Vote for your favourite Research Blogs March 8, 2010
Posted by sarah in: me, science . Add a commentFollowing the Oscars news online reminded me that the voting for the Research Blogging Awards opened officially this week. Voting is only open to those registered with the site, but if you’re a blogger and you enjoy writing about peer-reviewed science, you should go sign up – immediately, if not sooner.
There are some great blogs up for awards and I will certainly cast my little vote in the categories where I have my favourites. This blog is a finalist in the category for Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, so if you like what you read here from time to time, consider voting for me. As well as $50 I’d probably get some kind of badge to put in my sidebar, and I totally want one of those. I think it would look really nice next to the Dopplr duck. Help me fill that gaping hole in my sidebar y’all.
See the list of finalists here and follow the link in the invitation email to exercise your democratic rights. If you need reminding of the research I’ve written about in the last few months, here are all my posts tagged “researchblogging”.
With a little help from our friends: Finding a home for E-ELT March 4, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, politics . 2comments
Cerro Paranal (middle right) and Cerro Armazones (middle left)
ESO announced today that their Council have recommended Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Andes as the preferred site for their next generation optical/IR observatory, the 42-m European Extremely Large Telescope. The decision came in response to the delivery of a technical report by the organisation’s E-ELT Site Selection Advisory Committee, from which Armazones emerged as the frontrunner, “because it has the best balance of sky quality across all aspects and it can be operated in an integrated fashion with the existing ESO Paranal Observatory”.
So does this means the deal is done? Apparently not. The text also tells us that ESO have received proposals to host the telescope from both Spain, who would like to see the telescope site on La Palma, and Chile, so a final run-off between these two countries now seems likely.
What has struck me about this whole site selection exercise is the different approaches taken by ESO for the E-ELT and their North American counterparts, the Thirty Meter Telescope project.
Black hole-iday February 26, 2010
Posted by sarah in: science . Add a comment
Astronomer (m)e(e/a)ts Powder
As I alluded to in my previous post, last week I spent a rather fabulous week in the Rocky Mountain resort of Aspen. The Aspen Center for Physics hosted a conference, organised by Andrea Ghez, Vicky Kalogera, Fred Rasio, and Steinn Sigurdsson (of the Dynamics of Cats blog), on the Formation and Evolution of Black Holes. I don’t work on black holes myself* but am lucky enough that my significant other does, and the prospect of a week in Aspen just sounded too good to turn down.
I was planning to attend some talks and maybe blog about the meeting, but in the end the lure of the white stuff proved too strong and I spent all my time skiing. Luckily Daniel Holz, blogger at Cosmic Variance, was also in attendance and he will be writing about the meeting on CV.
The one conference activity I attended, apart from eating and drinking, was the customary mid-week public lecture in teh Aspen Opera House, which was given by the ever-enthusiastic Andrea Ghez of UCLA on her work on the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre. As well as being an excellent scientist, Andrea is a fun speaker and a great advocate for astronomy. You can watch the lecture online at Grassroots.tv.
Aspen is a pricey ski resort but the infrastructure and facilities are truly fantastic, if you enjoy the snow I recommend you try to go there sometime (on someone else’s grant). Through the Aspen Center for Physics, conference participants get incredibly generous discounts on lift passes, ski rentals, classes, and even food on the mountains – and these discounts extend to hangers-on like me. A really big thanks for that!
* Yet! That may change in 2011. Sort of.
Awards season February 26, 2010
Posted by sarah in: me, science . Add a comment
The first few months of the year are traditionally awards season in the film industry, and in the blogging world it’s no different. I got back from a well-deserved and fabulous holiday a few days ago to discover I’m shortlisted for a Research Blogging award in the category of Best Research Blog in Chemistry, Astronomy or Physics. Yay and thanks judges!
Well done also to all the other finalists and in particular also to Martin Robbins’ Lay Science blog, which is a contender for the Best Lay-Level Blog – I’ll take a teeny bit of credit for that too. Martin is also up for Best Blog Post, go check out the nominated post here.
All members of Research Blogging will be invited to vote for their favourites in early March and I certainly intend to cast votes for my favourite blogs. If you want to be able to vote and write about peer-reviewed research, go sign up! I’d definitely like to see some more astronomy blogs on the site.
Hearts in Space February 14, 2010
Posted by sarah in: science . Add a commentI love the Sixty Symbols videos – and this is a particularly kooky one. I think Valentine’s Day is the most pointless of all the pointless contrived holidays – but if I were to celebrate it, this is how I’d do it.
