What A Scientist Looks Like

Have you guys seen this website? I love stories, and the website This Is What A Scientist Looks Like is chock full of ’em. This description of the project is from the “Stereotypes” section.

This website is dedicated to changing the overwhelming stereotype that science is conducted behind closed doors by unapproachable old, white men. While some scientists do work in a lab, others spend their days traveling the world looking for rare insects, or underwater studying sharks, or up a volcano collecting rocks. Scientists enjoy food, dancing, music, and traveling. There are many women in science, and the number of minorities in the field is steadily increasing.

You can even submit a photo of your own!

These are a few of the photos from This Is What A Scientist Looks Like. Go visit the website to read about their fields of research and practice, and to learn a bit more about them as people.

What A Scientist Looks Like
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Winner of the Book Giveaway Contest!

There were twelve entries for the Magic & Madness book giveaway contest. Here, in no particular order are my top five favorites:

ursamajor:

Though Paul was convinced he possessed a powerful magic the neighbors suspected madness.

Karl Corwin:

When magic begins,
The Twin Cities will shudder.
How far ’til madness?

chriskg:

Every angel is magic,
Every magic is madness,
Every madness is terror.

James C: 

Madness: demons stir. Master magic, expunge darkness. Yet they survive. Demons in mirrors.

Gus Hinrich:

There is magic in madness. Or, perhaps, madness in magic. Or neither.

These five names were written on slips of paper, the papers were all folded in a similar fashion, then thrown into a hat (a witch’s hat!), mixed around, and then the Hubby came out and drew one slip of paper. That person wins the book.

Drumroll, please!

Congratulations to Karl Corwin! I will be contacting you by email tonight to arrange shipping of Magic & Madness, autographed by author Amy Gregg.

And a huge, heapin’ thank you everyone who played. You guys make this stuff fun.

Winner of the Book Giveaway Contest!

Cool Galaxy Videos

Like almost every human being everywhere, I have a difficult time comprehending the size of our universe. This interactive infograph helps put things in scale. CLICK on the image for the cool interactive part. it will take you away from here, but it’s worth it.

This video helps to show us how some of the cool galaxy videos are created, and how some of our modeling works.

Seen at The Maddow Blog

Cool Galaxy Videos

I Missed AIDS

I was born in 1979. That puts me at an age that when we all filed into the auditorium of the Robert Crown Center in Hinsdale, Illinois to learn about human sexuality, my junior high classmates and I were taught about HIV/AIDS right alongside other sexually transmitted diseases. By this time we knew how HIV was transmitted, and we knew that condoms were our best chance of avoiding sexually-transmitted HIV. We knew that both men and women could contract HIV, that it wasn’t a curse on gays, that you couldn’t catch it from a toilet seat or from kissing someone with AIDS, that it wasn’t a gay cancer. But our understanding of HIV/AIDS was still new enough that is was impressed on us how narrowly we had avoided it. We were made to understand how new this knowledge was.

I have many gay friends and some of them did have to live through that decade or so uncertainty when the gay community was being decimated by this new, unknown plague. I have watched grown men crumble 30 years later at the memory of that haunting time. I have met scientists who became scientists because of their passion to end the reign of terror that has been caused by this disease. I have friends who are social workers because they have been driven to provide care and comfort to people who are affected by HIV/AIDS. I know activists who work daily to end the stigma that is still in many ways associated with being infected with HIV.

I missed AIDS. But AIDS is still here, very much a part of our lives. Most of us have come to accept that HIV is a disease, not a curse put upon a certain portion of the population. We know how to lessen the transmission of HIV. Learn the history of HIV/AIDS and you will be as angry as I am when you hear about asshole clergymen who tell Africans that they shouldn’t use condoms, or that condoms will  increase their chances of contracting HIV. Listen to the stories of people who lived through the mid 1970s and early 1980s and lost partners, friends and family to AIDS. You’ll feel your heart break when you hear about studies showing increases in HIV infection rates in the United States and other places where we’re supposed to know better.

