Depression and atheism - a link? (I think not)

(If you don't feel like staring at your screen long enough to read this whole entry, at least read the end, just for me).

Hm, things have been a little hectic lately. I had to mark a lot of labs and then major projects, 21 of them, spelling and grammar mistakes and all. I'm sure they annoy me more since I started the writing class, and the amount of students that spelt colour without the U... This is Canada people, not the USA. On top of that, the three days I spent on the electron microprobe a couple of weeks ago was revealed as wasted, and needed a resit to be crammed into this week too (not to mention some serious money woes I did not see coming).

Normally, I might be able to take this all with with a certain amount of grace considering it's nearly Christmas and all. The problem is, I finally decided to change my medication. After a long discussion with my doctor, who was much more attentive than other recent doctors, she decided to change it to a medication that is basically the shiny new version of my old one. It was reasoned then that I would get no effects of withdrawal and be able to switch directly from one to the other (despite being on a relatively high dose). However, this doesn't seem to have been the case. My sleep has gotten more erratic and my mood his spiralled out of control. It's terrifying. I thought I was doing well with my life, but being essentially 'off' the medication at the moment (it takes 2-6 weeks for any antidepressant to start working) has given me a glimpse of the monster that lies beneath. I've had terrible stress and anxiety and today it took a literal toll on me. I was wide awake at 2am last night so I decided to take a sleeping pill. Then I slept 11 hours straight and woke up with the room spinning. And I have been dizzy all day... so going in to uni and doing the pile of work, or any work, was off the table today. I was a little scared to feel this way and be on my own, so my good friend Jess came round and sat with me to make sure I didn't pass out and hit my head or something. I feel almost better now, a little woozy in the head maybe, but better. But really it was just refreshing not to do anything of use. I think the dizziness was a result of a combination of the withdrawal, the new medication and the sleeping pill, but a large chunk was also probably my body saying "Hey, take it easy, I can't do all this yet."

Anyway, in happier news I have been involving myself fully in the Humanist/Atheist world, meeting up with the CFI Exec, discussing ideas and attending events. One of the most fascinating was a broadcast debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair, on the topic "be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world". There was a lot of talking, but there were several main points repeated in various forms (more so by Blair, it must be said). He didn't argue that religion provides morality, but more that religion is the inspiration for so many to do good things (citing the large amount of charity work). While I can see his point to some extent, I don't believe charitable work would disappear with religion. I think that it is a common misconception that only churches provide community and a group feeling of goodwill. I certainly get that and more from the CFI. It's just that it's not that common, and many don't know there is that other 'option'... yet... Hitchens also raised the important issue that a lot of religious 'charitable' work has done more harm than good, although this is true with more of the traditional missionary-type charity work that involved oppressing women's roles in societies (which many agree is the single best way to empower impoverished countries).

Blair's other main point was that getting rid of religion does not get rid of fanaticism. He cited Stalin here, referring earlier to both Hitler and Pol Pot, which unfortunately serves only to turn people off of his arguments, since these are often misused examples of 'atheists doing bad'. The difference between this and say, the Crusades, is that these people did not commit evil because of their atheism. Anyway, this point of Blair's had several branches, one of which I thought was his best thinking point. Hitchens conceded that religion is unlikely to be wiped off the face off the Earth any time soon, and Blair said that well, in that case, isn't it logical to try and work with religion, and to get major religions to work with each other, instead of focusing on 'getting rid' of them? This is a very sensible conclusion in my view. However, getting major religions to work together is, in my mind, pretty much a pipe dream considering how small areas of the world (like Northern Ireland and Gaza) have been fighting for generations over religion. So, again following logic, decreasing the power and spread of religion seems the only logical answer...

Other than just practical discussions, Hitchens tried to take the debate to the realms of philosophy too, and argued that religion is essentially servitude, and that religion is not good for a global community when religions are always trying to 'recruit'. Blair argued in response that religion gives a purpose and a deeper meaning to the mission of life. I've known I am an atheist for a long time, and yet I have never felt devoid of purpose or an awe of what life is and what I can do with it.

Hence why I've never been the self-harming-suicidal kind of depressive. I still think life is incredibly 'sacred' (Is there a better word for it without the religious connotation?). I describe myself more as a 'depressed optimist'.

In an effort to expand my journalism experiences beyond sci and tech news I also attended a very interesting talk at the University by George Galloway, an ex-MP from Britain who never seems to be described without the prefix "controversial". He is pro-Palestine, and I went to the talk to really test myself. I know nothing about politics. See, this is why I don't always feel contempt and outrage when people "don't care" about global warming, if their reasons are lack of interest in knowing the facts. Basically, I am guilty of this about politics (and economics, but that has more to do with despising maths). Both are important, but why should I come down hard on people that care more about politics than global warming when I am so single-track too? But, I am trying to change.

Galloway's talk, of course, was going to be very biased, and I went in knowing that I was getting one side of the (Israel-Palestine) story. But it was still a fascinating experience. I wondered how much I was hearing was real 'fact' and how much was slanted spin - certainly some of the things his said raised my left eyebrow. The crowd however was extremely enthusiastic, and it was like nothing I had attended before, spontaneous applause, boos, and shouts of "for shame!" when something deplorable the opposition had done was spoken of. I'm not how sure the article turned out, really, but I just reported what happened, and the main points of the talk. You can read it here.

Finally, yesterday marked the last day of classes and the last of my writing class for the year when I handed in my latest essay (luckily, the class is a full-year one, so there is more to come in 2011). For the latest essay (themed 'The Event') I took a different tack than my previous ones. To explain it, I think I'll just post up my 'Author's Statement' which we have to make to accompany each essay.

For all my writing so far I’ve stayed in my comfort zone as Hayley “The Storyteller”, but for this piece I wanted to express more of Hayley “The Scientist” and Hayley “The Journalist”. I decided to play a bit with the idea of “the event” by exploring the contrast between the scientific world, where nothing is an instantaneous event, and the journalistic world, which imagines everything as a sensational discovery. How can these disciplines meet in the middle?

I set up the piece from the viewpoint of “The Scientist,” but it is an internal battle too, so I am also “The Journalist.” Although the whimsical naivety of “The Journalist” is somewhat exaggerated, it’s a way to poke a little fun at myself for sometimes seeing the world through extremely rosy spectacles. Plus, I love squirrels.

_________________

The Scientific Process

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I never really understood that metaphor until I met the journalist. But I could almost see her squirrel tail making a fuzzy frame for her sparkly eyes. She must have been close to me in age, but still had that wistful bubbliness that makes most cynical adults harbour violent intentions. She whipped out a notebook, a voice recorder and her giddiest smile, ready to be informed about the wonders of my research.

“Wow, so you’re a volcanologist? That’s awesome! You study volcanic ash, right? What did you find out?”

“I found two samples of volcanic ash located a few hundred miles apart with the same chemical signature. Within error. With current technology. Which means they’re probably from the same eruption. Which means they were likely deposited at the same time. Which means the sediments they lie in are assumedly the same age. Which means the climate those sediments point to could have an assigned age. Once we date the volcanic ash.”

