Fun times in Seattle

Not sleepless, though. Seriously, my hotel bed was the most comfortable thing ever. Slept like a baby. I think I’ve figure out my sleep problems: stop sleeping in beds that are older than I am.

Anyway, Seattle and the University of Washington was a lot of fun. The whole time I was there it was sunny and in the 50s, which felt balmy after coming from below freezing weather. On the downside, apparently people in Seattle are so used to their gloom and rain that they have no idea how to drive when it’s sunny out. Seriously, the traffic was absolutely horrible. The Olympics, Bon Jovi concert, and Yo-yo National Tournament may have also had an affect (you know people love their yo-yos).

But that didn’t stop me from going on an adventure. One of my readers, Jaki, picked me up so I didn’t have to battle the traffic on public transportation. She sounded sweet enough on the phone that I felt my odds were good that she wasn’t going to turn out to be an axe murderer. We made our way over to the Pacific Science Center and met up with two more of my readers, Jason and Jerry (it was a J-name party!).

I had a lot of fun. Probably way too much fun than anyone over the age of 10 is intended to have in this place. We went to the dinosaur exhibit first, which had a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs. I hate to say it, but they looked crummy compared to the quality of the brand new Creation Museum, which made me said. But then I was happy when I read all of the information and played the games that were actually teaching good science and not a bunch of make believe.

Where are the human animatronics? I’m so confused. This isn’t what I learned at the Creation Museum…

My favorite part of the museum was the big section on genetics. I love science museums like this because it’s full of hilarious silly games, like this one where you’re a European corn borer and you’re trying to destroy as much corn as possible. Hellz yes. It may be corny (ha), but it cracks me up. How many games do you get to play as a European corn borer?!
It’s also full of bad puns. What’s not to love?

They also had a new exhibit on what it would be like being an astronaut going to Mars.
Some nice subtle product placement there, Microsoft. Apparently now we don’t just have to worry about them taking over the world – now we have to worry about Mars too!

It was pretty neat. They had stuff ranging from gloves that simulated the pressure of space, a low-gravity harness simulator, genetically modified plants. They also asked “Who should go to Mars?” with the makings of a reality TV show:
I swear to god I did not do this. Some bored dad was laughing at his creation when I stumbled upon it.

After we had enough of the center, we went and had a nice dinner nearby. It was a ton of fun hanging out with everyone! Unfortunately we didn’t get to hang out at the pub too long, since a bunch of people were waiting for tables, but I pretty much fell straight asleep when I got back to my hotel anyway. Body was definitely still on Eastern time.
The next couple of days were devoted to my UW interviews. I was with a group of 16 students, and apparently another 16 had come two weeks before. We were showed around the city, got to see some apartments, met a lot of graduate students, and interviewed with professors. I thought their program was wonderful, and I’m still amazed by the high throughput sequencing resources they had. And today I got an email from one professor that I interviewed with that I was officially accepted, yay!

It’s definitely going to be a hard decision. I like UW just as much as Harvard, but for different things. I think I’m going to have to visit Stanford next week, let everything soak in for a bit, and then try to make a decision. Because right now I have no idea what I’d do!

Non-theist labels vs age

One of my readers asked if I would look and see if there was any correlation with age and the types of non-theist labels my readers used. Here you go (click it for a larger image):Sample size:
<20 = 68
21-25 = 139
26-30 = 103
31-35 = 54
36 – 45 = 61
46< = 42

I’m not sure the best way to test for statistical significance, and I’m too tired from my trip to figure it out, so let’s just look at some general trends.

First, it seems like young non-theists use more labels than older non-theists. They had the highest percent of responders for every single term. One hypothesis as to why could be that young non-theists are still trying to figure out which labels best describe them, so a lot apply right now. It could also be that a lot of these terms have just recently become popular labels, and older non-theists don’t identify with them.

The most glaring difference that I see is that young people love to be silly and call themselves Pastafarians. Oh, and that pretty much everyone hates the term Bright equally. No big surprise with either of those.

I’m not sure if I feel safe to make any more interpretations without some stats. Any older readers want to throw in their two cents?

Endangered species condoms

No, not condoms for endangered species – that wouldn’t exactly help their problem. These are condoms with endangered species on them.

Who would be behind such a crazy project? Biologists, of course! The Center for Biological Diversity are passing out these condoms to raise awareness about overpopulation and its effect on the environment.

