It amazes me how complex the mind is. I spent the better part of today and some of yesterday reading through GSA Today and Geology, and I found myself re-reading the same paragraph and paper over and over. Now, it was not because I found it absolutely fascinating (though it was interesting). No, it was because I forgot what on earth the terms within it meant!
A bit of background. I am only two years out of my earth sciences program. And, considering how much my mentors and teachers made sure I kept information in my head, I am sure they would be disappointed that it took me hours to remember definitions.
However, think about it. Our brains process a huge amount of information every moment. Much of that processing actually infers what things are, generating meaning from strings of variables and data. As Randall at the webcomic xkcd so excellently pointed out in this comic on vision (by the way, the geology comic today was hilarious!), our brains keep track of what color everything should be. Even just language. Have you ever considered it? We take strokes made by a writing instrument, assign sound to it, and then string series of strokes together to make something that actually means something to our brains. Not only that, it means the same thing to others' brains (perhaps not exactly, as it brings up memories, which are never the same).
So, I guess it is not too surprising that I might forget terms that I have not heard in two years. However, it does make me realize I need to read scientific papers more often.
In other news, I read the recent Weatherwise over the past week, and one of the mini articles at the front of the magazine caught my attention. It is titled "Major Volcanic Eruptions Might Squelch Big Atlantic Storms." To me, it is great to see this sort of thing studied because it shows that people are looking at the interactions between earth systems. The paper they were summarizing from the Journal of Geophysical Research explores how aerosols from two tropical volcanoes affects tropical systems in the Atlantic. The researcher, Amato Evan from the University of Virginia, showed a decrease in frequency. Great topic to look into!
Aerosols, by the way, are extremely tiny particles suspended in the air. They can range from sea salt (ejected into the air as waves crash - when the water shows the white peaks, then it could be pushing sea salt into the air) to sulfates from volcanic eruptions, as two examples. These aerosols could become cloud condensation nuclei. Water vapor often needs a particle to adhere to as it condenses into clouds, and those particles are called cloud condensation nuclei. A good way to learn about it would be to cut open a hailstone (or look one up on the web). At the center of the hailstone, there is always something which started the whole process. So, in that way, it is like a pearl in the ocean, where a bit of something aggravates an oyster, which responds by encasing it in calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate (CaCO3), by the way, is also what living organisms make shells out of, and is found in many rocks throughout the world.
Enjoy the start of the workweek (at least, here in the USA)!
Monday, July 16, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
By the way....
I forgot to mention that Active Region (AR) 1520 gave off an X1.4 flare on Thursday! This is following an X1.1 from AR 1515 on July 6th (USA). The X1.4 flare also triggered a CME. Definitely getting back into the solar maximum!
Ramblings on Women in Science
I recently gave a talk at Maker Faire KC discussing inspiring girls and women in the STEM fields (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math, by the way). In looking up a couple things on the web, I realized that there are very few female science communicators out there who enjoy the same worldwide exposure as, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson or Brian Cox.
Ignoring the similar observation about female scientists' recognition, I cannot help to ask why are popularized science communicators overall male? It is not like men are better at explanations than women, or that no female scientist is interested in going on TV to explain scientific discoveries and theories. It seems to me to be a remnant of a past version of society where men were viewed as the only ones who could effectively follow the intellectual pathway of science. It is almost like broadcast executives are thinking, "A man is the only one who people will believe when it comes to explaining the science we want to explore."
But is that really true? Will people only believe a man when it comes to science? In some cases, sadly, yes. Some people (often older men in my experience) will not believe that a woman is explaining science to them correctly. However, those people are becoming few and far between. And there are certainly lots of older men I have encountered who will listen to a female scientist without a problem! So why are we still functioning as if our society still holds true to the belief that women cannot do science when it comes to science communication?
I honestly do not know. There are a lot of women trying to reverse this trend by communicating science as best we can. After all, as more and more women communicate the tenets and new discoveries of science, technology, engineering, and math, the odds of a female becoming a science communicator with worldwide popularity goes up.
Just a little ramble on women communicating science for you as I continue to read through the latest issues of earth science journals and general science news. A post on science is coming soon!
(And do not even get me started on the lack of communication skills within the scientific community to explain their findings effectively to a general audience without playing fast and loose with science and probability!)
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Ignoring the similar observation about female scientists' recognition, I cannot help to ask why are popularized science communicators overall male? It is not like men are better at explanations than women, or that no female scientist is interested in going on TV to explain scientific discoveries and theories. It seems to me to be a remnant of a past version of society where men were viewed as the only ones who could effectively follow the intellectual pathway of science. It is almost like broadcast executives are thinking, "A man is the only one who people will believe when it comes to explaining the science we want to explore."
But is that really true? Will people only believe a man when it comes to science? In some cases, sadly, yes. Some people (often older men in my experience) will not believe that a woman is explaining science to them correctly. However, those people are becoming few and far between. And there are certainly lots of older men I have encountered who will listen to a female scientist without a problem! So why are we still functioning as if our society still holds true to the belief that women cannot do science when it comes to science communication?
I honestly do not know. There are a lot of women trying to reverse this trend by communicating science as best we can. After all, as more and more women communicate the tenets and new discoveries of science, technology, engineering, and math, the odds of a female becoming a science communicator with worldwide popularity goes up.
Just a little ramble on women communicating science for you as I continue to read through the latest issues of earth science journals and general science news. A post on science is coming soon!
(And do not even get me started on the lack of communication skills within the scientific community to explain their findings effectively to a general audience without playing fast and loose with science and probability!)
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Friday, July 6, 2012
And so we begin...
