allocate for research as an undergraduate and later. Working in small science related summer camps or participating in one yourself can be an equally valuable experience. Through my summer camp job and my time with CAI I learned what areas of science interest me the most and, eventually, found a 'real' research position where I am now working on a project that is scientifically-relevant and may benefit the scientific community. So don't allow yourself to get caught up in this charade of emailing professors and begging for positions mopping up their labs. There's time for that! Instead, just get out into the science community and soak up as much information as you can. It will only help you to refine your interests and make you a better scientist.

"MIT-led team finds language without numbers"

2008-07-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

Researchers at MIT have determined that the language used by the Piraha tribe inhabiting the northwestern region of Brazil only expresses numbers in relative quantities such that there is no concept of specific numerical values. A study conducted in 2004 suggested that the tribe had developed the concept of small discrete values such as one and two, but used the term "many" to express higher numbers. More recent studies reveal that the word initially thought to describe a value of two actually corresponds to values within an approximate range of 1 to 4, whereas another word, most closely identifying with the term "many," alludes to all values that exceed 4.

This discovery may help neurobiologists and cognitive scientists better understand what intrinsic mechanisms exist to allow the human brain to understand and utilize mathematics. It was initially assumed that counting was an intrinsic human trait, however some scientists are reconsidering this concept following the results of this study as well as a series of studies orchestrated by scientist Stanislas Dehaene who has explored this area within a number of ethnic groups and demographics. In his research, Dehaene has found that even top French mathematics students studying at the nation's most elite universities cannot always quickly diffentiate between integers when asked simple questions such as, "Which value is greater 4 or 5?" He has found the same trend to exist in other groups such as tribespeople (akin to the Piraha study) as well as varied groups he has studied across Europe and the United States.

via Slashdot.org and MIT.edu, a story regarding Dehaene's work may be found here

This land was made for you and me . . . ?

2008-07-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

It took merely two Caterpillar backhoes to strip these hills in Borneo in preparation for a palm tree farm. The palms will be harvested to produce the palm oil found in various cosmetics and dietary supplements. Although Borneo is known for its great biodiversity, palm tree farming is a lucrative market for islanders (whose national affiliations vary between Bruneian, Indonesian, and Malaysian) able to produce enough oil to satisfy the thirst of the Western cosmetic industry. The increase in logging over the most recent decades is not only detrimental to the island's wildlife, but it also contributes to global warming as large stores of carbon are released into the atmosphere when acres are burned.

via NGM.com

Proteins! supercomputers! and Leeuwenhoek! Oh my!

2008-07-11T12:51:00.001-07:00

Billionaire computer scientist David Shaw is currently leading a private scientific research group that is attempting to develop a supercomputer that will be able to determine and map the structures of complex protein molecules. Named in honor of the historic microbiologist Anton Van Leeuwenhoek, this new supercomputer should be ready for operation by the end of the year.

The new supercomputer is distinguished from other molecular dynamics computing tools like I.B.M.’s BlueGene/L supercomputer and the Stanford Folding@home distributed computing project in that the machine is designed to simulate a very narrow set of problems on biological processes that take place over a millisecond or longer. Molecular simulations are now done as a series of tiny intervals that may be as short as a femtosecond, one billionth of one millionth of a second, and may last no longer than a microsecond, or one millionth of a second.

A stronger understanding of protein molecule structures may help the scientific community develop more protein-specific medications.

via NYTimes.com