I always underestimate how tired I get during this conference. The scientists continue to be amusing, but over the past couple days I've been going to some pretty heavy and intense panels that didn't include many laughs. But I found you a few chuckles.
"Its the The Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope, or AT LAST, we're very good at acronyms in this business."
Tyson - "Of course that isn't a posed photo of Hubble - you can't be a true astronomer unless you make observations while holding a pipe."
"When I tell this at Google, they yawned. But they woke up when I got to the next bit." (speaking of the LSST which will be taking 3.2 giga pixel images every 18 seconds for 10 years.)
"We think we'll detect at least 4 million "golden" galaxies (similar to our own.)" With the follow up from the audience, "We need more astronomers" "Yes, and that doesn't seem to be following Moore's law."
--------- Suffocation of Marriage by Eli Finkel
"The kiss goodbye - go directly to work - what we called a traditional marriage. Which was actually only a type of marriage for 10 minutes in 1952."
"Everyone, and yes I mean you, want to become our own special unique butterfly."
After telling a story about being an outsider watching a group of people at a club and feeling lonely - "Then suddenly you start asphixiating! Do you think "Boy, I'm lonely. Or "Boy, I'd like to breath? If you're lonely and starving you'll find food first."
"Am I saying that marriage is no longer an economic decision? I'm not stupid... so no."
"Please don't ever say again that we're asking more of marriage than ever before, and please, please, please don't say that I said that."
"We tried to recruit people who were likely to break up soon. That was hilarious. Every time someone in the study got dumped the lab would do a happy dance."
Question: What about the effects of children on marriage? Immediate answer, "Children are disasters. Tell you what though, grandparents are awesome. Don't have kids, just have grandparents."
---------- Resilience of aging
Mroczek: "Two minutes left? Ok, I'll skip this, and this, and well thats boring anyway. I'm sorry to lose that... wait we'll do it, I'll just sum it up - "Chill out - Live longer.""
Cacioppo - Speaking of feeling alone while surrounded by people, "An American soldier in full armor walking through Kabul - that's actually worse than high school."
----------- How to Rebuild Informed Trust in Science
"Lay people sometimes have trouble discriminating between science experts and quacksalvers" Rothmund
"If you've never searched for the video of Abe Lincoln doing Gettysburg address with powerpoint...you should do that." Lewenstein - frustrated with technology
"this leads to science cafes, science on tap... depends on which beverage you prefer"
"Thus, like all researchers, especially those with funders in the audience - Hi! - we need to do more research."
"Now that I'm on your eye level, I'm more like you and you'll trust me more. But because your scientists, now that I've told you that - you'll be more suspicious of everything I say. I'm okay with that."
--------- Susan Lederer: the Living and the Dead
Breakdown on newspaper stories about people willing their bodies to science in the early 1900s, "79% Male, 19% Female, 1% not stated, and 1% NA. That NA was a chicken. I forgot to tell my graduate student to leave out the chicken."
"But then Prohibition lowered the supply of bodies - there were fewer unidentified drunks in alleys."
"This is a med student receiving a certificate for participating in medical research. he was hung from a telephone pole, kept unconscious for 11 hours, and every day for 2 weeks at 1 pound of raw liver.... her /earned/ that certificate."
"It didn't hurt the ratings that the mortuary doctors were Dr. Sly and Dr. Grimm."
--------- Saturday: Extremities of the Universe
"So that means that the people sitting in the back of the room look slightly younger than those in front." (The Junior Academy was siting in the back.)
Kolb on looking for dark matter at CERN: "Looking for an invisible needle in a haystack"
"Now, remember back in 6th grade when you learned about quantum fluctuation"
Olinto, "I'll stay close to the microphone so those younger people in the back can hear."
"So High Energy Physics is the slopesliding of particle physics, while particle physics is the snowboarding of science."
"In the sequel, Gravity II, you'll hopefully see the Cream and Caley on the side of the ISS"
"The array is in Argentina - wonderful meat by the way. If you're a vegetarian....I would not recommend you go."