The circular reasoning and otherwise uncertainty of my “discovery” didn’t seem to faze her. She nodded, scribbled and looked back up at me like a squirrel at a nut. She asked me where I found the ash, and when I told her I went to Alaska to dig it up her tail bustled so much it nearly pushed her off the edge of her chair.

“I had to go to Alaska to find the ash,” I said, “but I spent a lot of time digging trenches. Fieldwork is 98% searching and digging in the rain and 2% finding what you want and sampling it.”

Once again my lack of enthusiasm failed to dull her animal spark. I explained to her how important that area of Alaska is; how it is thought to be the route the first humans took into North America at the end of the last ice age. How the eruption I’m studying could have been around that very same time. The static created by her bristling fur crackled around the room and it must have given me a jolt. I was starting to get into it, remembering what great questions my research could solve. But that’s the kind of stuff you put on funding proposals. It’s not what you actually do.

“The path to this result has been paved with road kill. So many lines of inquiry have been dead ends. The machines in the lab often break down. I once dropped one ceramic dish on another, which smashed them both. The other day a sample even slipped down the drain,” I told her. “We had to take the plumbing apart to get it back.”

“That’s not all,” I said. “Polishing samples for hours on end on the grinding wheel I often rub the skin off my thumbs, and the chemicals we use to separate our samples are carcinogenic over time.”

The journalist now looked as if she couldn’t understand why I do science, her tail drooping, so I decided to cheer her up by exploring the research’s tenuous link to climate change. Journalists love that. I told her that by knowing the age and timing of past climate changes, it helps us work out what might happen with our own rapid global shift. Once again, this was the sort of thing that just goes on funding proposals, and that gave me an idea to challenge a viewpoint I’d always found irritating. Some people seem to think that climate change research is a money-making conspiracy; that we cooked up the whole thing to get grant money.

“Alberta Ingenuity didn’t think my research was ingenious enough, so I had to become a teaching assistant at the university to pay for my living. Teaching doesn’t take up too much time, but marking every lab and every exam each undergraduate turns in does. And even then most of them put no effort into their answers and complain about their grades, after I have become cross-eyed and cack-handed from marking.”

The journalist shifted uncomfortably on her deflated tail, clearly wanting to move on to talk about what impact my research would have, but I had to take one more opportunity to explain that this was not some headline discovery that I stumbled upon as one test-tube of blue liquid turned red.

“I spend days on end working on the electron microprobe. It’s a several thousand dollar machine. I look at hundreds of shards of volcanic ash, painstakingly picking a point on every one for the machine to analyse for the chemistry. I sometimes see ash in my sleep; the shards make such beautiful and terrifying shapes. In the future, someone will work out a way to make the whole process automated. They will be amazed I ever had the patience.”

Satisfied I’d gotten across to her the monotony of scientific experimentation, I let her go back to the climate change issue.

“Yellowstone is actually a massive volcano, right? So, and, I’ve heard that, if that erupts it would wreck the climate, right?”

Ah, she’d misinterpreted the way my research connects volcanic ash and climate. She’d gone for the obvious. Lucky for her, I knew something about Yellowstone anyway; although by now I had the feeling she would believe anything I told her.

“A Yellowstone eruption would be devastating and a quick analysis shows it erupts every 600,000 years, with the last eruption over 640,000 years ago. But the 600,000 cycle is only an average of three eruptions in the past 2.1 million years. Saying Yellowstone is overdue is like saying a baby is overdue because it’s one minute past the expected time.”

“But if it did erupt though, wouldn’t it be terrible? I mean that Icelandic volcano Ayyafya-Eyjafk-”

“Eyjafjallajökull.”

“Yeah, that one,” she giggled. “It basically shut down Europe, right?”

Fine, I thought, rolling my eyes, I’ll give her what she wants.

“It would be 1000 times more powerful than the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Ash would circle the Earth, blotting out the sun and drastically lowering the global temperature. Crops would fail. Animals would die. And that’s without mentioning the thousands of people that would be killed in the immediate area of the eruption.”

Her mouth was open, her pen was scribing a rut in the page and I let the silence run. Once she’d stopped writing, the silence continued. She looked at her page. Away at a tree outside the window. Back at her book, flipping pages trying to find something else to ask me. On the path below the window a squirrel froze in its tracks, as a student trailed her feet and yawned in front of it, unaware of the little creature’s peril. I grinned.

“If Yellowstone did erupt though, it would make a pretty good ash marker layer. Just as the ash I found in Alaska may mark the arrival of humans to North America, an ash layer from Yellowstone may very well mark their departure.”

I could almost see her little rodent heart skipping in her chest. Don’t let anyone tell you scientists aren’t eloquent! We give speeches to each other all the time and we don’t like old men sleeping in the back of our halls either. The journalist looked at her voice recorder and noted down the time. That quote was going to be in the article.

I felt concerned for the journalist then, and decided to stop playing with her. It was obvious she was interested in what I was doing and she had told me she wanted to be a science journalist, but she was following all those classic journalist school rules. Amazing discovery. Sensationalism. Over-simplifying the science, presuming the public to be idiots.

“Don’t imagine my research ends there. There are many volcanic ash layers in Alaska, in Canada, and in the world. Each one is an instantaneous event. Each one marks a time when certain conditions existed on the Earth, when different creatures lived, when other peoples ruled. All this work will take many more researchers many more years, collecting samples, separating them, polishing them, probing them and pondering them. In all that time what I’ve concluded will likely be overturned by someone with better, faster and more accurate methods. Science is not an event: it is the gradual accretion and refining of knowledge.”

__________________

NOTE!! I am thinking of submitting this piece alongside some Gateway pieces for my Journalism School application. A good idea???

Festival of Ideas

Last week was a good week to be at the university, since they hosted the biennial 'Festival of Ideas', which is essentially like a week of TED talks. This year's theme was 'Truth and Lies: Trust Me' so it was right up my street. (Incidentally I would have posted this up earlier but have actually been working on the good old probe again this week, a task just mind-numbing enough to make me trawl failblog instead of doing real things with my evenings).

"Australia has seen the effects of climate change"

The first talk I went to was by Tim Flannery, author of 'The Weather Makers", chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, and Australian of the Year in 2007. The talk was titled something unassuming like "Climate change: current state of science and what we can do about it", which had me worried it may be a boring run-of-the-mill climate change talk. But he talked a lot about the controversies: the UEA leaked emails (talking a lot, of course, about how they were cleared of any wrongdoing) and the Copenhagen Summit (linking it naturally to the unique timing of the leaked emails). All of this, he concluded, made it seem as if the Copenhagen meeting was a failure. But he was keen to point out to us that even the simple Copenhagen Accord was a great step towards getting major CO2 emitting countries to commit to cutting their output. Still, he says, we are a long way from making those agreements accountable. Many countries will be over their Kyoto targets, but will they pay up for it? Unlikely.

More likely to succeed are single country-enforced things. When asked whether he thought cap-and-trade or a straight carbon tax would be better, he said it depended on the country, where its economy and development were at.

