Cool Science

Surfing some science blogs, I noticed one that posed the question 'what made you want to be a chemist?' as a part of an interview. The responder (Dr. Glen Miller of Univ. of New Hampshire) pointed out that it all started when he was 14 or 15...

And this set the gears turning (churning?) in my own head. When I was a teenager I was looking for answers just like everybody else was. Whenever I went to chemistry class, the world seemed a little tamer. My teacher (Mr. C. to protect his privacy) was incredibly dry and explained things in perfect clarity without decoration, 'edutainment' , or any kind of B.S. He didn't talk down to the students - he didn't have false airs or try to be anybody's 'buddy'. He just taught chemistry clearly. The stupid social cliques that every teenager stresses about melted away into irrelevancy; chemistry mattered to me, made sense and I could identify with it. I started reading Science News. This is what I craved : a no-bs approach to understanding the world. But as it turns out, I wasn't very good at it, or maybe so-so. On the AP Chem exam, I was so lost I used the ideal gas law to try to solve a problem about a solid.

I had this idea around then that I wanted to set up a basement lab, for which of course I needed chemicals. A bottle of stearic acid was easy to come by but I didn't have a clue what to do with it and that's as far as I got - slightly embarrassing in hindsight. To say the least, I was no boy scout, but then again that kid was in a league of his own. Anyway the stearic acid fiasco was a useful exercise because even then as a teenager I already realized that I wasn't going to be an organic chemist. Good lesson learned early. Although I later took orgo from Francis Carey (now emeritus at UVA) and it was awesome I have to admit. But back to high school, and here's an inner monologue confession : I didn't know if I could be a chemist. I struggled - I worked hard and just barely got my B, or was it a C? Hmmm. It was what I craved, but I didn't know if I could do it.

To summarize the next 10 years : in college, I was a lot more mature and I did well in chemistry, but relied on some terrific mentors (Dr. D., and many others) who saw the chemist in me before I saw it and pushed me in some good directions. In grad school you had to sink or swim and I knew that going into it. It was the crucible that everybody had made it out to be.

It's a little wild to see this all in hindsight (and has absolutely nothing to do with watching the movie 'Click' last night), but it's kind of nice to see it this way now.

Now when I teach this stuff, the AP Chem fiasco comes up again and again. Probably once a year (or maybe more actually) I see a student do the same thing on one of my tests or quizes. And I'm not going to lie - it's kind of a relief to see that and I try to remember to not be critical because it's all part of the journey.

Posted by Dave at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So NOVA had this great show about a huge cavern in Australia that had a tiny pothole opening; and it's been around for a *really* long time. (watch the preview here) So a wild creature is running around and then falls in and that's that. And it happens over and over again. Then today, millions of year later, the thing is a treasure trove of perfectly preserved skeletons of all kinds of crazy things including a funky evolutionary creature that was a marsupial carnivorous lion - with a tail like a kangaroo. I mean, how amazing is that? You can't make this stuff up.

While I'm rambling about odd things, check this (gigantic) recent picture of the combined Atlantis and space station crews. Sorry - couldn't find a good link to a more manageable picture. Just a few days ago, there were ten people up there - in the same place. Have we ever done that before? That's amazing. There are towns in america smaller than that (ok, not many - but I think I've made my point).

Finally, since I'm all over the place tonite and I think mainstream news outlets do a lousy job of science reporting, here's an interesting story on a small step forward in developing treatments for Parkinson's disease by gene therapy.

Posted by Dave at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you missed it, the sad news of the week was that Mr. Wizard (a.k.a. Don Herbert) passed away. In a previous post I wondered where the next great public figure would emerge who would excite students about science. Although Neil deGrasse Tyson is showing good promise, he's confined a little too much to the stars. Mr. Wizard sent countless kids running into their kitchens to do science and I think we need that again.

I seem to pick on cnn a lot, but they earn it. If you've checked out the beta version of their new look then you might be dismayed to see that science no longer merits a banner title. Clearly my previous letter to cnn (see below a few posts back) was as useless as an amplifier that goes to 11. So I wrote another one:

"Dear CNN,

I recently wrote a brief letter encouraging cnn.com to better represent scientific news. Archaeology, paleontology and astronomy, while interesting, seem to dominate the content of science reporting by CNN and do little to showcase the tremendous progress made by scientists to advance human knowledge and to solve problems in the public's interest.

I write this note because I am sorry to see the omission of a 'Science' banner title in the beta page of the new CNN.com. I wish to encourage you to add a permanent science link to your banner. If there is room for 'travel', I think there's room for 'science'.

I am pleased to see the article on the front page on the development of a new standard kilogram. Was this an exception or the start of a new trend in informing the public on meaningful scientific progress?"

Posted by Dave at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)