Anyway, what set this all off was a video about the AIDS Memorial Quilt over at Joe.My.God, which I’ve posted at the bottom of the page. The AIDS Quilt is a memorial to those who have died in the AIDS pandemic. Here’s a little history from Wikipedia:

It officially started in 1987 in San Francisco by Jones, Mike Smith, and volunteers Joseph Durant, Jack Caster, Gert McMullin, Ron Cordova, Larkin Mayo and Gary Yuschalk. At that time many people who died of AIDS-related causes did not receive funerals, due to both the social stigma of AIDS felt by surviving family members and the outright refusal by many funeral homes and cemeteries to handle the deceased’s remains. Lacking a memorial service or grave site, The Quilt was often the only opportunity survivors had to remember and celebrate their loved ones’ lives. The first showing of the The Quilt was 1987 on the National Mall in Washington, DC, The Quilt was last displayed in full on The Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1996.

Also according to Wikipedia, the quilt is still growing, and bears more than 46,000 panels celebrating and grieving the lives of over 91,000 people. The quilt is managed by The Names Project Foundation, and portions of the quilt still go on tour and are hosted by various organizations in order to remind people of the magnitude of the AIDS pandemic, and to raise funds to support AIDS service organizations.

Here it is. Have a tissue handy.

UPDATE/CORRECTION/APOLOGY (2/21/12) – After reading some of the stories that have been shared here and on my Facebook wall, I feel that I need to apologize for this sentence:

“I have many gay friends and some of them did have to live through that decade or so uncertainty when the gay community was being decimated by this new, unknown plague. “

I believe that I have been unintentionally cruel here. I have many friends – gay AND straight, bisexual and all shades of gray – who lived through the earlier days of AIDS. To all of my friends and readers who were affected by HIV/AIDS regardless of your sexual orientation – it was not my intent to diminish or forget about you or your experiences. I apologize for my thoughtlessness.

I Missed AIDS

Weekend Report

On Friday I was catching up on paperwork and audit responses until 5:30pm (ah, the glorious life of an industry scientist. We so rarely get to blow shit up. I shoulda been a Mythbuster), but afterwards the Hubby and I were able to join some friends at Ichiban in downtown Minneapolis for dinner. You know hibachi teppanyaki, right? (Thanks for the correction, lordshipmayhem. Apparently, I didn’t know hibachi!) You all sit around the grill with an overly-charismatic hibachi teppanyaki chef while he sets stuff on fire and throws around knives, bowls and all manners of food? It was a blast, and I don’t think our combination potty-mouthed, science-nerdy, slightly intoxicated enthusiasm and humor traumatized the chef too much.

The next day I went down to the clinic for another round of Saturday morning clinic escorting. It was super quiet. One of the ladies brought a graphic sign of a pig fetus or something that I’m sure she was trying to pass off as an aborted innocent human angel of god, but otherwise the protesters seemed kind of under the weather. They didn’t chase the patients at all and just kind of muttered under their breath “You don’t have to do this” and “There are options” when our clients walked by.  I guess some days you stand on morals, and some days you’re just there to earn a paycheck.

Later I blogged a bit, played around online, whooped some butt in Mario Kart’s WFC mode, and then we packed up the (real) car and headed to Duluth/Superior to hang out with some friends. Mini road-trip – woot! A little liquor, a few laughs and a quiet night in a clean hotel room. That’s a decent Saturday night in my book.

Ice houses in Superior, Wisconsin. Or Duluth, Minnesota. One of the two.

On Sunday we had breakfast in a greasy spoon on the Wisconsin side of the border. I scraped off probably half a bag of melted cheddar cheese from my omelet. I could almost feel my arteries spasm as I took in the sight of the carrot-colored glob settling and slowly spreading across my plate. All together the glob ended up being about 1cm high and 10 cm in diameter. You gotta love our Midwestern diets.

We drove back to the cities and got home in time for me to high-tail it over to the Roseville public library for a fascinating talk by Greg Laden. It was a wild ride; Greg flew through his presentation, sometimes skipping slides in the interest of time. It was obvious that he could talk for hours and hours on the topic he was presenting, which started with Darwin and the racism that was present at that period of time in Darwin’s social sphere. It transitioned into a talk of modern day racism and sexism, with references to plenty of publications concerned with this topic.

