March 2013
5 posts
“The thing we make is a round box with living stuff in it, and a turning thing to...”
– In which I describe a bioreactor using the ten hundred words.
“I’ve studied the stuff that holds our cells together; stuff that stops us from...”
– Ingrid.
“More and more people are moving into houses and towns built near the woods,...”
– Casey Metz, This is an attempt to describe my work on “fire adapted communities,” which is a fairly new concept in scientific forestry that attempts to understand how biophysical, technological, and social forces combine to affect the disaster vulnerability of communities located in the...
“Along time ago, ice fell from the sky in large numbers in high rock areas. When...”
– Daryl Kohut.
“My job is to tell the computer to do things using words a computer understands....”
– Yang. Basics of a software engineer
February 2013
67 posts
“Most of the time you see people using their voices to talk. Those talking voices...”
– Adam Stone. An explanation of ASL/English bilingual ebooks (more info at www.foundinblank.com)
“My job is to look at the sun. But, I do not look at the normal light that we see...”
– Aidan O’Flannagain (@Doroboro)
“It is very hard to understand how new ideas for things have made people’s...”
– Studying energy infrastructure and policy.
“A little part of everything is really in every place at once, especially very...”
– Enrique Cobas. My attempt at describing quantum tunneling. Electrons can tunnel through thin barriers into available electron states on the other side and carry charge with them. By engineering improved tunnel barriers we can preserve their spin polarization during tunneling and use both charge and...
“How should I live? What should I do in life? These are questions we all have to...”
– Frank Martela, http://frankmartela.fi/en/2013/02/philosophy-simplified-explaining-what-philosophy-is-the-up-goer-five-way/
“I work on finding good ways for people to work (or play or just get to know each...”
– Irene Greif (@igreif)
“A ‘census’ happens when we ask all the people in the land to answer...”
– Oliver, lecturer in Digital Information Studies at UCL; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dis/people/oliverdukewilliams
A lot of my work revolves around analysing and disseminating data from the UK Census of Population. It’s possible that we won’t have another census in the UK; here I try to explain...
“What makes things stick together (or not stick together) and what are things...”
– J. Hobbs
“‘Air Distillation’
For my job, I turn air into the different parts...”
– Brandon, Michigan.
Air Distillation Technician
“I study what makes up space and time by imagining what happens when very small...”
– —
John Joseph M. Carrasco, Theoretical High Energy Physicist
A stab at describing my study of gauge and gravity scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory. Specifically the fact that the scattering of gravitons (the carrier of the gravitational force) is completely described by a...
“We are all made of the same tiny stuff, but every one of us has small changes to...”
– Gabrielle, a graduate student interested in science communication, tweeting here and blogging here.
“All living things need stuff called ‘DNA’. This stuff tells living...”
– I am Rob Lanfear, an evolutionary biologist in Australia. My website is www.robertlanfear.com, and I am @RobLanfear on twitter.
“Many animals live in groups larger than families. Sometimes those groups are...”
– I’m José Halloy on twitter @jhalloy
“I study tiny flying animals that bite people. These tiny flying animals make...”
– https://twitter.com/elephantsinjune http://incubator.rockefeller.edu/?cat=8
“After high school, I decided what I learned was not enough so I wanted to do...”
– Lucy, graduate from the University of British Columbia with a B.Sc. in Chemistry (focusing on organometallic chemistry) and a Minor in Scandinavian culture.
This was the best way I could come up with to explain chemistry and Scandinavia… and post-secondary education.
“I write stories about people who are trying to understand how the world works,...”
– Julian Smith, freelance science & travel writer, contributing editor at Archaeology magazine.
www.juliansmith.com
@Julianwrites
“In the world, there are many animals who live together and also do things...”
– Nicolas Perony. I’m building a new research web page — this was the best way to explain what I do so that it’s really (really really) easy to understand. I’m @nicolasperony on Twitter.
“I want to find a way to help people who have brains that beat too much. We study...”
– Dwayne Godwin.
My Tweets are here: https://twitter.com/BrainyActs
You can see a neat animation about your brain here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0DuPzbYsCig
And read some comics about brains here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=2545
“My world is your world. I use things like you use things. I see things as you...”