The final interesting point was that he talked a lot about how the Green Party in Australia is now part of their coalition government, and how this came about from a lot of grass-roots action. People wondered, as Canada and Australia seem to have similar cultures and personae, why has a similar thing not happened in Canada? Flannery reasoned that in Australia the effects of climate change are painfully evident: 10-year droughts, wildfires and the bleaching and destruction of the great barrier reef.

"Hi, my name's Julie and I'm a Catholic computer programmer"

This was the rather surprising introduction to a question on probably my favourite night of the Festival: an astrobiology debate titled "Are We Alone in the Universe?" The debate featured a University of Alberta professor and the head of the Vatican Observatory. For most of the evening they gave a presentation, explaining everything you need to know about the Drake Equation (plus an impressive display of our place in universe from the star theatre the debate was held in). I had always had a basic idea of the variables that made up the Drake Equation, but the presentation gave more detail into some of the possible numbers involved in each factor. For example, stars that are too massive don't burn for long enough to allow the evolution of complex life, and stars with too low mass would need planets to be very close in order to be in the habitable zone, and at that close range the gravity of the star would cause unimaginable tides and a slowing of the planet's rotation so that only one side faces the star. Not much chance then for life to evolve.

The way life began on our own planet is still somewhat a mystery, but one of my favourite likelihoods is that it actually got started many times and was wiped out many times in the beginning, during the time of heavy bombardment, when meteor strikes from the still-forming solar system were abundant. An interesting idea raised in the debate though that made the beginning of life seem astounding again. In order to get enough mobile materials for the 'primordial soup', a lot of erosion of the early Earth surface was required. This seems to have been achieved by the greater power of the oceans, as the newly-formed moon was closer and caused tides up to 1000x higher.

Regardless, the conclusion is that simple life is probably abundant in the universe, but complex, intelligent life needs more of a leap. Thus far then, the evening had been informative, but the debate started a little more in the question period. The first was discussing the theory of panspermia; extraterrestrial material brining life to Earth through space, which wasn't so interesting except the Vatican father explaining how they have a piece of Mars, and a photo of the Pope with the fragment was under the headline "Mars in the hand of the Pope" in the local press.

The next question though asked that if we do discover intelligent aliens, do they need 'salvation', in the way missionaries needed to save the savages? The answer from the father was interesting then. He clarified that if they were intelligent, then they would have the possibility to commit sin. But, he said, they may not necessarily have done. In which case they wouldn't need salvation. But they are still creatures of God. Which is where he ended his answer, which really still leaves the question, if they had never had God, but had 'committed sin', would they all need some missionaries to show them the way? Because that's always been for the best in the best...

The next interesting question involved life's tendency towards complexity, whereas the universe tends towards entropy. Does the hand of a deity push life in the complexity direction? The prof. defined life as the ability to use energy constructively: to metabolise, and that is the process that creates complexity. The father said he didn't believe God is an engineer, but rather a father to the universe, allowing it to grow as it will, and yet knowing how it would turn out. "God doesn't play dice, but he knows the dice are loaded."

"One in three Americans is as fat as the other two"

The last event I went to at the Festival was an evening with David Sedaris. This one I was covering for The Gateway, it was a good way to get a free pass to the show and also expand my news writing beyond just sci and tech. Sedaris is a popular semi-autobiographical writer with a wicked sense of humour. I'd never read any of his stuff, but it was a good job I have quite a dark sense of humour! (It comes with being British, I think). His tales were full of shameless death and depravity, but he had the audience in stitches, as well as being very clever and satirical. Through the CFI I've met a guy called Ryan Bromsgrove who writes opinion pieces for The Gateway and he writes simply fabulous parody and satirical pieces. I feel I'm much better at the straight-up news currently, but I want to branch out into opinions and features for The Gateway next year.

Anyway, for now you can read my David Sedaris piece here.

Slow science

Probing a few volcanic ashes today, and finding one that was the spitting image of a pirate skull, I was reminded of the post I wrote a while ago about the probing process, and what I do. It struck me that I haven't written anything about my own science in a while.

This is usually the point in such an introduction where I would launch into the details of some recent experimentation or theorisation, but the fact is I haven't done any of that for a while. My supervisor decided last week that I probably came make the deadline for a special journal volume of papers from the Japan conference I went to back in May, so I've just been writing and refining. Yes, the boring parts of research; writing and editing until all the words merge together and you can no longer tell if you've created a masterpiece or a jumbled mess of scientific phrases strung together.

I have been doing a steady bunch of writing though:

The 50th Anniversary of the Uni's Circumpolar Institute (for which I got to interview my friend Jess, who worked at the exhibition)

Conclusions of the latest Arctic Report Card (it's grim!)

What triggered the rise in oxygen that allowed animals to evolve (I was happy it was picked up on the Canadian University Press newswire, but face-palmed when I read their lede talking about it as the origin of life rather than just animals)

Uni's synthetic biology team project (pretty impressive, considering it's only an undergrad competition)

100 year history of The Gateway (piece for the Alumni Assoc. about the 100th anniversary of the student newspaper)

Yes, and now it's time to start applying for journalism programs! I want to write the perfect letter of intent and pick my best articles for the applications, but my motivation and energy have plummeted again after a brief respite of enthusiasm. I've decided to blame the medication - they make me drowsy when I take them and give me the worst dizzying headaches when I don't. I will have to ask my Doc for a change when I next go. At least if I blame the pills I will get a placebo boost when I change them that hopefully gets me through the paper-writing.

I have been having more fun with the CFI crew though - this Saturday we went to a pro-gay rally (or I suppose pro- LGBTQ if we're being correct !). There's this particularly nasty group called the Westboro Baptist Church who have a gob-smacking campaign of hate called 'God Hates Fags' (reading just one of their rants will make your head spin). They have a picket schedule of events they plan to protest at, and on their calendar was The Laramie Project in Edmonton. It's a play about the hate killing in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. So, naturally, folks organised a counter-protest: 'God Loves Fags', which the CFI went along to support.

More than that, though, in the end. The director of CFI Calgary happens to be Nate Phelps, estranged son of the head of the Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelps. He left the Phelps family home when he turned 18 and never looked back. It's astounding to think of someone growing up in that atmosphere, I wonder how on Earth he even got the idea that what his father preached was wrong and that he had to leave. Some minds are so strong. I was lucky - my parents were never religious and never forced anything upon us, either way, so growing up to be an atheist and skeptic is not so hard to imagine for myself. But I met other people too at the rally like Nate Phelps - a guy who broke out from a fourth-generation Mormon family and a lesbian girl who's badge proudly proclaims her as the 'pink sheep of the family'.

Anyway, the Westboro Baptist Church didn't show up in the end (apparently they have a habit of missing their engagements, and have been turned away at the Canadian border before. As one person mused: "I wonder how many pro- rallys they have inspired?"), but we had a party anyway. Nate and several others gave speeches, including one local supply teacher who was fired from his job at a Catholic school for legally changing his gender. This is apparently against Catholic teachings and would confuse the students. We stood out in the cold enjoying each other's body warmth until our fingers longed for cups of warm liquid, and a few of us retired to a local coffee shop to chat about physics and economics until the night's end.

What is a scientist?

