Steam-rolling along

I've been extremely busy lately, which is to say I took on too much to do this semester. But I'd rather be busy and a little stressed than doing nothing and depressed.

So I keep gathering a list of stuff I should post about, but the longer the list gets, the less I feel I have the appropriate time to sit down and bash them out.

Here are the big things.

• I got into the UBC graduate school of journalism.
• The science writing class I'm taking with New Scientist writer Bob Holmes is awesome, and Bob has already said we should have a chat about where to go next in my career, mentioning New Scientist internships (which would probably be the coolest thing ever, but will have to be next summer).
• I'm giving a talk at local critical thinking event Logicon about science journalism which should be awesome enough in itself, but lately it's been getting some astounding publicity, so my talk had better be good!

The semester will finally come to an end in a couple of weeks, and I'm hoping to let a lot of this sink in, and to try and keep up journaling. My boyfriend just asked me if I ever kept a journal, and, well, I've tried a few, but never seem to able to keep them up. But, if I want to be a writer I should practice prolifically.

But, for now, before another busy day tomorrow, I wanted to post my most recent non-fiction writing class essay, which I got back today. I got an A+, I finally cracked it.

_______________________________________

Directions

Depart.

At the end of the road turn left. Pass Budmouth Technology College on the left. Beware of teenagers crossing the road in droves - remember hiding at your friend’s house at lunchtimes, to avoid that boy and that girl. Feel the pressure of growing up like anyone else, and assume it’s normal. Say goodbye to the sea at night, excited to leave your hometown.

At the roundabout, take the third exit. Enter Bristol city centre. Heavy traffic ahead – expect delays. Stress about exams, stress about friends and boyfriends, stress about course choices. Go straight on. Go out of your mind at exam time, fail to stop for sleep, leave the lights on all night and run down the battery. Can’t tell dreams from waking life anymore; fail to follow the instructions in an exam, cry in front of the teacher, panic about the future.

Follow the detour North and park in Reykjavik harbour. For one year live in bliss, happiness, adventure and enjoyment. Learn the rules of a different road, the only one, which loops around the island and always takes you back to the city you love. Know that life can be good, but know that this can’t last. At planned end of diversion, re-enter Bristol city centre and join rush hour traffic. City pollution high – forget how easy it was to fill your lungs on last year’s route and struggle for breath.

Exit the highway with a first class degree and growing uncertainty. Recalculate route?

! Remember to drive on the right !

Pass Helsinki and follow the road round to Kasityolaiskatu and your boyfriend’s apartment. Confined space. Weather conditions worsening, put fog lights on. Driving range limited – spend six months standing on the streets in the morning darkness handing out free papers to the solemn population. Round the market square and park next to the mall. Sit on the steps of Kop Kolmio and hold back the tears, sucking them back up into your frozen brain. Wrestle with the language, fight with your boyfriend, grapple with employment. Ask locals for directions – end up more lost.

Take the road to the shore, then take the ferry ahead. Spend two months at the shipyard cleaning the largest passenger ship in the world as it gets pieced together, growing to sixteen decks of filthy cabins. Battle the bully boss who doesn’t pay foreigners properly. Ignore the dirty mess builders leave in the toilets, ignore the dirty grins of Eastern Europeans, try to ignore the shocked faces when they learn you’re from rich and powerful Britain.

Drive to the shore in winter when the water is frozen over – the sea is now full of obstacles. Know that you are dangerously adrift, but trust the directions – you will be back on the road soon.

New directions plotted, via hometown. School zone ahead. Slow down. Remember that, contrary to many people in your situation, you had a happy childhood. Try to drag those feelings back over your tired body – feels more like fingernails scraping. Remember that, unlike people not in your situation, good memories only make you feel worse, now that you’re no longer living them.

! Remember to drive on the right !

Cross the ocean and exit the highway. Bear right, pass the West Edmonton Mall on the left and pass the first couple of weeks. A new route is proposed. Go all the way around the roundabout – stay in the right lane. At -40⁰C petrol and motor oil start to freeze. Car splutters and stutters in the morning, ice encroaching on the windshield. Drive through a snowstorm without snow shovel, without space blanket, without emergency first aid.

Speed camera ahead. Get irate at boyfriend. Threaten him with violence, threaten him with marriage. He’s 9612 kilometres from your location, but manage to push him away. You’ve gone too far. If possible, please make a U-turn.

Traffic light ahead. Caught speeding through red light – hand yourself in to the authorities. Test positive for depression. Take the next pill.

Toll road. Try to make up all the sleep lost on past journeys by stretching your time in bed, apathetic. Fear the outside, avoid your lab mates, face research with panic, and exposure with despair. Decide to inform your instructor of your violation.

Merge onto the motorway. Keep in mind your red-light run-through that could so easily have been a crash. Accelerate slowly, cautiously, heading for a new destination: decide to take the alternative route you thought you had passed. Take some wrong turns. Find friends and mentors that help you figure out why you keep going awry.

