APOD: 2008 July 30 – The International Space Station Transits the Sun July 31, 2008
Posted by sarah in: science . Add a commentWhatever your views on the International Space Station, a picture of going in front of the Sun is very cool!
APOD: 2008 July 30 – The International Space Station Transits the Sun.
"Asymmetric Assholes" July 28, 2008
Posted by sarah in: science . Add a commentThis post was on the Cosmic Variance blog last week. “Known calibrated assholes” and “asymmetric assholes” – I love it. Yes, even as a postdoc, I can still learn new words every day! 
It’s totally true though – everyone in acadaemia comes up against these characters regularly in their career. And whether you’re an undergraduate, PhD student, postdoc or professor, they affect everyone.
During my PhD I once gave an interview to an optics magazine about my work. Rather than send me an email to ask me more about the work, another researcher who was well known in the field posted an online comment to the article, on the magazine’s website, saying that the claims of the article were totally untrue, that he had never heard of our group being involved in this kind of research. I then received the friendly advice from senior members in the field that the man’s comment “had not gone unnoticed”, and that perhaps I ought to place a comment in reply. So I posted a brief reply, and sent the man himself an email listing all our publications of the past 10 years in that line of work.
So if you recognise yourself in this story as the man posting the comment: you’re on my list of asymmetric assholes!
Are you a doctor or a woman? July 28, 2008
Posted by sarah in: random, women . Add a commentIn today’s Guardian, Anna Tims talks about the most extreme stories of bad customer service that she’s heard of in her column Dear Anna. I love stories like this, and writing angry letters to companies that provided me with bad service is one of my favourite pastimes. And this story here combines two of my pet annoyances, bad service and disrespect to women:
Or Airtours, which gave Dr Joanna Smith a sex change on her travel documents because its computers would only recognise a doctor as male. If she wanted to return to her usual gender, she would have to travel as Mrs.
Wonderful! I would have had a field day taking them on if this had happened to me. Some airlines have come up with very awkward solutions – I’ve noticed that I’m sometimes listed as MsDr on plane tickets. Can they not come up with something more elegant?
Great Spitzer image: Organic molecules in the Pinwheel Galaxy July 25, 2008
Posted by sarah in: science . Add a commentThis picture was on the BBC news website today. It’s a fab picture taken in the infrared with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which operates in the infrared. The press release is here. There’s also quite an entertaining -albeit a bit cringeworthy- video on the Spitzer website at Caltech. Well done, Karl!
It shows how polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, become quite suddenly depleted towards the outer rim of the galaxy.
Jumping on the Batwagon July 25, 2008
Posted by sarah in: random . Add a commentI went to see The Dark Knight yesterday so now I’m finally going to allow myself to read what everyone else has said about it. It’s an awesome film, and proof that big summer blockbusters don’t need to be crap. It’s got the great stunt, effects, the romance, but also a lot of depth, darkness, and the writing is great.
The BBC’s take on the acting performances is interesting: that Christian Bale’s Bruce/Batman performance overshadows Heath Ledger’s Joker, as the latter is more of a one-dimensional character. The journo reckons that Ledger’s Joker is only as brilliant as it is because of Batman’s nuance and depth. I don’t know which performance I thought was better as such but it’s undoubtedly true that the characters need each other to make it work – and the Joker explicitly says just that in the film. There probably is a good chance that Ledger will win an Oscar for Dark Knight and I just hope that Christian Bale receives the same kind of acclaim.
I’m a big fan of Chris Nolan’s films. I went to the same university as him, albeit a bit later on, and he’s definitely the coolest UCL alumnus ever in my book!
