travel
grrlscientist | June 29, 2009tags: Antarctica, environment, nature, streaming video
This is a video of a trip to Antarctica, including some lovely images of seals, penguins, gulls and other seabirds and breaching humpback whales! [4:48]
Thanks to one of my readers, I learned recently that Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. To select this person, they are asking blog writers to enter a competition where the public votes for whom they think would be best for the job. I am a wonderful candidate for this job as the official blogger for Quark Expeditions because I have…
skookumchick | June 28, 2009I'm in Amsterdam, we're having a great time, I'm totally jet lagged, and I have decided I love Dutch coffee. Thanks for the advice on things to do - my best decision so far was not biking. Here are some photos; I'll try to update them when we next get some cheaper internet time (20 euros in the hotel! Yeeps!) Tomorrow we leave for Delft and the work begins...
grrlscientist | June 26, 2009
Since I have recently developed quite a history of visiting cold and snowy places, often during the winter, I wish to preserve that tradition. I am competing for the opportunity to go to Antarctica in February 2010 -- a dream adventure that I've always wanted to pursue (and almost did pursue when I was an undergraduate researching Fin Whales and Crabeater Seals at the University of Washington). To enter, we must write an essay explaining why we think we are the best choice, and solicit votes from the public. Whomever receives the most votes wins the job. But I am not the only one who thinks…
grrlscientist | June 26, 2009tags: Antarctica, environment, nature, streaming video
As an introduction to my special plea to you, my readers, I want to share this astonishing time-lapse video filmed in Antarctica, in and around McMurdo Station and Scott Base [6:17]
Thanks to one of my readers, I learned recently that Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. To select this person, they are asking blog writers to enter a competition where the public votes for whom they think would be best for the job. Quite honestly, I think I am the best person in the world to act as the…
grrlscientist | June 25, 2009tags: Cambridge University, Garden, Horticulture, Botany, nature, image of the day
Walkway at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
Image: Bob O'Hara, 23 April 2009 [larger view].
According to the photographer, the director led them on a tour of the gardens. He said it was laid out by one of Darwin's mentors to show the variation in the plants. Apparently, the trees were paired up to show morphological variation by Henslow, the man who recommended that Darwin accompany the captain on the Beagle's famous voyage. The director of the gardens was really pleased to have worked this out: it…
grrlscientist | June 25, 2009
Thanks to one of my readers, I learned this morning that Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. To select this person, they are asking blog writers to enter a competition where the public votes for whom they think would be best for the job. Quite honestly, I think I am the best person in the world to act as the official blogger for Quark Expeditions because I have earned essential scientific training and background, I possess intellectual curiosity, and I am a prolific writer of a popular blog. I have proven that I write consistently and…
skookumchick | June 16, 2009Okay, so I have recovered from my visit to Washington, and my first JAM conference. Here are some highlights that are more edited than my lame live-blogging post is. ;-)
I didn't realize how big JAM is -- there were ~1200 people attending, and ADVANCE was only a very very small part. There were people from AGEP, TCUP, GSE, CREST, RDE, HBCU-UP, and LSAMP.
[Acronym dejargoner:
AGEP= Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate
HBCU=Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program
TCUP=Tribal Colleges and Universities Program
LSAMP= Louis Stokes Alliances for…
skookumchick | June 15, 2009At JAM last week, a really useful session was conducted by Nakeina Douglas, an assistant professor in the L Douglass Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth. She also is involved in the Grace E Harris Leadership Institute, and teaches public policy and research methods.
"What was so useful about her talk?" I hear you ask. Well. Let me tell you. She talked to us about how to write those darn annual reports for NSF. Let me share...
Shockingly, the two main objectives of reporting for NSF are accountability and decision usefulness. I know; who would have…
grrlscientist | June 12, 2009tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day
In the pink.
Miniature Rose, Rosa hybrid.
Photographed on Manhattan's Upper West Side
near the corner of West 81st street and Central Park West.