I've started reading Unscientific America, a very recent book on the state of science in America. I'm only a couple of chapters in but it seems quite interesting. It's position seems to be not that the public are stupid and disinterested, or that the scientists are self-isolating, but really a less extreme mix of both! I predict it will be the sort of essay that will end up saying that scientists should be trained more in communication and outreach, and while I agree to an extent I can never help thinking this argument asks quite a lot of scientists. As well as doing their own job of research, as well as teaching and advising, as well as applying for grants, they have to be media buffs as well?

Anyway, maybe they'll propose a more stringent strategy I can agree with later on, but for now the part that interested me the most was a poll that asked people to name scientific role models. 44% couldn't answer. The rest named the top three as Bill Gates, Al Gore and Einstein. I mean really? Not even Stephen Hawking? Another poll threw up a statistic that only 18% of Americans know a scientist personally.

I voiced this to my other half, and we started a debate on what makes a scientist. He asked me if he was a scientist? We thought about it. He's a geologist now, he works in the field, he writes reports sometimes. But does he make hypotheses, and test them to forward new theories? No. He thought perhaps his bosses might advance theories as they drew up reports on exploration areas. Do they need to publish them in peer-reviewed journals to be scientists? Probably not, otherwise there would be no amateur scientists tinkering away in sheds. But I suppose they don't count under the question "Do you know a scientist personally?"

Officially then, a scientist is someone who hypothesises, experiments, refines and theorises and publishes with the approval of their peers (by which I mean by their methods not their point of view), all for a living. But anyone can be a scientific hobbyist!

In other news, I'm afraid I couldn't keep myself away from the Skeptical movement. In fact, I've done quite the opposite and joined the executive committee to help set up a Centre for Inquiry in Edmonton. We had the first meeting thursday and it was fun the just be a part of the brainstorming stage. I went away with a assistant secretary role and a responsibility for picking topics for round-table discussions, where a subject is chosen for discussion within our group and anyone else who wants to attend - local atheist or skeptic societies or even people from the opposite side of the debate (well, hopefully these too, there's no fun in just agreeing with each other is there?). For the first one I think I'm going to choose a very interesting article a friend sent me: Text of talk by Vatican Observatory director on ‘Science Does Not Need God. Or Does It? A Catholic Scientist Looks at Evolution’ It's a refreshingly well reasoned and thought-out treatment of science answering mysteries, and condemns those who fills the gaps with God. Have to come up with a few 'talking points', and will probably find a couple of other potentials too before our next exec meeting.

I've never sat on any execs or councils of any sort before, but to be honest this is the first thing I've cared enough about, rather than it just being 'It would look good on my CV'. The CFI is a particularly interesting kind of society though since it sort of has three heads: Secular, Skeptical, and to a lesser extent, Atheist. However, we decided in time of controversy we decided we'd just quote the central CFI's mission: "The mission of the Center for Inquiry is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values."

Finally, I thought I'd share my second essay for my non-fiction writing class. I was much more pleased with this one, it came so naturally. After we've gone through a couple of rounds of workshopping, our groups have to choose one essay to be read out by the author in the next class. I volunteered to read mine since at the moment I feel it's the most inspiration I'll have for one of these things!

___________

Proud Capital

I have sat here for a thousand years, on the rocky apex of the Atlantic, grounded on black lava. The jagged Reykjanes Peninsula shields me to the South, protecting me from the brunt of the long ocean. To the North Mt Esja watches over me, trapping the clouds and providing shelter. That’s not to say the Weather Gods don’t make it hectic here. Snow and hail blow in fierce gales and thrash against my buildings. Those walls are young, but my people are an old and hardy race and their language is ancient.

I am the proud capital of this beautiful country, but I am not so vain to presume you all know who I am. So I’ll be fair to you. My name is Reykjavik or “Smoky Bay” in your young tongue. Iceland is my domain, and two thirds of its brilliant people live under my blanket. Forgive me, I cannot help but enthuse about the virtues of my citizens: they work hard, they are high achievers and they are always curious. But still they are so few, and I welcome the multitudes of foreign friends that descend upon me to help them out.

One such visitor moved into one of my homes, near my centre by the concrete spire of Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral, at the end of a summer. She was a young girl from my southern neighbour England, and though it was still August she noticed a chill in the sea air that was different from the coastal breezes of her hometown. That wind had gathered cold and scent from the length of the Atlantic. My days were still long though, and she enjoyed the ever-light that gives energy and joy to all my young party-folk.

The season soon changed and with it came school for the girl; it seemed she would be staying the whole year to learn from my people. My autumns are short and pass swiftly into winter. I have heard that in other countries great trees turn yellow and naked, but there are not so many leaves to fall from my scant trees. Nevertheless, I cooled with the season as she warmed to my charms. I don’t believe I am being too egotistical when I say she fell in love with me; she adored my uncrowded streets and wide open harbour. Yes, I am a capital city, with all the culture, business and pomp that goes along with that, but I am not so populous. Unlike those noisy capitals like London or Paris I am not flashy, but that means crime is low and my people live in comfort. The girl seemed to like seeing my children bubbling with energy around every corner; they are free to play here. Yes, she loved me alright, even down to my nagging greylag geese and the relentless drone of the propeller planes that graze the roof of her home.

Winter arrived suddenly that year. A great swarm of snow fell all in one night, covering me to a depth that made it quite difficult for my folk to walk around. I was pleased to see that the girl was delighted; this sort of snow seemed rare to her but it was the coming of a familiar friend to me. The bright snow highlighted the days, but it also made my people realize how short those days had become. Sometimes I am sad when winter arrives and they retreat into their homes, their feet less often stepping my streets. I console myself with the thought that trapped inside their buildings my people are creating great works of art, literature and song. Still, they try to make my outside pleasant, and decorations for the winter festivals are strung from my lampposts and shop fronts.

I believed the girl was enjoying my beautiful winter when I saw her turn to leave. Suitcase in hand, she trundled towards the bus station on the way to the international airport in my sister city Keflavik. Where was she going? Was my wind too cold now; was that smile on her face simply stuck there from the autumn? I asked the Gods to throw a little sharp snow at her. She carried on. Upset and angry, I called on them to blow all the wind and snow from the ocean at her. It raged across the runway and no planes flew. The Weather Gods tried their best for me, to keep her from leaving so soon. She hadn’t yet seen my spring! But my pilots are too talented, and she did escape me in the end. My winter continued in further darkness.

She came back, and I felt like a fool for thinking she wouldn’t. I’d forgotten that people have families and friends they like to spend the dark winters with. But I remembered it when I saw my own people sitting down together, sons and dottirs around a table enjoying the traditions of this land. I was sure that while the girl was away she was enjoying the winter traditions of her own land.

Abashed, I asked the Gods to prepare a bright, cool day for her return. There was that smile again, not pasted on but real and rejuvenated. She seemed happy to see me too. My winter lights stayed up until February, and it was a cheerful time for us both. I believe she even captured the heart of a foreign boy, and they strolled along my shore together, breathing in the coastal sunsets. He taught her how to take pictures of me and I must say I looked good in their photographs.