– Sean Summers, PhD candidate at the Automatic Control Lab at ETH Zurich. Follow me on twitter: @rumachine. Read my blog.
“Most stars in the sky have their own worlds going around them. They are hard to...”
– - Neil Zimmerman, postdoc at Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
http://tiredlight.wordpress.com
“My job is to understand how the body parts that make piss work, and why they get...”
– Michael Hultström. I do kidney physiology and write a bit at nephrophysiologist.blogspot.com
“There are bits of the ground with lots of fire. As well as fire, air comes out...”
– Luke Surl, Volcanologist at the University of East Anglia
“Lots of people have heard of ‘grommets’ but what do they do,...”
– r a dawson - I do ear, nose and neck doctoring
“RuBee (IEEE 1902.1) Wireless Systems:
People have lots of things but they...”
– twitter.com/craigweich
www.craigweich.com
“My job is to study the parts of us that change our food into power that helps us...”
– Raeka Aiyar, on systematic approaches to mitochondrial disease. Follow my bite-sized thoughts here and/or read more detailed musings of a mitochondriac.
“Like people, free living animals get also sick. But without help from doctors,...”
– Kevin Matson, University of Groningen, a primer in ecological immunology
Learn more about my work here or here.
“When people get older, sometimes they have problems with their heart: the blood...”
– Martin.
“I help students find numbers. Sometimes, the numbers are pretending to be...”
– Laura, High School math teacher.
“When good people want to send a person into outer space, they pick a good person...”
– I don’t actually train astronauts for NASA, but I was inspired by Up-Goer Five to write about space. The very complex task of going into outer space is boils down to satisfying primal needs under the harshest conditions imaginable.
“I try to understand why people think, say, and do the things they do. Sometimes,...”
– Sarah, Cultural Anthropology Graduate Student
“In the coldest time of the year many animals must find a way to live without...”
– Description of how and why Wood Frogs (Rana sylvetica) freeze solid in the winter, only to thaw in the spring and continue their lives, unharmed.
Todd Nivens, MA
Interpretive Naturalist & Environmental Educator
“I study stuff that is used to build the powering part of a flying thing. The...”
– Liza, PhD student studying how atoms interact in alloys used to make jet engines.
“I help people who have brains that are different from most people’s...”
– Mallory W.
“Most animals like to find food by themselves. Some like to group with others of...”
– Hari Sridhar.
“People decide what to do all the time. They don’t always do a good job of...”
– Jonathan Cummings http://www.coopunits.org/Vermont/People/Jonathan_Cummings/index.html
“We live our life not worrying much about our well being. But animals face many...”
– Viraj Torsekar, studying predation in Crickets.
“I studied computers in school, and I use what I learned to make computer games....”
– David Smith. I make multiplayer casino games for Double Down Interactive in gloomy, fabulous Seattle. Making one of the most popular games on Facebook is harder than you’d think. It is the least serious computer work I’ve ever done and the most challenging. None of my coworkers is...
“Green things that grow need water. People sometimes give the green growing...”
– Sara - PhD student studying plant uptake of organic contaminants
“I use very strong light of different colors to study how the smallest pieces of...”
– Jaime Stearns, chemist
“Start with a thick piece of hard cold stuff like we make cans out of. Take a...”
– Mathematical modelling of directional solidification and flow dynamics in binary alloys - topic of my postdoctoral research. —Ann Kahlow Hobbs
“People tell computers to do things by writing words. To make it easier, they...”
– Lindsey Kuper. I’m a Ph.D. student studying programming languages at Indiana University (blog, Twitter).
“People who have money give it to people who have ideas. Then the ideas people go...”
– Ian Thomas. I study if accounting (and other) information is efficiently used by the stock market (behavioral finance).
“Long ago, people tried to understand things as they are in themselves. They...”
– Jonas Karlsson. I am a graduate student in mathematics, interested in moduli spaces.
“If we want to know how the brain makes memory and uses memory, we need to make...”
– Kristoffer Romero: PhD student at the University of Toronto
“When I am at work, I study things that are in the air, but not the parts that...”
– Rebecca. 