I learned a lot, and not all of it was happy-making. I was bummed to learn about an active field of science that allows for systemized discrimination (psychometrics). I learned that some proponents of social Darwinism (which Greg argued is a biological impossibility) believe and work to prove via scientific methodology that Africans, Caucasians and Asians are irreconcilably different behaviorally, intellectually, and physically, that we have different aptitudes because we’re genetically hardwired to be this way, implying that no amount of training, education, experience or passion can set us apart and help us thrive if we don’t have the right genetics. *shudder* coughcough…GATTACA? Don’t get me wrong, I know that bigots exist, and I’m aware that there are elected officials who have proposed racist legislation, but I didn’t know that there are academics who are still publishing books and articles trying to prove these ideas. I am aware that scientists fail science all the time, but sometimes the degree of fail knocks me flat on my butt.

Anyway, Greg’s presentation provided plenty of food for thought, and afterwards a bunch of people who had caught the lecture shared dinner and conversation. I ended the evening curled up in my giant bean bag with the cat on my lap, reading Red Neck Blue Collar Atheist by Hank Fox. I’m enjoying the conversational style of the book. Each chapter is a different story and a different lesson that Mr. Fox has picked up over his 20-year journey to being an out, unapologetic atheist. I’m having a hard time putting it down.

And suddenly, it’s Monday again.

Weekend Report

Un-Oculate!

I love the tongue-in-cheek snark in this video. I like the part where he offers to un-vaccinate against Hepatitis C (‘cuz there is no vaccine against Hep C), and when he tells us that Un-oculate will wipe out your body’s antibodies and reboot your immune system back to when you were a baby, so you can feel as young as you think.

Seen over at Friendly Atheist

Un-Oculate!

Cross-Country Connections: Bookshelves

Cross-Country Connections is a Biodork weekly blog entry dedicated to telling stories in pictures of three family members – me, my sister and Mom – living in very different locations across the country. Every week we choose a different theme and then take or contribute a personal photo that fits the theme. This week’s theme is Bookshelves.

From me in Minneapolis, Minnesota:

This is the teen room at the Minneapolis Central Library. This was set up to be a space for teens to come browse for young adult books, surf the web on the public computers or hang out in the reading area – bean bags overlooking bustling Hennepin Avenue from a second-story vantage through floor-to-ceiling windows.

From Erin in Bellingham, Washington:

My husband’s bookshelf, full of evidence of his true nerdistry. 

From Mom in Carbondale, Illinois:

 Part of my personal collection.  So many wonderful books and now I have time to start reading many of them. 

Cross-Country Connections: Bookshelves

Book Giveaway Contest!

My friend Amy Gregg published a book called Magic & Madness. Here’s a link to her book on Amazon. I bought a copy when it came out in 2009 and we were both working together at a bookstore. It’s an urban fantasy about witches and wizards (it is not teen fiction and contains adult themes). It takes place in Minneapolis and St. Paul and she has included many references to buildings, stores and streets that anyone from the area might recognize.

Amy has just given me a signed copy of Magic and Madness to use as a contest prize on the blog! I love contests and giving stuff away. If you want to sponsor a contest, contact me!

Here’s the contest rules. You can do one of two things:

1) In 13 words or less, write a sentence or story that includes the words “magic” and “madness”. That’s it. Throw your 13-word entry in the comments.

OR

2) Draw a picture incorporating the themes “magic” and “madness”. Throw a link to your image in the comments.

Picking a winner: On TUESDAY FEBRUARY 21st 8pm CST I’ll pick my top 5-10 favorite entries, throw those names in a hat and have the Hubby pull out a name. That person wins the book. I’ll announce the top 5-10 entries and the winner later that evening. If there are less than five entries, all entries will be thrown into the hat and a winner drawn from that.

You can enter as many times as you want, but only the most recent entry will be considered for the top 5-10 spots.

So, in words or pictures, tell us a story!

UPDATE (2/21/12) – On the advice of a reader, I am including the website of the publisher, North Star Press. If you have any interest in buying a copy of Magic & Madness, you can buy it directly through them rather than through Amazon (same price both stores). North Star Press is a local publisher that supports Minnesota writers.

Book Giveaway Contest!

I've Been Too Nice

I am a clinic escort for a local women’s reproductive health clinic which provides, among other services, abortion care. During this time of year I get all bundled up in warm clothes – usually with two pairs of socks, a couple of layers of shirts, and a full winter complement of hat, gloves and neck gator (yeah, you’re from up Nort’ if you didn’t have to look that up). When I get to the clinic I pick up my bright yellow vest with the words CLINIC ESCORT printed on the front and and back, and then I head outside to smile at, walk with and hold the door for patients.  Oh yeah, and I distract them from the anti-choice protesters who gather in front of our clinic to harass them on the way to their medical appointments.