I am not as cold as many people think and my snow soon turned to slush and filled the streets with wet shoes and cold feet. Spring would soon be coming. Yes my friends, my winters are not so long and arduous. A lone tree grew outside the girl’s window, inhabited by a small black bird. As the snow melted below the tree, buds burst beneath the feet of the little bird, and as suddenly as winter had arrived, it was gone. My folk thrust open their doors and embraced my streets again. The girl too sprang out of her house and re-immersed herself in my experiences. She took a boat to watch the whales, took my best singer’s cavernous voice into her ears and heart, and took her last looks at the monuments of mine she loved the most.

She was leaving again, but this time we both knew she wouldn’t be back for a long time. I saw how she lingered and tried to cement the memories of all my wonders deep inside her heart. An extra long soak in the hot tub, with an indulgent swim in the geothermal swimming pool. An evening spent just sitting by the Viking ship by my harbour and watching the calm water leading to Esja. A careful stroll down my main street, visiting every shop for one last souvenir, as if those objects could keep me alive when she was gone.

I knew she loved me now, and I her, so I let her go. A bright day at the beginning of summer, with a calm coolness only I can deliver, carried her to Keflavik and onto a plane. She looked out on the wide landscape of my great country with solemnity.

Come again girl, and I’ll be waiting. At Keflavik I’ll post a sign for you: Velkomin heim. Welcome home.

Warm fuzzies

Finally! I have a moment to sit and type.

A hectic weekend bred a hectic week, with barely a moment to pause. We went to the Rocky Mountains, to Drumheller and the Royal Tyrell palaeontology museum, then to Canmore and a husky kennel tour, and finally up the Icefields Parkway to walk on a glacier and generally marvel at the mountains. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond out control, I had to drive the whole weekend, and I am a horrible driver, left side of the road or right. So I won't dwell on the weekend.

I've had a couple more articles in the student newspaper, both of which I'm reasonably proud of. The first was a piece about dopamine's role in spatial learning. There was an odd thing about it when it got printed though, as you notice there's a picture of 'cocaine' with the article. The researcher I interviewed was pretty ticked off about it, and emailed me saying that while my article was interesting the picture was inappropriate. I passed it on to my editors and relinquished responsibility. I asked the Ed today what happened about it, and she said she basically told the guy to suck it up. News is a strange place! But still, I was pleased with my article, and even more pleased that it got picked up as a feature sci/tech story on the Canadian University Press newswire - a website that collects the best new stories from student papers across Canada.

The next story was just a lot of fun. A very prestigious dinosaur guy (reportedly one of the models for the lead character in Jurassic Park) who is a professor at the U of A won the Province's top award: the Alberta Order of Excellence. So I just had to interview him and do a sort of profile. He was a lot of fun to interview and so entertaining, especially when there was a photographer with me and he started opening drawers of beautiful fossils right there in his office. Brain cases, jawbones with impressive teeth, a tiny complete hand, it was all incredible. As he looked around his office and into our delighted eyes he grinned and said "Here's the boy that never grew up."

This week I also went to a 'Science Communication Career Explorer', which was basically a lunchtime panel with four people variously involved in science communication. There was an outreach person from Alberta Innovates (mostly health-related), the environment reporter from the Edmonton Journal newspaper, the science communicator for the National Institute of Nanotechnology on campus and finally one of the co-founders of 'Science in Seconds', a web-based blog/video/podcast-athon created by U of A grads. I was most intrigued by the Edmonton Journal lady (not least because I remembered her from my original epiphany; she was part of that first workshop a year ago), and went to have a chat with her afterwards. We were discussing balance in the media, and I was trying to figure out when expressing 'both sides' no longer becomes necessary, in the case of extremely likely science (i.e. nobody would now gives both points of view when discussing a heliocentric solar system, and more recently global warming is increasingly gaining this vantage point). During the panel she was talking about the Alberta Oil Sands (it takes up a lot of her reporting time...), and talked about a feature she did about a native community downstream from the Sands. They have been complaining that the water has been falling, and that it contains pollutants that have caused them to become very ill. I asked her how far away we were then from proclaiming the Oil Sands as universally 'bad' and not paying any lip service to the 'official' standpoint that they are harmless. It appears a long way. I can understand from the point of this community, so far the evidence is just anecdotal, but she said it was partly due to the negligence of the official environmental investigators to conduct proper research.

It seems I have a lot more to learn about the Oil Sands. I also have a lot to learn about where I fit into this whole journalism thing. Impartiality and balance is fine to a point, but often it seems so forced. Well, the ultimate goal is writing my own popular science books, and then at least I would have to answer to no-one (except my critics).

In good news, I met with the Alumni people this week in their offices and discussed a couple of articles. One is a look back at the history of the student newspaper, The Gateway, since it will turn 100 in November. There should be a lot of good little stories in there, talking with old writers and editors and looking into the archives. I also got another assignment from them, quite serendipitously. The Alumni Association is running a trip to Iceland next summer, and they needed someone to write a travel piece about the place. So they needed someone who had spent some time in Iceland... luckily, when I was first contacted by them I sent my Iceland blog piece as an example of my writing, so there I was, the perfect candidate! I will write a travel piece for their magazine, 1500 words and some photos, and I'll get paid $400! It was the warmest, fuzziest feeling too, when, as I was leaving, one of the women said "It's nice for me to work with someone who knows how to write, so I'm excited!"

The warm and fuzzies didn't end there either. I finally got back my mark from that first essay for my writing class. I was very nervous, having not done any academic English for a good many years. But I got B+/A-, which the lecturer said was a very good mark for the first essay (the highest in the class was A-), and was closer to an A- but just less due to a few awkward sentences and grammar errors. Fine, those are things I can work on and fix. What filled me with joy was she said my writing itself was good, engaging and with good detail, but to the point. If I at least have some sort of natural talent, then I'm a lot closer to being a professional, I have a little less work to do, which is good news since I started this whole new career relatively 'late'.

Finally, tonight I went to a talk by Ben Radford, managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. He has also been a paranormal investigator for over 10 years, and gave an engaging talk about how he goes about his investigations. What was novel about his approach was how much he was prepared to engage with paranormal believers, and his mandate was to understand what they are experiencing rather than ridiculing and flat-out debunking. When someone asked him what is the best way to gain converts, his immediate answer was "Not being a dick."

Nobody calls me silly about science

Did I ever tell you that the Edmonton Sun printed my comment about the shoddy climate change article? Well they did, although with a bit of editing, and I missed it actually in print, which means I can't collect it for my clippings book, oh well.

I read a lot of the online comments on my comment (what an age we live in), but decided not to respond. Most of them didn't make a lot of sense anyway... Well, the Edmonton Sun isn't what I'd usually pick up, let's put it that way.

However, in a recent article I wrote for the student newspaper, I couldn't help but comment on a comment! Nobody calls me silly about science and gets away with it...

It seems my Alumni Assoc. article has now been published, though oddly I didn't hear from the Assoc. itself, and no mention of pay... ahh.... http://www.alumni.ualberta.ca/StayConnected/Etrail/ResearchSpotlight9

My feelings about the stuffiness of news writing and how I'd love to delve deeper have been strengthened by the recent viral spoof-science-article and its follow-up. It's a long follow-up, all well-worth reading, but I especially recommend the section 'Five ways to improve science journalism'. My favourite bits:

"Challenge and analyse. If you can free some of your journalists from the rat race of inane reporting on stuff that everyone else has already covered, then maybe you can use those people to do something more worthwhile, something that adds real value: proper analysis and insight. Let those people cover less, in more depth.