…Ok, I seriously want these things. There are six to collect: a burying beetle, polar bear, snail darter, spotted owl, jaguar and rock frog. Must…collect…nerdy condoms…

(Via Skepchick)

I literally screamed with nerdy glee

A SHIRT COMBINING DARWIN AND POKEMON?! HELLZ YES!

*ahem*

Seriously, this is freaking amazing. I just had biggest nerdgasm since I found out Dumbledore was gay or that Alan Rickman was doing the Voice for Marvin, the Paranoid Android. This is a thousand times better than my Darwin/Pokemon mash up. I’m just sad I didn’t think of it first.

There goes eighteen more dollars from my wallet.

Take the Blag Hag 2010 Census!

I like data. No, really. Whenever there’s something I can measure or perform statistics on, I do. I like to graph my weight over time, find correlations between silly variables like doucheyness vs. time spent dating a guy, and create networks that diagram which of my friends have kissed each other (it’s a frightening web).

Don’t worry, you don’t have to make out with anyone against your will. But I would like you to complete a short survey!

I’m mainly curious about some of the general demographics of my readers, what you guys like about the blog, and what I can do to improve it in the future. I figure now is a great time to start collecting this sort of data. My blog is creeping up on it’s first birthday, and I think it would be pretty neat to have a regular data set throughout my years of blogging. Wouldn’t it be cool to see how it changes over time? I didn’t ask as many questions as I could have because 1) I’m limited to 10 and 2) I didn’t want to annoy you guys. But I still like getting a general idea!

Feel free to post comments and complaints in this post as well, though I have allotted you a free response question on the survey if you’d like to make a completely anonymous comment. I promise this isn’t a nefarious scheme to sell your demographic information to some mega corporation – at most the data may be posted anonymously as a couple graphs in a later post.

So, please take the survey!

Chemical Party

Chemists don’t get enough love around here, probably because organic chemistry broke my soul two years ago. But here’s a fun nerdy chemistry video for all of you:

It’s a tad old, but I hadn’t seen it, so maybe it’s new to some of you too. Enjoy!

If you could have the answer to any question in science, what would you ask?

This morning I received an email from a professor at Harvard (who’s currently one of my top grad school choices) that she would like to talk to me over the phone sometime this week. After much flailing of happiness, I also had to answer one preliminary question that I enjoyed so much that I had to share it with all of you:

If you could have the answer to any question in biology, what would you ask?

I would have to ask “How did life originate?” It’s probably not particularly original, but it’s simply too fascinating to ignore. We have plenty of hypotheses about the origin of life, but I would love to know exactly which one is correct. What was the biochemical process that slowly took inorganic molecules to the first cell? Are our hypotheses about an RNA world correct? Were there other “life-like” systems totally different than the cells we know today that didn’t withstand the test of time? Could this same process conceivably take place on other planets?

I guess I’m cheating a bit by asking a question that ultimately leads to many more questions, but such is the nature of science, right?

This question isn’t exactly something I would want to personally research – I’m good at chemistry, but not passionate enough about it to devote my whole life to organic and biochem. I still find it very interesting, probably because it’s human nature to wonder “why are we here?” And as an atheist, I’m always looking for the scientific explanation for things. Is there a naturalistic way that life came about on its own? Or are more “creative” ideas involving aliens or gods really true? I doubt the latter, but heck, if that really did happen, I’d want to know!

I suppose in a way it’s tangentially related to my interests in evolution. I often hear people (falsely) claiming that since scientists can’t explain the origin of life, evolution must be false. It would be nice to be able to go, “Um, actually, here’s the natural way life did come to be” and whip out a flowchart from hammerspace. Though I doubt that would convince everyone – we all know how much scientific facts affect most creationists – but at least I’d feel a bit more intellectually fulfilled.

I know everyone here isn’t a biologist, so I’ll propose the question to you a little more vaguely: If you could have the answer to any question in science, what would you ask?

Graduate School Tips?

If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I’ve been freaking out about grad school lately because I’m applying to get my PhD…somewhere. It’s not so much change that scares me – I just really, really, really hate the unknown. It drives me insane not knowing where I’ll be living or what I’ll be studying in less than a year. Once I’m accepted and have made my decision, I know I’ll be incredibly excited. I’m contacting professors now, but it’s still driving me nuts. My current professor suggested I send snail mail, since emails either go to junk mail or get accidentally ignored most of the time. Hopefully I’ll get some responses.

For those of you who are in grad school or successfully made it through, do you have any advice? How to pick a professor/lab group/school? Red flags to look out for? How to survive without going insane? Awesome people studying the genetics and evolution of human sexual behavior (such a broad topic, I know)?