I wrote about my first day of clinic escorting last April. In this part I speak about how I interact with protesters:

There were  two of us escorting and four protesters, all of them regulars who are well-known to the clinic. We were all pretty nice to each other, considering we were diametrically opposed about the issue at hand. It felt very much like ”you’re here to do your job, I’m here to do mine.” [snip]

At some point one of the ladies gently tried to hand me a pamphlet and I said “Look, while we’re out here together I’ll talk to you about anything you like except abortion.” She shrugged and we actually talked about the weather! [snip] When a person or couple would approach the clinic, I would walk right next to the client(s) and distract them with chit-chat so the protester was relegated to speaking loudly at our backs. As soon as the client was inside the protestor and I would go back to discussing the weather.

fml221 is the author of a post called, Why I Don’t Talk to the Antis, and this post has completely changed my perspective on how I have interacted with the anti-choice protesters before, and how I will interact with them going forward. That isn’t a resolution, that’s a statement of fact. I have had a shift in perception that won’t allow me go back to the way I used to think about dealing with the men and women who show up to harass the patients who visit our health center.

Let’s have a little background. This is from fml221’s article:

In early January, Servalbear did a list of resolutions for herself when escorting.  i admired them.  But I knew right away there was one that wouldn’t work for me.

Servalbear said:

“I will respond with courtesy and politeness when antis greet me or ask me a direct question. Promoting calm and minimizing chaos is the goal. If I need to say “Good Morning” to an anti to start the day on an adult basis, it is okay. I do not have to engage in conversation, but I do not have to abandon all social conventions.”

I already know that approach isn’t going to work for me.

fml221 goes on to explain why being courteous and polite to the antis doesn’t work for him or her. I read this article with interest because I usually take Servalbear’s attitude. It has bothered me that some escorts at my clinic ignore individual protesters to the point of rudeness, or openly show their disdain. Aren’t the protesters human beings, and deserving of at least a modicum of courtesy?

Our protesters aren’t very hostile; they’re urgent and animated when they approach our clients, but rarely outwardly angry. I think this has led me to give the protesters a pass, to sigh and allow that they have a right to voice their opinion, and since they aren’t screaming and cursing at the clients they can be tolerated and – dare I even say? – respected for standing up for their beliefs?

I was wrong. That is total and utter bullshit.

Protesters protest because they want to make change. In this venue they are attempting to change the mind of every woman who is coming to get an abortion. But harassing patients who are on their way to an appointment to for an emotionally-charged procedure is not a humane way to make change, it is psychological abuse. Choices made under duress – in this case, the protester’s manipulative pleading and guilting – are not valid choices. But the antis don’t care about that, and because they resort to shaming and intimidating our patients, they are not worthy of my respect. They are not merely “voicing their opinion”, they are terrorizing other human beings.

Once I was escorting and a passerby stopped and said to me and a nearby protester, “I’m a constitutional lawyer and I just want to say that I LOVE to see you two out here, side by side, each making a statement of your beliefs. I love that I can walk down the street in this country and see this.” Something about that struck me as wrong, and it’s taken me until now to figure out what it was.

A doctor’s office isn’t a place to voice your opinion about someone else’s health care decisions. Do that at the state capitol. Do that in letters to your legislators or in a letter to the editor. Or better yet, realize that you don’t deserve a say in health care decisions of total strangers. And I’m definitely not at the clinic to voice my opinion. I’m not being a pro-choice champion today, and I’m not here to provide the other half to the protester’s story. I’m a service representative, and I’m here solely because protesters wage rude, intrusive verbal attacks on the clinic’s patients.

So as fml21 says, I don’t think the protesters belong out here. Sure, they have a right to be out here, but it’s not very nice. And since I’ve realized that by their very presence they’re not being nice, I no longer feel compelled to be nice to them. From now on all of my smiles are reserved for our patients and staff, and the protesters can fill the time between harassing clients without me.

