Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! In the giving mood? SciFund and RocketHub have teamed up to raise funding for over 50 diverse science projects. This is a bit like Kiva if you are familiar with microfinancing, except that this is straight giving and not loaning. They also offer rewards for different levels of giving, similar to some other giving sites like Kickstarter.
Projects range from microbiology to conservation to ancient Roman DNA to zombie research. Some of my favorite projects (to which I have donated to) are:
- Communicating science the Beethoven way
- Mathematics of Direct Democracy
- What’s that Weed? (field guide for local urban plants)
- Mapping a Bornean soundscape
These projects have 18 days left to reach their funding goals, so give to these projects while you can!
You may have heard about avian flu, and how migratory birds may be spreading the virus around and potentially allowing for new strains to emerge, but you may not have heard about birds carrying disease causing protozoans.
In this peer-reviewed journal article published by EcoHealth, researchers are able to connect the migration of birds through Europe to the emergence of Trichomonosis in several places, such as southern Fennoscandia. This will be the first time it has been documented that birds are transporting a protozoal disease across regions through migratory patterns!
Read more about it at the EcoHealth Alliance website or at BBC or the Independent.
EcoHealthNet is an awesome program for anyone who is interested in learning more skills to use in the infectious disease research field, or to get involved with some super interesting projects around the work. I was lucky enough to become involved with planning for this program through work, and I also got to participate in our workshop in June (which was held at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD)!
This is the group that was at the workshop, including student participants from the Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Ethiopia, Peru, Spain, USA, Vietnam, as well as lecturers from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, University of Wisconsin, and EcoHealth Alliance (where I work!).
So what does infectious disease research mean? This is a cutting-edge field that brings together ecologists, veterinarians, geographers, medical professionals, policy makers, and more. Participants at the workshop learned about disease mapping/spatial analysis and mathematical disease modeling, and people who went on the research exchange contributed to projects like Nipah virus surveillance in Bangladesh to developing primers for avian influenza viruses in China to wildlife surveillance in Brazil to White Nose Syndrome in the United States
The next opportunity to apply for EcoHealthNet 2012 will be this fall. Applications will be accepted starting in October 2011! Check out the website here: http:// www.ecohealthalliance.org/health/29-ecohealthnet
Have you ever wished that you could glow in the dark? If you have, attempting to imitate marine species by acquiring bioluminescent bacteria is not the way to do it.
A journal article published in Emerging Infectious Diseases details 2 cases of Australians who had soft tissue infections from the Photorhabdus species.
There have been a total of 12 human cases of infection, but there is no clear understanding of how these people got the bacteria, with the only clue being that they somehow got it while taking part in some outdoor activity. It is likely that they got the bacteria from a terrestrial invertebrate (a nematode or arthropod).
I was lucky enough to catch The xx at Summerstage in Central Park last Sunday after being away for a tournament. And by “catch,” I mean I sat/stood outside of the gates in a clearing in the trees and barely was able to see a sliver of stage.
There is something about being outside in semi-nature, enjoying live music, that makes me very very happy. Maybe it is the combination of being in a green, grassy park with the sun shining and breeze blowing, and good aural stimulation that just relaxes the mind and body. It could also be that outdoor concerts are associated with summer, which is a generally happy time of the year. Yay for Vitamin D!
This reminds me of a few things I’ve read in the past few months. First, there were some studies that looked at how consumers spent their money. They split this into 2 categories: material purchases and “experiential” purchases. The researchers found that the happiness that consumers felt from material purchases did not last as long as the happiness that they got from experiential purchases. For example, buying a massage or doing something with friends gives a longer lasting happiness than shopping for clothes or splurging on things.
Considering I didn’t even have to purchase a ticket to The xx’s concert, I’m really glad that I went! It has been good for my mental health this week.
Another good article is this one in the NY Times. It talks about similar ideas and a specific story about a couple who took it upon themselves to get rid of most of their belongings. The woman was able to get it down to 100 personal items, and they were able to move into a smaller apartment and pay off their $30K debt. The couple was also happier with their jobs and life in general because they were able to do more of the things they liked, like being outdoors, volunteering, and spending time with family.
I’m not ready yet to winnow down my belongings that much, but I would like to try to get rid of the possessions that I don’t necessarily need anymore. It is a difficult thing to do, though, but I have managed to clean out some clothes at least once a year. I do, however, find it particularly satisfying to find a use for something that I had been saving for a long time. This might be a different type of happiness. Maybe a happiness from solving some kind of puzzle? A puzzle of how to use randomly sized boxes and containers?
What experiences make you happy?
[Update]
An interesting article on CNN about maximizing spending for happiness
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Adam Bly on science education and scientific literacy [Updated with my response]
August 25, 2010
Features, Science, Society, Some Comments
1 comment
[Originally posted May, 15, 2009]
(This semester our class had the opportunity to have Adam Bly of Seed Media Group as a guest speaker. I asked him his opinion on the role of education in scientific literacy, specifically for the piece I wrote and posted here earlier. The following is the response he sent me. Thanks Adam!)
At the heart of how I feel about science education is the idea that science should be used as a lens through which to look at the world, not just a subject to be taught. And further; science education goes on forever and should be available to everyone.
We live in a world where we now produce more information in a year than in all prior human history combined. Graduating college no longer means you know the essentials of your field. Fields merge and change with new data. Walls between scientific disciplines are torn down. Education must run parallel with any successful pursuit of a profession. We now see universities cater to this new reality. Many universities offer their course material for free. It’s a great model. What the universities can still offer exclusively to their paying students, is valuable access to professors and a network of other students.
But the bigger picture in my view of science education is a scientifically literate nation. That’s the goal. To have a population that understands scientific concepts and processes is more crucial to the progress of our country, than churning out a certain number of scientists and engineers.
In order to translate this ideal to the classrooms, teachers and anyone else in charge of shaping curriculums, must acknowledge science as a prime driving force in society. The teaching of natural sciences should be as actively connected to and engaged in current events and advancements as the social sciences are. Science education needs to be connected to science news.
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