Image: GrrlScientist, 11 June 2009 [larger view].
awild | June 11, 2009
Image by Flickr user traviswilcoxen
Tomorrow morning I leave for a week at the Archbold Biological Station in the scrublands of central Florida. Archbold is a magical place filled with charmingly unique plants and animals. I spent a summer there in 1995; this will be my first visit since then. With any luck I'll return with a pile of new photographs. On the list to shoot: the Florida harvester ant, Platythyrea punctata, and a couple scrub endemics like the graceful Dorymyrmex elegans.
I've pre-scheduled a few posts while I'm away so the blog won't go quiet, but I may be slow…
skookumchick | June 11, 2009Wow, I am terrible at liveblogging. I get too caught up in the conversation to be able to blog it properly. Also, in some rooms, the wireless was spotty. (Blaming my tools.)
I took copious notes during JAM and twittered key points, and will write them up over the next few days. But because of the shooting at the Holocaust Museum yesterday and the police were closing streets, we left the meeting early and abruptly (I didn't say goodbye to folks -- bye, folks!) and took the metro to the airport. Then we got stuck for a while because of weather, and I made it home to West Lafayette about 1…
skookumchick | June 8, 2009I'm sitting in a hotel room in D.C., at the first day of the 2009 Joint Annual Meeting, and I am hoping to liveblog tomorrow's sessions, depending on whether the wifi is any good downstairs.
In addition, I would like to note that I am a total hick, because I was just having some Thai food with some good colleagues, and Tim Geithner got out of an SUV and went to pick up some Chinese food and I became speechless with surprise. Organic Chinese food, as advertised by the sign. Not that I was so surprised at that. And then he go back in his SUV (driven by other people, note) and they drove off…
skookumchick | June 3, 2009I'm heading to Washington DC on Monday for NSF's Joint Annual Meeting (JAM) with our team's poster on our ADVANCE project, and I know Pat of FairerScience will be there, doing her thing about "Why Don't They Listen?". Any other folks out there planning to be at JAM? Perhaps we could have a meet-up? :-) Let me know either by email (alicepawley with Google's mail service) or in the comments...
grrlscientist | May 5, 2009tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day
Still Life, 2.
Photographed on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Image: GrrlScientist, 4 May 2009 [larger view].
grrlscientist | April 26, 2009tags: NYC, Upper East Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day
Median.
83rd and Park Avenue (Upper East Side of Manhattan).
Image: GrrlScientist, 26 April 2009 [larger view].
In the wee hours of Saturday, the temperature was somewhere close to 38 degrees Fahrenheit at my apartment, then, hours later, it reached 88 degrees -- a 50 degree difference! Today, it is predicted to reach 90 degrees in Manhattan, so I had to celebrate by roaming around the Park Avenue median on the Upper East Side, photographing the blossoms.
skookumchick | April 20, 2009I've noticed that a certain grimness has entered my colleagues' and my attitude over the last week or so. It's a "there is only (X) days/weeks left, we just have to finish" attitude, similar to what I anticipate marathon runners experience around about 24 miles or so. A just keep going, don't break down now, you are mortgaging your body with lack of sleep and too much effort, but keep going, you only have a little bit left, and then you can sleep kind of thing. Does that sound familiar?
Well, to try to combat this attitude in myself, my husband and I took ourselves camping this weekend.…
grrlscientist | April 16, 2009tags: Lost, nature, Helsinki, Finland, image of the day
This is the view from the view from the bus stop
where I became temporarily lost, outside Helsinki, Finland.
Image: GrrlScientist, 6 March 2009 [larger view].
grrlscientist | April 12, 2009tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature, image of the day
Blossoms, UWS, Manhattan, NYC.
Image: GrrlScientist, 10 April 2009 [larger view].
grrlscientist | April 10, 2009tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature
Peach Roses, photographed on the UWS, Manhattan, NYC.
Image: GrrlScientist, 10 April 2009 [larger view].
grrlscientist | April 10, 2009tags: NYC, Upper West Side, Manhattan, flowers, nature
Tulip blossom, UWS, Manhattan, NYC.
Image: GrrlScientist, 10 April 2009 [larger view].