I've Been Too Nice

I’ve Been Too Nice

I am a clinic escort for a local women’s reproductive health clinic which provides, among other services, abortion care. During this time of year I get all bundled up in warm clothes – usually with two pairs of socks, a couple of layers of shirts, and a full winter complement of hat, gloves and neck gator (yeah, you’re from up Nort’ if you didn’t have to look that up). When I get to the clinic I pick up my bright yellow vest with the words CLINIC ESCORT printed on the front and and back, and then I head outside to smile at, walk with and hold the door for patients.  Oh yeah, and I distract them from the anti-choice protesters who gather in front of our clinic to harass them on the way to their medical appointments.

I wrote about my first day of clinic escorting last April. In this part I speak about how I interact with protesters:

There were  two of us escorting and four protesters, all of them regulars who are well-known to the clinic. We were all pretty nice to each other, considering we were diametrically opposed about the issue at hand. It felt very much like ”you’re here to do your job, I’m here to do mine.” [snip]

At some point one of the ladies gently tried to hand me a pamphlet and I said “Look, while we’re out here together I’ll talk to you about anything you like except abortion.” She shrugged and we actually talked about the weather! [snip] When a person or couple would approach the clinic, I would walk right next to the client(s) and distract them with chit-chat so the protester was relegated to speaking loudly at our backs. As soon as the client was inside the protestor and I would go back to discussing the weather.

fml221 is the author of a post called, Why I Don’t Talk to the Antis, and this post has completely changed my perspective on how I have interacted with the anti-choice protesters before, and how I will interact with them going forward. That isn’t a resolution, that’s a statement of fact. I have had a shift in perception that won’t allow me go back to the way I used to think about dealing with the men and women who show up to harass the patients who visit our health center.

Let’s have a little background. This is from fml221’s article:

In early January, Servalbear did a list of resolutions for herself when escorting.  i admired them.  But I knew right away there was one that wouldn’t work for me.

Servalbear said:

“I will respond with courtesy and politeness when antis greet me or ask me a direct question. Promoting calm and minimizing chaos is the goal. If I need to say “Good Morning” to an anti to start the day on an adult basis, it is okay. I do not have to engage in conversation, but I do not have to abandon all social conventions.”

I already know that approach isn’t going to work for me.

fml221 goes on to explain why being courteous and polite to the antis doesn’t work for him or her. I read this article with interest because I usually take Servalbear’s attitude. It has bothered me that some escorts at my clinic ignore individual protesters to the point of rudeness, or openly show their disdain. Aren’t the protesters human beings, and deserving of at least a modicum of courtesy?

Our protesters aren’t very hostile; they’re urgent and animated when they approach our clients, but rarely outwardly angry. I think this has led me to give the protesters a pass, to sigh and allow that they have a right to voice their opinion, and since they aren’t screaming and cursing at the clients they can be tolerated and – dare I even say? – respected for standing up for their beliefs?

I was wrong. That is total and utter bullshit.

Protesters protest because they want to make change. In this venue they are attempting to change the mind of every woman who is coming to get an abortion. But harassing patients who are on their way to an appointment to for an emotionally-charged procedure is not a humane way to make change, it is psychological abuse. Choices made under duress – in this case, the protester’s manipulative pleading and guilting – are not valid choices. But the antis don’t care about that, and because they resort to shaming and intimidating our patients, they are not worthy of my respect. They are not merely “voicing their opinion”, they are terrorizing other human beings.

Once I was escorting and a passerby stopped and said to me and a nearby protester, “I’m a constitutional lawyer and I just want to say that I LOVE to see you two out here, side by side, each making a statement of your beliefs. I love that I can walk down the street in this country and see this.” Something about that struck me as wrong, and it’s taken me until now to figure out what it was.

A doctor’s office isn’t a place to voice your opinion about someone else’s health care decisions. Do that at the state capitol. Do that in letters to your legislators or in a letter to the editor. Or better yet, realize that you don’t deserve a say in health care decisions of total strangers. And I’m definitely not at the clinic to voice my opinion. I’m not being a pro-choice champion today, and I’m not here to provide the other half to the protester’s story. I’m a service representative, and I’m here solely because protesters wage rude, intrusive verbal attacks on the clinic’s patients.

So as fml21 says, I don’t think the protesters belong out here. Sure, they have a right to be out here, but it’s not very nice. And since I’ve realized that by their very presence they’re not being nice, I no longer feel compelled to be nice to them. From now on all of my smiles are reserved for our patients and staff, and the protesters can fill the time between harassing clients without me.

I’ve Been Too Nice