Tired drivers are dangerous drivers: pull over and take a break. Can’t sleep at night but sleep into the afternoon. Doctor prescribes sleeping pills. Take the next pill. After ten months, fall asleep at the wheel and make an emergency stop. Tell the doctor you want to change pills, not take more. Take the next pill.

Avoid congestion charge zone. Avoid thesis work, avoid self-righteous lab mates, avoid supervisor around campus, only do the things that keep you going, that get you up in the morning. Know that you will eventually have to travel via thesis, but take the scenic route.

You have not yet reached your destination. At the end of the road turn West, towards a different ocean.

Dinosaur news

The problem with depression is not being miserable as such, but that emotions are never constant.

I can spend an hour, a day, a few days in energy and motivation and a state of excitement. But it's never constant. It's a real shame when feeling good is tainted by the impeding downturn.

The point of this is that I haven't written for a while because I've done a lot of very exciting things, but whenever I have any time to sit down and write about them I'm sapped of all energy and joy. Luckily, this evening I'm sustaining myself with the thrill of anticipation - next week is 'reading week' - essentially a week off.

I'll start with journalism updates since they're always the most fun. Also, I haven't seen my supervisor since December and done very little thesis work, although I am giving a talk a the Arctic Workshop in a couple of weeks, which is scary but exciting...

I am extremely pleased with how my Iceland feature turned out in New Trail:

http://www.newtrail.ualberta.ca/Winter2011/Features/Features%20Current/IcelandCometh.aspx

(If you clock on the image of the magazine cover on the left you can view the article in the mag, where it looks just beautiful).

I never got it back for edits and they actually changed very little of it, which I take as a huge compliment, although I always find writing about Iceland fairly easy !

For The Gateway it has become a bit of a running joke that this semester I have been writing almost exclusively dinosaur (or fossil) news. Here's a sampling:

University reveals fossilized fish skull at Paleontology Museum

New species of flying reptile found

Antarctic expedition unearths rare fossils

Dino lab volunteers get their hands dirty cleaning fossils

However, by far my favourite article I wrote was this one:

Dinosaurs may have survived longer than previously thought

Not only was it the most revolutionary and important thing I covered, I feel it's my best work so far. Finally, I felt I had the chance to do with science journalism what I've really want to do. Part of the reason I think I managed to do it with this subject is because I have a relatively deeper understanding of this particular topic (that is, relative and absolute dating techniques). I managed to get in some things most science articles don't cover: simple error on a number ("yields a date of only 63.9 – 65.7 million years ago" rather than just stating the 700,000 year average that most articles have), uncertainty in an emerging method ("Heaman acknowledged that because it is so new, it will no doubt be met with some uncertainty") the need for further research, that one result is not conclusive ("Our first strategy will be to go back to this site and look at a couple of other dinosaur bones") and how the community will greet the result ("The result of at least one individual outliving the traditional extinction of the dinosaurs will fuel research, as other scientists seek to use the technique to support or oppose the new idea").

After I interviewed the guy he told me that he was next being interviewed by the local CBC news in his lab, and invited me to hang around. I accepted with gusto. It turned out to be extremely interesting, not only did I get to hear more about the technique, I met some interesting characters. The CBC interviewer and her cameraman were shown in by a guy who works as a science communicator for the university. This was one fascinating guy. He had worked making documentaries for Discovery and National Geographic for a number of years, and now wrote a lot of the University's sci and tech Express News, the first press releases. These thigns alone were captivating enough, but as we stood in the background watching the CBC woman hopelessly try to understand what Heaman was saying, we shared opinions about the nature of science journalism and how much of a shame it was this story and a million other worthy ones like it would just be 2-minute snippets packaged up and simplified for a 'popular' audience.

To top it all off, I got this email from Heaman after the story came out:

Hi Hayley, I had a chance to look at the article you prepared for Gateway last night and just wanted to commend you for a great job. This is the most accurate report on our study so far. Larry.

Perfect.

My writing class has been hit and miss. I got my grade back for the last essay I posted here and although it was still 'good', my teacher's comments made me shrink and cringe. She said I belittled the journalist too much, and it made the whole piece too... trite. And she's right. Why did I submit a piece portraying a journalist as dumb and irritating to journalism programs?

The next essay went similarly badly, as my teacher pointed out my whimsy-addiction. Whimsy, fairytale, these are my soft place to fall, my comfort zone. She said to me that she usually doesn't push people to come out of their comfort zone, and won't penalise them for not doing so, but thinks that my writing would be so much better if I managed to write a piece perfectly straight. I took this as a sort of compliment - she thinks I can do it and wants to see me do it. I got an extension on the next essay, to remove the whimsy, and we have already started the last essay, which I am very pleased with. I'll post the final draft in a couple of weeks.

I'm also taking a couple of new classes. I'm taking a class that's anything and everything to do with the Arctic, taught by the very charismatic John England. He is a wonderful fellow that loves Arctic explorers and pauses lectures for tangents on his heroes, philosophies of the Arctic or ideals of learning - that it should be about knowledge rather than facts.