Nurture talent. If you have talented writers, then nurture them and allow them to experiment with the form. If you're lacking a decent and diverse pool of talent, then leverage the community of fantastic science writers working in the blogosphere."

Um, is anybody out there? I want this to be me. Friends, don't rest nagging until this is me!

Finally, a non-science writing finish. I promised I'd post the final draft of my non-fiction writing class essay about a person, so here it is. I like some parts of it, but I know it could be better. Skills will sharpen. Enjoy!

__________

W i l l

Will’s blue eyes bulged.

“Sixty-four!” he exclaimed.

“Yup,” I said, filling in the blanks of the hangman game we were playing, “you got it. It’s my lucky number.”

“But, but,” spluttered Will, “that’s my lucky number!”

I think that’s how we saw our relationship in the beginning: as some kind of magical destiny. More than just coincidence and similar interests, we saw our coming together as an alignment of the planets. Will was the boy-next-door, although we didn’t get to know each other until we were sixteen. His house was full of music, disorder and activity, much like the mind that lay snuggled beneath his fleece of curly brown hair. Hugging him in the clear bright nights of our youth, I could wrap my arms around his skinny waist so that the tips of my fingers cupped my elbows.

Will loved me with all his energy. He wrote letters to me and songs for me. When he had the choice between answering his cell and kissing me, he threw his phone away. He spent time making me feel like the only girl in the world, his angel standing alone in a beam of sunlight. Once, after a heavy night of drinking, I found he’d drawn a picture of me as the heroine of The Flaming Lips’ song “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”, assuring the world that I wouldn’t let those evil robots defeat him.

Our formative fairytale didn’t last long though; the pitfalls of teenage dating caught up with us and other relationships bled into our tapestry. Our threads were interwoven with those of new friends and lovers, but Will never changed, and eventually we grew back together. We were grown-ups now, but the sense of celestial destiny hadn’t waned for either of us.

We both moved to Bristol for university and Will’s creative personality thrived there, among friends who encouraged his quirky sense of humour and placed him centre stage. He grew more self-assured with every play, with each comedy slot and whenever surrounded by all of his friends that played music with him for hours. He no longer needed me to make him feel like he was worth something. Together, alone, we were happy but apart we belonged to different worlds.

On my twentieth birthday, I held a barbeque in the happy post-exam haze of June. All my friends came and many of Will’s as well. It happened to be the finale of Big Brother and many of my guests wanted to watch it. I was happy to let people enjoy themselves however they wanted to, and we crammed into the living room of the house I shared with three others. Will and his friends hung around on the stairs just outside, apart from the party. They convinced him that watching Big Brother was a far too plebeian thing to do, and not how a birthday should be celebrated. I know this because he barged into the room and announced this to all of my bemused friends as he switched off the TV. I was mad that he couldn’t see that it was my birthday and I didn’t care what his arty friends thought.

“Will!” I snarled. He faltered. Everyone stared. No-one had ever heard a raised voice between us. Will fled and I turned the TV back on.

We spent that summer in separate towns; he stayed in Bristol working and I went back to our hometown. We arranged a romantic weekend in Oxford where we could wander the river banks and gasp as we opened each new drawer of treasures in the Pitt Rivers museum. Pitt Rivers was a 19^th-Century archaeologist and ethnologist, a kindred spirit to Will, who I always thought would have been perfectly at home in The Lost World or as a turn-of-the-century Indiana Jones. The weekend passed blissfully, and as we made ready to depart back to our respective towns I wept and begged him to come to our hometown with me, just for a day or two. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He told me he had a lot of commitments in Bristol, but I knew he didn’t have to work and instead his commitments were to his friends there. I was no longer his Queen of the Nile, his Boudicca conquering the world for him.

After the summer it was time for me to go on the exchange year that was part of my degree program. I left for Iceland at the end of August with Will in my heart but with a deep worry about what the distance would do to us. I thought back to when we lived in Bristol and I’d walked to his work place one evening just to check he was still alive, having not heard from him in a week. Will was always losing his cell phone or forgetting to check his email. Communication of that kind wasn’t his strong point, and now we would be oceans apart.

By November, Will professed he missed me too much and flew to Iceland on a whim to spend a couple of days with me. Most people found it romantic, but while I was happy to see him, it didn’t make up for the days on end I wouldn’t hear from him.

Finally, when I returned to England for Christmas, we came apart at the seams. He told me he realized our relationship couldn’t work at that time. I knew it wouldn’t work at any time.

The last time we met was New Year’s Eve, three years later, at the funeral of a friend we’d known at different stages of his life. He’d committed suicide. We wept side-by-side and our hands found each other’s. As we turned, I looked into his oceanic eyes and saw reflected in them the same sorrowful smile I felt on my lips. Young love had passed, adult love had caused us to slide past each other, but in our long lives ahead we knew we’d always be connected.

__________

Insecurities addressed

I haven't written for a while, but I didn't want to be one of those people who just write something because they haven't for a while and actually have nothing to say.

At the start of the week I submitted my first Alumni Association piece. I focused it on the 'accidental' nature of the discovery, and how science often works that way etc. I got an email back from the editor today saying that although the piece was interesting, it wasn't quite the focus they were going for, it would be better to pique readers' interest if the question was “How will the discovery affect me and my health?” So she wondered if I would be happy if we used my original student newspaper article with a couple of pieces of the new article spliced in.

I understood, but I was frustrated and a little disappointed. I didn't want to write more news; I was hoping I'd get to explore something more. Of course I'm happy to have the experience and such, and will work harder to make future articles to their liking, but it also shapes the kind of writing I want to produce one day.

In the email, the editor said 'Just be sure to keep in mind the questions that most appeal to our readers: “How does this research/discovery affect my health, happiness, family, pocketbook, or understanding of the world?”' And this is the crux of most news writing these days: 'So what?' But I wish I could write more about things that are just...interesting, I love things that are not what people think of usually, for example this issue of how many new discoveries in science are made by 'accident'. The things I love learning about most are concepts or ideas I never thought about before, and this is what I love writing about too. I suppose what I'm saying is really I'd like to be a science writer rather than a science journalist per se, but see journalism as a passage to this. And journalism can be fun too, and can provide opportunities for further scope, such as the Lawrence Krauss article... but news can be so stuffy. I should try the features section of the student paper some day... but I doubt they'd be so interested in my science musings either.

Sometimes it's hard to have depression and to start a new direction. Depression makes a person feel worthless, useless, stupid and a let-down to others in every day life as it is let alone with this pressure of trying to succeed in something you've never tried before. Even if the logical part of my mind knows I'm still learning, and that I have to pitch to the right audience and it will take time to get these things right... it doesn't stop the chemically-imbalanced part having a tantrum.

Well, to cheer myself up I've decided to post here the original version of the article I wrote about Dr Lamb for the Alumni Association, since there shouldn't be any copy-write issues.

