Secret Satans: Chem 101

By: | December 26, 2012


ChemistryDraw1For the holiday season, we here at LWON are confronting our fears of certain sciences.  We are choosing our most daunting subjects and writing about why they scare us.

Heather: Today Christie and I are fessing up to the science that has often given us the cold sweats, the one that freaked us out at high school/university and that still instills a certain deep dread whenever we encounter it in the course of a story.

I’m talking, of course, about chemistry—that maze of molecules and mind-bending equations scrawled with lightning speed across a chalkboard. It’s embarrassing to admit, but my chemophobia took root quite early, in high school, while squinting at all those two-dimensional representations of molecules, with their stick-figurelike carbon and hydrogen atoms splayed across the page.

How about you, Christie?  Where did your phobia begin? Continue reading →

Secret Satans: Archaeology

By: | December 25, 2012

292393932_66d6d5c150_z“Is it the mummies?” Tom asked.

When I confessed my fear of archaeology to the LWON crew, Thomas Hayden immediately blamed the undead. Or long dead. Which was quite reasonable, really. But I’m a lapsed biologist; I like decay. I like a lot of other things about archaeology, too. I like its stories about people too ancient to leave written records, its puzzles made of potsherds and bone fragments. The thing about archaeology, the thing that makes it my Secret Satan, is that those lovely puzzles never seem to get solved — not to anyone’s satisfaction, anyway. And that makes me deeply nervous. Continue reading →

Secret Satans: Neuroscience

By: | December 24, 2012

brain“Well, you know we only use about 10 per cent of our brain.”

I don’t like when people tell me this. Someday, I hope to acquire the guts to issue the following rejoinder: “Which 10 per cent do you use?” But because I don’t like confrontation, I usually just make a face of mute disappointment and change the subject.

If you read LWON, you already know we use 100 per cent of our brain. That’s not the point of this post. But you know what is? I’ve spread similarly outrageous rumours about the brain.

This week, my esteemed colleagues will try to convince you that chemistry is the most nightmarish discipline to cover as a science journalist, or maybe archaeology or biology or physics. They will be wrong. The most dangerous science is neuroscience, because it gives journalists so much rope to use to hang ourselves. Continue reading →

Sunday Stories

By: | December 23, 2012

avalancheChristie wonders if the New York Times has found the perfect format for telling a story. John Branch‘s stunning multimedia narrative Snow Fall: the avalanche at Tunnel Creek presents words, photos, videos and maps just where and when you want them, without breaking the story’s flow.

We at LWON sure miss Virginia Hughes. This week on her new National Geographic blog, she asked a lovely question, why does music move us? And then she offered a thorough and eloquent answer.

Erik recommends this amazing profile that fleshed out a fascinating character and invited the reader into a wonderful bizarre world. Clearly a lot of research went into this New Yorker piece by Joshua Foer.

Heather likes this Universe story by Claire L. Evans about seeing Jupiter through a telescope. Such a seemingly simple subject, and such beauty in the writing.

Ann suggests you head over to the Awl to read ‘s take on the eternal question, How do you know it’s really there?  A post on ancient screw-ups with ancient maps, and to Johnson’s credit, Apple Maps is not mentioned and Sandy Island is.

 

 

Avalanche image by Shutterstock.

The Last Word

By: | December 22, 2012

Dec. 17 – 21

Slide15-300x224Refereeing by a goal-line technology called — as Sally says, “(awesomely), Hawk Eye” — is outsourcing our judgment to a technology and its algorithms.  Is that going to work?  Given the history of human judgment, sure, why not.

Here’s Guest Sujata Gupta with a story about macaques with SIV that get AIDS, mangabeys with SIV that don’t get AIDS, and how the mangabeys gave AIDS to the macaques.  Bonus: a Nobel-prize winning virologist and child-molester.

Christie meets a dick at a party and is chagrined to have reacted civilly.  The commenters discuss the hell out of it.

Techies are the guys who make science happen, without whom no experiment would be built or once built, run.  Cameron’s old high school friend is a marine science techie and lives a dream life, with the occasional penguin.

And we present the first in our series on the sciences we hate and fear, our own personal Secret Satans.   Mine is biology and rightly so.

_____

Photo of techie and penguin:  Kelly Moore

Secret Satans: Biology

By: | December 21, 2012

For the holiday season, we here at LWON discussed a series of Secret Santa posts: we would assign one another posts about our own areas of specialization so, say, archeology might be assigned to an eco-writer.  Fear erupted. What if I get biology? What if I get physics? Count me out!  Then we realized: we could confront those fears. We could choose our own most daunting subjects and write about why they scare us. Welcome, then, to our Secret Satans (and no, we’re not part of the war on Christmas, we just like wordplay), seven of them: our cathartic self-gifts for the holiday and our counter-resolutions for the New Year. 

shutterstock_2744588What I will not be learning this new year is biology.  I’ve alluded to the iniquity of biology before.  I’ve disliked biology ever since I learned that genes aren’t just tickety logical copying machines, they’re full of junk that may or may not be useless, nobody knows; that you can inherit changes caused by the environment; that when artificial intelligence scientists try to build a computer the way the living brain is built, they fall flat because the brain has too many neurons with too many connections that use too little power and carry signals much too quickly and nobody knows what rules it uses anyway.  That sleep isn’t caused by some nice sleepy chemical, it’s caused by dozens of them, most of which do something else too.  That a given process, like inflammation, can both protect and destroy.  Biology’s basic rule seems to be Katie-bar-the door.  Continue reading →

Roadies of Science

By: | December 20, 2012


One of my favorite memories of my high-school friend Pete Dal Ferro is cruising around town with him in his red 1966 Plymouth Valiant. Fun, right? Over the years, I’ve heard bits and pieces about his adventures since—things about SCUBA diving and Antarctica and cruising around in even bigger boats than his sweet high-school ride, and I’ve always wanted to learn more.

So this post was my excuse to find out what he does and how he got there. Pete’s an engineering technician for the USGS’s Pacific Coastal and Marine Geology Team. He designs, builds and fixes scientific instruments. He sets up experiments. He’s a small-boat guru. Basically, he takes care of all the behind-the-scenes aspects of marine research so that scientists can show up and start collecting data.

A big thanks to Pete for putting up with me in high school, and for putting up with all my questions now. Anyway, here he is, telling me about his awesome job. Continue reading →

How creeps get away with it

By: | December 19, 2012

 

HandAt a recent holiday party, I was talking to an older acquaintance when out of the blue, I felt him rub his junk on my hand. I was already on my way out. My husband was a few feet ahead of me, and I’d just grabbed the sauté pan that had contained my potluck dish. As I chatted with the creep, I held the pan against my torso. My right hand was on the far side of the pan, out in front of me.

I don’t remember now what we were talking about. What I do remember is an awkward feeling suddenly overcoming me. Something was out of place, but it was so very wrong that it took my brain some extra time to register what the hell was happening.

What was happening was this — the scumbag was rubbing the front of his pants against my hand. By about the third time, my brain could no longer question the sensory inputs it was receiving. Oh. My. God. I looked straight at him. He smiled back at me, and for a moment I questioned myself. Did that just happen? I may have smiled back or even laughed a little, my nervous habit in awkward situations. Continue reading →