This Tuesday I also started an 8-week evening class titled 'Writing about science'. Although I wasn't sure exactly what this meant, I paid up my $300 a few months ago anyway and waited. It turns out it is exactly what I wanted - basically a science journalism course - taught by Bob Holmes, who writes for New Scientist! Just had one class so far, but I think it's going to be fantastic.

Sections are getting shorter. Attention running low. There must be other things. I have some scribbled notes in my notebook. This is one of the problems with depression - I have these thoughts, then as I walk to university or drift to sleep I start expanding them, thinking about what to research to make them clearer, maybe how I can write them up into larger pieces.... but they all get lost in the dregs of the days.

Here are a few of the scribblings... wonder if they ever turn into anything:

- Why is (are) science (scientists) always seen as the antithesis of "warm and fuzzy" - e.g. homeopathy, where science can prove it's bunkum, but people think it's still good because it's 'holistic' and given by 'caring professionals'.

- Couldn't we just have night-time lights that 'glow', rather than traditional lights that need a constant energy input?

Back in the snow

Well here I am back in Canada, in the -30 degrees and the thigh-deep snow. Yes, it's a cold winter, but it's true that last year was Canada's hottest on record.

I had a truly excellent holiday period visiting Finland and jolly old England. I reconnected with a lot of old friends and lived in little slots of comfortable old lives. And although I was sad to leave I feel energised for this new semester - I'm taking a wonderful class on the Arctic (pretty much anything and everything to do with it), continuing my non-fiction writing class, taking a class specifically in science writing later on and going to a conference in Montreal in March. And then I have more fun work to do with the CFI, and hanging out with friends and my boyfriend will be around for at least 3 months... yes, a lot to keep me busy, which is for the best.

Anyway, although I haven't been posting over the hols I've been mulling over quite a few things.

Does God care about global warming?

A short musing - it seems odd to me somehow that all those fundamentalist Christians are often the most consumerist, truck-driving capitalists. Surely it should be a Christian virtue to care about the Earth? I expressed this to the CFI at a meeting, and got a worrying response from Brent - that things like that don't matter to people who believe we're living in the End Times. That the global climate going a bit crazy is just proof of the coming Armageddon apparently... worrying.

Short memories

I watched a documentary about the Boxing Day tsunami, and the part that made me think was when people were describing how they had no idea what was going on when the sea suddenly went out really far. Around the world today, that situation would probably not happen - there would be enough people that remembered what it means that people would run away instead of standing and staring. But how long would this effect last? There are numerous examples in the past of collective 'forgetting' leading to fresh disasters. How many people live in the path of Vesuvius today, despite it being one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history? For all our mass media, I think we still have pretty short memories.

Is climate change the death of science journalism?

Reading Unscientific America and listening to a special of the (fabulous, locally produced) Skeptically Speaking, I've learned a lot about the history of science journalism. I seems that it has enjoyed the greatest popularity when the science is positive: when we were reaching for the moon or sequencing the human genome. The blame on the decline of science reporting is often placed in the public's lack of interest, but it seems to me that the constant barrage of depressing news about global warming has a hand in it. I'm not saying there shouldn't be reporting on climate change, but perhaps there should be more of a balance with other topics, positive topics.

This thought was furthered when I began reading the latest instalment of The Best American Science and Nature Writing, an excellent annual collection of articles picked each ear by a guest editor. This year the editor is Freeman Dyson, who begrudgingly admits he had to give over two thirds of the volume to Nature writing, since that's 'what's fashionable now'. To me then, it seems that falling back on environmental topics has a degree of laziness - if it's not something truly new and revolutionary then it's just drumming into the public something they're already sick of, and ignoring plenty of other more fascinating, more ground-breaking research discoveries.

The key to beauty?

While reading The Best American Science and Nature Writing on the plane over to the UK I got absorbed in many interesting articles. There was a section dedicated to neurology, and how it's displacing many of the previous theories for the things we do and experience; an article about a guy dedicating himself to researching the causes of strange conditions, things people believe are just 'craziness'. He set about proving that many of them have deep neurological causes, helping us better understand the way our brains work.

But as I read over a fact I'd heard before I started to think. When we see, most of the time there's simply too much information to process all at once, so a lot of what we image is just 'filled in' by our brain, based on what we've seen before. As we banked around London and I stared out at the winking lights, I wondered if that was what made things 'beautiful' - when they contain so much detail we can't fill in that we just have to look and look at them. Why we stare so long at intricate paintings or flowing waterfalls. There's just too much strange and wonderful information. Whimsical, or am I on to something?

The Arctic is a book of untold stories

Finally, my good friend Jess pointed me to an article the local Arctic specialist journalist Ed Struzik had written when he accompanied her and her supervisor John England on their field research this past summer. She expressed surprise at some parts of the article, how Struzik talked about England, and how she was put out he talked about the gruelling food when she insisted they made him pancakes every morning! I guess it added to the bleak picture of Arctic research, but I think pancakes in the northern desert would have made a funnier anecdote !

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.