__________

How did a cancer researcher end up discovering an amino acid that plays a vital role in the body’s immune response, potentially boosting vulnerable people’s disease-fighting power? It seems a world away from investigating how cell growth can get out of control, leading to cancerous tumours, but for Dr. Richard Lamb the discovery was a happy consequence of routine experiments throwing up extraordinary results. Lamb, an associate professor from the department of oncology at the Cross Cancer Institute, explained that although the route of inquiry he took to discover the role of the amino acid arginine in the immune response was a departure from his normal work, it was the logical response to a discovered question. It had to be solved, at least in part, and Lamb’s lab had the power to solve it.

“There’s different types of scientists; there’s scientists that study one question and go to a very deep level to understand it; and then there’s scientists who are more the problem identifiers/solvers, they go from one problem to the next. I’ve done a bit of both [...] but I prefer the identifying a new problem.”

In this case, while testing the removal of amino acids from normal cells, Lamb found a breakdown in the system that attracts infection-fighting macrophages to the site of infection. The question then became which amino acid was causing this effect? Removing arginine from other biochemical systems was known to block signalling processes, so a set of experiments was designed to test the effect of arginine in the immune response. The results were clear; arginine played a major role, although the exact mechanism is still to be determined. But, reaching this conclusion from a series of experiments branching from unsuccessful investigation into another system was remarkable.

Lamb is enthusiastic about the workings of science, and believes the mantra of science funding bodies should be ‘people, not projects’. Real scientific progress is rarely made within the confines of a set proposal, carried through to the letter to the very end, producing the exact result first aimed for. If this were true, his lab would never have discovered the critical role of arginine, which certainly has profound implications for human health. The potential benefits include the treatment of undernourished people, intensive care patients and even arthritis sufferers, if an excess of arginine is found to cause an overreaction of the immune system.

However, Lamb’s lab will leave these deeper issues to other researchers and return to focusing on its original purpose of working out the mechanism by which cell growth is controlled by a complex pathway of chemical signalling. Normal cell growth is limited, but some part of this pathway breaks down in many cases of cancer, causing runaway growth. There are still many problems to be identified and solved.

“The abnormalities that are found in cancer just present opportunity for basic researchers like me to try and delve deeper into understanding what’s happening normally, to then understand what’s going on in cancer.”

No study is completed by one person though, and on the scientific journey from cancer to immunity Lamb took with him many colleagues in labs across Europe and in particular his post-doctoral fellow, Virginie Mieulet. Mieulet has now moved on to her own lab, and will hopefully continue to investigate the importance of arginine. Any further progress to bring the benefits of arginine to the real world will require collaboration between many experts in a range of fields.

__________

For the writing class this week we work-shopped in groups the second drafts of our essays. The guy I was partnering with last week re-wrote his piece absolutely wonderfully; he really did give a personal insight into his 'relationship' with Mohammed and the result was astounding. I wish I had the right to post his story here, it was truly great. My own story... I think it's ok, it will go through one more draft, then I will probably post it. I think it's an ok start, but I have to branch out and improve for the next assignment. I already have ideas for that.

Analysing writings

The Krauss article is now published, and I must say it contains more Krauss than I imagined it would. In my original version, all the stuff about the physics symposium was first, as I thought that's what they wanted, about the students and all. But maybe it helped that Simon edited this one, and he was nodding a scribbling and lot while sitting next to me in the talk, so I think he was influenced by Krauss' words too. Which is good, but it made me read the article several times to make sure I felt comfortable having my name on the top of it. I figured out a way to resolve this issue though: I imagine that if the editor had tried to claim it as their own, would that be plagiarism of my work? And then when I compare the article side-by-side with my original draft (yes I am that anal) I always find that almost all of it is mine, but it's surprising how much difference ordering makes to a piece.

I also had another piece in the most recent student newspaper, about how long it takes to become self-motivated to exercise. It takes a long time, is the answer, more than six months. Motivation is a problem for me these days, so I'm using my dedication to science to make me exercise instead! Soon I will have to start my daily squats to record the effect on my knee pain. It's quite an intense routine, building up to 250-300 squats in one session. I figure all I have to do is keep telling myself that if I don't do the exercise I will mess up the researcher's experiment, and I can't pretend I did the exercise when I didn't, because that's falsifying data!

I just returned from my second non-fiction writing class, where we were paired up to critique each other's essay first draft. The essay is about a person who has influenced us or we have strong feelings about. The guy I got paired up with couldn't have had a more different essay than mine. I wrote a very personal essay about my relationship with an ex-boyfriend; he wrote about the history and importance of the prophet Mohammed. Neither of us were English students; I an earth scientist (with a tendency to over-explain rather than abstractly hint) and he a history student (which explained the impersonal tone of his essay). I was my typical twitchy self, nervous to offer advice on anyone else's writing, since I was new to this business. But, as usual I blurted it all out anyway. I found his essay impersonal, how was he influenced directly by Mohammed? He told me he made a concious decision (but didn't know if it was necessarily a good one) to not talk about his moments of doubt, and his experiences. I told him directly I wished he would put those things in, for one it would make the piece more relate-able [I can't believe that's not a word!], and secondly it would be so interesting. His essay so far was more about how Mohammed's history relates to the world around him, but I was so intrigued by the prospect of a Muslim (who had grown up in the States) revealing his intimacy with the religion on the page that I tried to encourage him to open up about it. I hope he does for the next draft, it would make a very compelling piece.

Sloppy journalism

The day began well; I went and re-interviewed the amino acids/cancer researcher for the Alumni Association, this time in a pub. We agreed it was a lot nicer than the Cross-Cancer Institute where he works, since it's an integrated research facility and cancer hospital; he told me he once saw a dead body wheeled in front of him in the hallways. I said perhaps it helped remember what you're working for. He agreed to a point, but said it's also hard to concentrate on experiments with 'that sort of thing' always around the next corner.

We paused for a moment then continued chatting, about the article, about Alberta, about science. We talked a lot, which is good, since I haven't exactly decided how to shape the article yet. But it doesn't need to be submitted for a couple of weeks, so I have time to work out the particulars.

I drank two pints of 'pop' with the researcher, having only eaten a bowl of cereal, then foolishly decided I could walk all the way to pick up my package in the middle of industrial Edmonton without lunch. A touch of the shakes later and I found myself in McDonalds, reading a discarded copy of today's Edmonton Sun. Then I came across an article that really got on my nerves. It was the antithesis of everything I believe in regarding integrity in science reporting. The guy actually suggested Googling was a valid way to learn about the current state of climate science. I immediately decided to pen a reply, even if just for my own catharsis. The first draft was a bit 'angry', but hopefully I managed to tone it down :D

Anyway, here is the original article.

And here is my letter to the editor:

Peter Worthington’s article ‘Stormy weather for IPCC’ (20^th September 2010), if full of errors and assumptions, many of which could be refuted with basic research.

A recent report has deemed that the IPCC needs stricter controls to protect the integrity of its reports, but this in no way means the underlying science is called into question. This same conclusion was made by three separate independent reports into the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit email leak; which found absolutely no evidence of misconduct, and again, no change to the strength of the underlying science linking human activities to climate change.

