Happy weekend! It’s absolutely lovely here in central Virginia, so I’m rather distracted by the nice weather.
Speaking of outdoors… ever wanted to decorate yourself with bugs? I found a lovely beetle-in-acrylic bracelet in a shop in the Albuquerque airport. Then I found the website, where they have lots, lots more! Flowers and beetles and scorpions and more…
Display your inner naturalist 
Still recovering from my New Mexico trip, followed by a successful outreach event with the Girl Scouts at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center. And then struggling to find disk space for the many GBs of data that are coming from our telescope! The fun never ends.
So, in honor of New Mexico, I give you bit of green chile noms…
I’ve been to Owl Bar, and they are really, really good green chile cheeseburgers. However, when Socorro Springs got their own, they were fantastic as well. I ordered green chile on everything last week (though in one instance I had to wuss out because there was TOO much) and came home with green chile beef jerky and green chile pistachios. And some powdered green chile for making dip.
Can you tell?
I
<3
CC Dave77459 on Flickr
Categories: fun
Tagged: food, greenchile, newmexico, travel, videos
So you think you have a niche cornered, right? I figured, how many other loud scientists can there be? But some chick comes along calling herself the “Noisy Developmental Biologist.” Rolls off the tongue… not.
She showed up on one of my favorite podcasts, The Death Panel, which is an insightful romp through the important issues of today. Or, something like that. No actually, you probably shouldn’t play it around children. Or… anyone. I mean, now that they had this name-stealer on the show, why should I support them? Screw those guys.
Anyway, she’s kind of… weird. I mean, I know I can be quirky, but this chick has issues. So maybe you should listen to it and then psychoanalyze her from your armchair. That sounds productive. Not like you have anything better to do.
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No, seriously, the Death Panel is pretty NSFW. And awesome.
I’ve always known William Shatner as that funny older gentleman that was in Star Trek. Then I watched Star Trek: The Original Series and realized that he was quite funny as a young actor as well. I think he can be his own meme.
But on a serious note, he recorded the wake-up-call for the astronauts of STS-133, dedicated to the space shuttle Discovery.
Nah… he still kind of amuses me 
(more…)
Categories: fun · science
Tagged: personal, shatner, star trek, videos
If you love music and astronomy, this is the coolest video you will see all day. If you love music and radio astronomy, this is the coolest video you’ll see all month, at least.
The Japanese rock band ACIDMAN released an album called ALMA late last year. The video for the title track is actually set at the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile! This is one of the biggest, baddest telescopes to be hitting the scene, and is a collaboration among astronomers in the US, Europe, and Japan. As a student of radio astronomy since 2003, I’ve seen the project grow up over the years, and it is going to allow astronomers to probe star formation, early galaxies, and exoplanets with exquisite precision.
And this song is so cool…
Categories: astronomy · fun
Tagged: alma, music, nrao, telescope, videos
Four women. Four Ph.D. projects on hold. One car (minus one bumper). One space shuttle orbiter on its final mission. Memories to inspire for a lifetime.
Thus begins the story of this week’s adventure on Discovery Space.
We dubbed our road trip “Cape Nerd Girls” after my brother posted a Facebook comment asking where in Florida we were headed, then realized, “Oh, you’re going to cape NERD.”
Pictures to follow on Flickr and Youtube… whenever I get them all uploaded and edited.
Categories: fun · science
Tagged: blogs, discovery, space, space shuttle, sts133
My brain decided to take a vacation on account of all the ick happening in my sinuses. So, I bring you, the best character to ever come out of Tiny Toons, via @smith5se:
Taking a tiny break from massive amounts of work, and found this:
How have I never seen that before?! Fantastic.
“A Bit of Fry and Laurie” is on Netflix instant watch. Sweet!
In case you don’t get the reference… check this out:
Categories: fun · skeptic
Tagged: bent spoon, britcom, comedy, geller, parody, psychic, videos
I have to say, I’m a wee bit jealous of my buddy and fellow bellydancer Alla as she travels the WORLD with UVa’s Semester at Sea. Here she is floating on the Amazon, learning about piranha’s first-hand from a tour guide. Luckily, they all escape with their hands intact.
Whenever they get internet, she’s blogging about her travels!
I swear. My office-neighbor Gail finds the best stuff on the internet.
Don’t those exterminating kiddies look so darn happy! WANT. Think I could fit?
(Yeah, I know, the post-a-day thing not going so well. But better than it used to be!)
Categories: fun
Tagged: daleks, Doctor Who, videos
I’m a brand new post-doc in astronomy working as part of the CosmoQuest team. My thesis focused on radio astronomy instrumentation. That means, I got to build cool telescopes that will open up new frontiers in the universe. I also love to teach, both in a classroom setting and informally. I'm happy to talk about the universe with anyone who will listen, and I am skeptically curious about all things.
