Motherhood: Indecison 2012

By: | May 7, 2012

When my grandma got married, the question of whether to have children wasn’t something that one pondered. If you could have kids, you did. My grandma had eight. Luckily she loves children. When my mom got pregnant at 17, she decided to keep me even though she had to drop out of high school. She never considered other alternatives. Today, of course, women have options — lots of them. And they’re encouraged to think about those options in ways they may not have in the past. In this week leading up to Mother’s Day, the women of LWON take a look at motherhood and the vast number of choices available to us. 

Rock, paper, scissors is a great game for making tough decisions — like who will get off the couch to order takeout. A couple of months ago, I asked my husband if he wanted to play. We were in a bar, and I was tipsy. “Let’s do paper, scissors, rock to decide whether to have a baby,” I said.

My husband wouldn’t play, but he wasn’t surprised at the request. I’ve had babies on the brain for months. You see, I haven’t decided whether I want a child. That wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that I’m 33 years and 7 months old. While my brain leisurely mulls the pros and cons, my womb beeps like a smoke alarm low on batteries. This relentless distress signal has me on edge. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | May 5, 2012

April 30 – May 4

Guest poster Sam McDougle starts the week the only way any week should ever start: with space dinosaurs. Anyway, his post seems to be about space dinosaurs; inside, you find a question about how far scientists should stretch the implications of their research to draw attention to the science (I see what you did there). Many opinions ensue.

Of all the descendants of the dinosaurs, is any as improbable as the hummingbird? They don’t weigh much more than a coin, guest poster Whitney Barlow tells us, but somehow these tiny vagrants undertake jawdropping transcontinental trips that occasionally end at the American Museum of Natural History.

Michelle takes us through the gruesome but fascinating history of mine lighting, in which the definition of “fireman” became “the guy who creeps ahead wrapped in water-soaked clothes and holding a long, flaming stick.” And hopes he doesn’t explode in a giant fireball.

Heather wonders if the world’s most expensive food is worth the extinction of the near-mythical creatures we must kill to get it.

Tom informs us of the existence of a scientific test (no, seriously) called Draw a Scientist. Inevitably, Tom’s scientist drawing turns into a bit of a Rorschach test; are those crocs or leopard print slippers? Oddly angled keyboard or bag of Fritos? And what does all of this mean about my mother?

Extra credit: If I were a statistician, perhaps I too would change my job title to Professional Dragon King Hunter.

Caviar for the Dead

By: | May 4, 2012

Even the dead kept watch. They sat upright in their graves, men and women, and faced the river, waiting, it seemed, for the waters to roil again with massive, steel-grey fish. The sturgeon, barbeled giants with rows of bony scutes down their backs, appeared each spring in Serbia’s Danube Gorge, after battling the current all the way from the Black Sea. The largest of these fish weighed more than a dozen men. The oldest of these Beluga sturgeon survived more than a century. Continue reading →

The Flaming Teapot Dilemma

By: | May 3, 2012

 Earlier this year, during a reporting trip in West Virginia, I happened upon the tiny Watts Museum, a mining-history gallery tucked into West Virginia University’s sprawling Mineral Resources building. Its advertised exhibit, “Defying the Darkness,” detailed the history of mine illumination. Mine illumination? I pictured engineering blueprints and exhibit cases filled with switches and bulbs. I thought about going to the coffee shop instead. I wandered in, though, and after a few minutes realized that to many, mine lighting was — is — a matter of life and death.

Science: The Never Ending Adventure!

By: | May 2, 2012

Who is a scientist? Well, there’s the reality. And that has been nicely documented recently under the #iamscience hashtag on Twitter. (Storify version of its origins here.)

But then there are the perceptions. The preconceptions. The stereotypes. And because scientists are nearly as prone to mirror gazing as journalists are, it’s perhaps no surprise that there’s a robust literature on the public perception of scientists and their work. (Upshot: trustworthy but cold. And maybe a little weird.) Continue reading →

Guest Post: Notes on Planning Ahead

By: | May 1, 2012

It was the first day of spring, and I was on a mission—a fact-checking mission, to be exact. For the past three months, several American Museum of Natural History employees and I had been tracking a Rufous Hummingbird who had lost her way while migrating to Mexico and ended up at the museum, of all places. She’d made our patch of winter-blooming shrubs at the 81st Street entrance her home and had grown into a local celebrity. Some say she’s the first hummer to overwinter in New York. The perfect news hook, I thought, for the first day of spring.

I just had to make sure she was still there. We’d seen the bird regularly the previous week, and as part of the Editorial team, I’d been planning an article for the news blog weeks before that.

But as I approached her favorite spot on my walk to work that morning, I saw white puffs of smoke rise from the shrubs as roaring machines overpowered the shrieks of birds. The throat lump of those environmental destruction moments in FernGully, or Avatar, or The Lorax, or whatever, came. And I panicked.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: More Chemists Should Talk About Space Dinosaurs

By: | April 30, 2012

You may have seen the extensive (and entertaining) press reaction days ago to a recent press release that cited Columbia University chemist Ronald Breslow taking liberties in his paper on the chirality of α-methyl amino acids.  Breslow mentioned “advanced versions of dinosaurs,” who may live “elsewhere in the universe.” Gasp! The kicker? “We would be better off not meeting them.” Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | April 28, 2012

April 23 – April 27

This week, Ann does what put Ann on the map: she tells us about spy organisations and what they like to do in space. And then tells us about the citizen scientists who use binoculars, stopwatches and math to figure out what they’re up to up there.

With the help of a social ecologist marvellously named Peter Ditto, Christie explains why the truth doesn’t always win.

Ginny wonders whether there is a social limit on motherhood that won’t budge despite all the ways biology is being stretched by reproductive technologies.

After insisting that scientists eat, too, Cameron tells us the stories of cooking in the field, which are by turns fascinating (you can bake chocolate chip cookies in a gold pan!) and horrifying (two words: tuna balls).

And Tom introduces us to generation anthropocene, by way of explaining why his science writing students make him proud enough to “justify the outrageous necessity to leave one’s house — showered and presentable, no less — simply to earn a living.”

See you next week!