Beginning a blog is a bit difficult, as finding something to say other than "I am starting a blog, and here it is" is hard. So, let us simply get down to the good stuff: earth science!
Some of the coolest news I have seen lately came from heliophysics and space weather. The sun is heading into the most active part of its cycle next year, and the solar atmosphere is raging. A specifically active sunspot, Region 1515, just gave off a M-class flare yesterday on July 5th. Specifically, a M6.1. There was a M5.3 on the 4th, and a M5.6 on the 2nd.
Let me explain a bit about the classifications of flares. Flares are sudden, intense bright bursts from the sun, releasing a lot of energy, and are sometimes associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs, which can also occur just on their lonesome). They can do quite a bit to disrupt our lives by the energy's interaction with our satellites and our geomagnetic field. There are five main classes for categorization: A, B, C, M, and X. A-, B-, and C-classes, the lowest, does not generally affect our day-to-day life. M-class can be disruptive. X-class are destructive. These classes are further broken down into a logarithmic scale. So, you start at A1 and go out to C9.9, then jump to M1 through M9.9. Once, you get to X-class, though, there is nothing higher than that. So you can go from X1 to X9.9 and then continue out beyond X10. The highest number we have reached on our scale from measurements was a X45 (best guess from indirect methods, as it swamped the instruments recording it by the time it started to go above X28) back on November 4th, 2003. However, the strongest one we have witnessed in historical records was the Carrington Event, named after the gentleman scientist who observed and recorded it. Based on isotopes in ice cores and Carrington's records, we are relatively sure that flare was stronger than the 2003 flare and was an event that statistically occurs once every 500 years.
Flares add significant pulses to the solar wind, the stream of particles getting ejected out into space from the sun's atmosphere. The solar wind courses through the solar system, reaching out to the edge of the sun's influence. We call the entire area where the solar wind blows the heliosheath. The sun protects our solar system from cosmic rays through its influence, so we should be very happy to be within that heliosheath. The edge of the heliosheath is called the heliopause. That is out where Voyagers 1 and 2 are, looking for the heliopause beyond the termination shock (where the solar wind slows). Therefore, it affects the weather near us in space. So, a significant flare will not only cause aurorae well below or above polar regions, it also can disrupt satellite communications, GPS, and space-faring humans. Hence, it is something well worth studying.
A heat wave has been in force for the past week or more here in the United States and has been making headlines everywhere. The weather here in Kansas City is, like much of the United States, extremely hot and uncomfortable. Luckily, it should break at the beginning of this next week. The full analysis of the weather will have to wait, as I think the heat is causing me to think longingly of the ice cream sitting in our freezer!
In other news, I got in the latest GSA (Geological Society of America) Bulletin and Geology yesterday. Still reading through them; hopefully, I will have some thoughts on the contents by the end of the weekend. I have not gotten out the latest BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) yet, nor the latest Physics Today. Maybe once I get that ice cream...
Keep cool (or warm, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere winter)!
Some of the coolest news I have seen lately came from heliophysics and space weather. The sun is heading into the most active part of its cycle next year, and the solar atmosphere is raging. A specifically active sunspot, Region 1515, just gave off a M-class flare yesterday on July 5th. Specifically, a M6.1. There was a M5.3 on the 4th, and a M5.6 on the 2nd.
Let me explain a bit about the classifications of flares. Flares are sudden, intense bright bursts from the sun, releasing a lot of energy, and are sometimes associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs, which can also occur just on their lonesome). They can do quite a bit to disrupt our lives by the energy's interaction with our satellites and our geomagnetic field. There are five main classes for categorization: A, B, C, M, and X. A-, B-, and C-classes, the lowest, does not generally affect our day-to-day life. M-class can be disruptive. X-class are destructive. These classes are further broken down into a logarithmic scale. So, you start at A1 and go out to C9.9, then jump to M1 through M9.9. Once, you get to X-class, though, there is nothing higher than that. So you can go from X1 to X9.9 and then continue out beyond X10. The highest number we have reached on our scale from measurements was a X45 (best guess from indirect methods, as it swamped the instruments recording it by the time it started to go above X28) back on November 4th, 2003. However, the strongest one we have witnessed in historical records was the Carrington Event, named after the gentleman scientist who observed and recorded it. Based on isotopes in ice cores and Carrington's records, we are relatively sure that flare was stronger than the 2003 flare and was an event that statistically occurs once every 500 years.
Flares add significant pulses to the solar wind, the stream of particles getting ejected out into space from the sun's atmosphere. The solar wind courses through the solar system, reaching out to the edge of the sun's influence. We call the entire area where the solar wind blows the heliosheath. The sun protects our solar system from cosmic rays through its influence, so we should be very happy to be within that heliosheath. The edge of the heliosheath is called the heliopause. That is out where Voyagers 1 and 2 are, looking for the heliopause beyond the termination shock (where the solar wind slows). Therefore, it affects the weather near us in space. So, a significant flare will not only cause aurorae well below or above polar regions, it also can disrupt satellite communications, GPS, and space-faring humans. Hence, it is something well worth studying.
A heat wave has been in force for the past week or more here in the United States and has been making headlines everywhere. The weather here in Kansas City is, like much of the United States, extremely hot and uncomfortable. Luckily, it should break at the beginning of this next week. The full analysis of the weather will have to wait, as I think the heat is causing me to think longingly of the ice cream sitting in our freezer!
In other news, I got in the latest GSA (Geological Society of America) Bulletin and Geology yesterday. Still reading through them; hopefully, I will have some thoughts on the contents by the end of the weekend. I have not gotten out the latest BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) yet, nor the latest Physics Today. Maybe once I get that ice cream...
Keep cool (or warm, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere winter)!
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