As for the ‘huge sums of money’ pulling climate scientists towards a supposed conspiracy, I encourage him to remember that climate change scientists began with the same basic earth science skills as oil exploration scientists, then let us ask who has more to gain? Climate scientists are not in it for the money.

It seems Worthington has made no effort on his part to do any independent research, and instead to simply regurgitate the assumptions of The Spectator. I’m sorry; he did do some of his own research, he Googled climate change. But if Worthington thinks that the blogosphere is the appropriate place to find out the current state of any science, where people are free to post any supposition they like without peer review, then he is seriously misguided.

Even Worthington’s ‘frivolous aside’ about cow farts shows his complete lack of care for the facts. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas, but much shorter-lived in the atmosphere. Even so, the rising rates of methane from cows are still due to human development; with more of the world eating burgers every day, more farting cows are required to provide them.

I agree that Dr. Pachauris should step down as the head of the IPCC body, but only because he has not been the best figurehead for integrity, not because there is anything wrong with the science of climate change the body portrays.

Finally, if Worthington thinks that we are too inferior to have impact on the planet, perhaps he should have flipped forward a few pages in his own newspaper and read about the gigantic gyre of plastic clogging the Pacific Ocean.

Yours,

Hayley Dunning

My first 'Big Deal'

Goodness, has all this happened in one week?? My journalistic endeavours have gone full speed ahead.

My meeting with the woman from the Alumni Association went exceptionally well, not least because she was a great lady, we chatted away, about writings and everything else, and she surprised me by having a profound love for British comedies, she was even obsessed with The Mighty Boosh! But the meeting ended most satisfactorily; she asked me if I would be willing to write one piece for their newsletter every month, for $100-150 a piece! I tried not to sound too enthusiastic, but it was difficult. Not only does this give me great experience and provide me some great cv fodder, but it gives me more writing freedom. News writing can be so stuffy and formulated, and you just have to report. But for this I will write for the 'Researcher Spotlight' and 'Campus Corner' sections, basically exploring fun stuff about campus, and writing about it from a first person perspective and with a little more flare. I can't wait. My first piece we agreed would be to go back and talk to the amino acids researcher I interviewed for the student newspaper, and talk to him more about how he does science, and how the discovery was an 'accident'.

It seems, however, that there's some weird animosity between the student newspaper and the alumni association. The alumni lady said she chose to contact me on a total whim, because she was looking for a way to involve students, and my article stood out immediately from the others in the paper. It can be a little...juvenile sometimes, but it is a student paper. But it is why I tend to stay in the news section, the editors are much more down to Earth and professional. When I later went to the student paper to talk to them about the logistics of using material I collected for their articles, the editor-in-chief was, uh, pretty derisive about the alumni publication. Could be interesting !

Then, a little later on, I was handed a last-minute assignment from the student paper that someone else pulled out of: to cover the graduate physics association's first symposium. Despite it being their first year, they'd managed to attract a prestigious keynote speaker: renowned physicist and author Dr. Lawrence Krauss. I was to interview the organiser of the event, chat to some of the students and cover the talk. When I called up the organiser to arrange an interview with her, she enthusiastically offered me an interview spot with the man himself the next day. "Uh, sure, that would be great!" I squealed as I put the phone down, ran around the apartment excitedly, than began panicking. This guy is a big deal. I mean, a really big deal, especially to someone like me. The guy is an ambassador for science and reason, critical thinking, and fighting scientific ignorance. My interview skills are definitely not up to this.

I was sure I could think of questions to ask him, both to satisfy the newspaper and my own curiosities, but I wasn't sure how I could ask these questions. I always knew interviewing would be my weak point, and I felt I hadn't really had enough practice yet. See, I'm confident with what I write, but I'm terrible at speaking, I'm an awful mutterer and stutterer!

But I sucked it up (and took a sleeping pill to ensure a steady night's sleep), and prepared my questions to the point of writing them down precisely to minimize stutter. The first port of call was Dr. Krauss' book signing, so I could interview the organiser while she had 10 minutes to spare. She was a delightfully enthusiastic girl, telling me that she was motivated to hold the symposium to spread the joy of physics:

“We love physics; we are passionate about what we do. We don’t do it for the money because we don’t make any, we do it for the pleasure, and we would like to share this with everybody else.”

While I was there, I thought I should take the opportunity to get some books signed. I bought 'Fear of Physics', because, frankly, I've always wanted to know more about string theory and whatnot, but physics has always eluded me, so I thought this would be a good place to start. As I got my books signed I thought I'd try some ad-libbing. He asked me what I was studying, I told him Earth science. I forewarned Dr. Krauss that we'd be meeting again; that I'd be interviewing him later. He said he always liked being interviewed by someone with some scientific knowledge. I immediately blurted out that I was trying to break into the world of science journalism, and he was my first 'Big Deal'. He said he'd try and make it easier for the both of us then.

I smiled nervously. It was perhaps a bit foolish to admit how nervous I was, but it was not that bad, coming from my mumbling mouth.

His schedule was tough that day, so he and his entourage were late for the interview time, and he was obviously a little agitated. I promised to be as quick as possible so he could relax before the big talk. I fluttered. He asked for a moment to drink some water and encouraged me to do the same. I tried to calm myself, then I started the interview.

I asked him the 'student newspaper' things; why did he come to the symposium, was he looking forward to the student poster session, what advice did he have for students? Then I got down to business.

I asked him about the possibility of warp drive. Not with the laws of physics the way they are I'm afraid.

I asked him what he thought of Stephen Hawking's recent assertion (on Larry King Live) that science can explain the universe without the need for a creator, and whether he thought more influential figures like him should speak out. He said that it was nothing new, and that the problem is that anything Hawking says is taken as a 'pronouncement from God (if you'll forgive the pun)', but the problem is his statements are one-liners, that have the ability to provoke thought and conversation, but are not fully communicative.

I said, that at a venue like this, when he talks about non-science, for the majority he is probably preaching to the converted, so how does he go about reaching the people sitting on the fence?

He thought about it for a bit. Then he said he hoped to perhaps raise people's awareness, and provide them with the tools to use in their own discussions.

Lastly, I asked the big one, almost purely for me. How does the media improve its science reporting?

Journalists, he said, need to treat science reporting like they treat other reporting. Be diligent, and don't be afraid to do the research, and most importantly, don't be afraid to make pronouncements when they are warranted. For example, no (credible) scientist would refute the truth of evolution, but most newspapers still have trouble speaking about the subject without fearing of upsetting religious sensitivities.

And that was that. I flopped back to the student newspaper offices in a daze and waited for the deputy news editor to join me for the keynote address (a nice guy called Simon). We headed over and I got out my notebook and voice recorder again. The talk was engaging, more about the blurring of scientific truth, and how we should all find our inner scientist to help us fight the forces of ignorance.

Anyway. I'd like to post more about the talk and such, but er, it's late and my cognitive abilities are waning. I'll be sure to post a link to the article when it's published though, although it doesn't contain enough Krauss as I'd like. A missed opportunity by the paper in my opinion. But! Hopefully I'll meet him again, further in my career, when I'm not such a stutterer.