"This is the Ice Cube - down at the South Pole - not very far from here."
Bauer: "They have to be clean, so they are clean and shiny looking. So are the researchers but you can't tell because they're always dressed in those coveralls."
Chou - on the Holometrists "Reality is 2 dimentional and we may be holograms - so that's a little distressing."
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Alan Alda of M.A.S.H fame told me to say hello to my mother. So Hi mom!
Introducing Mr. Alda, talking about his Flame challenge. "What is Flame? What is time? Why Chicago in February?"
Alda - "It was a real conversation based on my real ignorance - and ignorance is wonderful if it comes with curiosity"
"But look how normal I look while I check my notes on my phone."
"Homo Sapiens Sapiens communicated. With the Neadrathals what happened in cave 12, stayed in cave 12."
"So I asked my teacher, "what is a flame" and she said "oxidation." Thats like calling it a different name, What's a fmale? Oh that's Fred."
One of the kids judging the flame competition to a physicist , "It's good to be funny, but you don't have to be silly. We're 11, not 7."
I realized a while ago that I can't go to 10 solid hours of science lectures, type up all my notes, and retain my sanity. My brain needs down time. Immediately after making the decision to type up the quotes, but leave the full sessions until when I get home, all the tension left my neck and my spine cracked. I feel better now.
This isn't a funny bit, but it was awesome and I wanted to share. Kim Stanley Robinson was on a panel today talking about the relationship between science, scientists, and science fiction. I've never met him before, and he was striking me as a very grim and sober type. Then one of the other panelists said that he didn't see any reason to send humans to Mars, everytime one of the Rovers sent back a picture he felt like he was there.
I'm sitting in the front row, directly in front of Mr. Robinson and happened to be looking at him when this comment was made, and he just lit up the room. He grabbed the mike and enthusiastically said, "I spent 10 years looking at the Viking pictures of Mars. Everytime I see a new picture from one of the Mars rovers I'm so very happy and amazed." I caught his eye and we both grinned at each other.
I was an overactive note taker today. Hopeuflly tomorrow my session notes will get shorter (and stay interesting.)
Also note these are unedited and typed from my notes while watching the Olympics. There are typos and grammatical mistakes that I don't have the time to fix right now.
I need to remember not to take so many notes! Today was the pre-AAAS meeting technically and it was very meta with the theme of "Communicating Science." Funny things ahead.
If you're feeling brave, I'll be posting the full notes and serious bits in a few minutes. But it's rather long. Why can't I take fewer notes? Oh, right. Then I wouldn't pay attention.
I have arrived at the AAAS meeting - which is in Chicago this year. Brace yourselves for 5 days of very enthusiastic science posts!
In the meantime, I have begun my conquering of Chicago.
I have been out on a ramble and discovered that the body of water they call a lake is /still/ way too big to share the name with Claytor lake back home.
Cold weather is awesome, as is snow. I've gone far too long without a sharp biting wind in my face and snow in my hair. (I may have accidently snow angel-d.)
Millineum Park still exists and is still awesome. I'm glad I didn't bring my camera on this ramble --though I do have several shots in mind for later.
I found a nice organic/local corner market and have picked up supplies for breakfasts and snacks.
Continuing in the recent trend of "the view out my hotel window" started by Cathy and Brooks... here I am in Chicago. Rather colder than Cathy's and much more urban than either.
I promise I'll get around to posting about other things here soon. Okay, maybe promise is too strong of a word. I do seem to be falling into the habit of writing shorter posts, and those tend to go onto G+ and/or Facebook. Alas. I've found myself missing the LJ community recently, the longer posts and the community of people in my friends lists. I'm planning on spending some more of my time here, though it may have to be once-a-week catch up sessions.
In the meantime, my job continues to produce fascinating articles! (These weren't all posted on the same day though....)
As many of you know, I work at a small scientific publishing house. My primary responsibility is to prep, proof, and post the final online files for all of our (48) journals. Today was the new year rush. Four journals to post in one day. Thud now. Thought y'all might like to hear about the interesting things I found.
