In science, you sometimes find yourself making bold discoveries based on plotting the data just-so. When I was an undergrad, I plotted the rate of RR Lyrae period evolution against metallicity and found a correlation that helped me understand how stars can evolve. It didn’t revolutionize anything, but I did…

On Sunday a delightful box appeared on my doorstep: the Beadle and Grimm’s X Secret Lair. Once upon a time, when I was a baby astrophysics major, we used to sit around a table outside the conference room and work on homework sets together, and when we were done we’d…

Back when I was a professor, I loved to teach freshmen physics, either calc- or algebra-based. Kinematics is totally my jam. Optics is amazing and lets you do magic with things like optical tweezers. And thermo — I would teach thermo with food, and students would leave class understanding why…

Growing up in New England, my school year always started after Labor Day. University taught me that some places think school should start in August, and I never really got used to that. I will always be that September to July kind of person (with August for a reset and…

Reuse, renew, recycle. These are becoming themes for our modern, broken supply chain having, climate crisis experiencing, plastic riddled world. Upcycling of clothes, and repurposing of furniture — these are the way of things. There are days when it feels like a moral obligation to stop any chemicals, gasses…

One of the problems with being an early adopter is sometimes you jump to new platforms, invest your energies and fight to win an audience, and… the platform goes away (I’m looking at you Google+), or people just stop using it (Remember the great blog die off when Google Reader…

Somewhere along the lines, I never quite decided who I want to be when I grow up. Sure, I’m an academic scientist. But at various times and places I’m also a writer, a voice actress, a public speaker, a programmer, and even a barn hand. Amanda Palmer sings that we…

Since 2008 I’ve been telling folks that I work with citizen scientists. That was the in vogue phrase of the moment and supplanted my favorite of “pro-am collaboration”. The change away from pro-am (or professional — amateur) collaboration was made because a lot of folks felt it was demeaning to…

I really want to sit here and write a note about the great conference I’m planning to be at in October (ShePodcasts.com) or the Vegas Wedding I’m going to in November (I’ve never been to a destination wedding), or maybe even about the vacation I’m daring to plan for December…