This is actually going to be a non-astrophysics post. But it is going to be about science, if a little more personal than normal, and in fact, biology related.
First things first, I'm diabetic. Have been for about 13 years now, and for a lot of that time, have had pretty good control over my sugar levels. The times I haven't have been because meds have stopped working, or due to circumstances beyond my control I've had to eat things that do not work well with my body chemistry. Even when controlled, certain foods (rice, wheat bread, etc) will cause my blood sugars to spike up like a spiky thing. So I've learnt, with the aid of recipe books, with the aid of websites like The Glycemic Index what works, what releases carbohydrate slowly into my blood stream, what causes spiky spikes, what I can and cannot eat and how to balance my meals in order to maintain best control. In other words, I treat my diabetes like a science experiment. I figure out what works, read the research to find the "best practice", then put it into motion to help me keep control of this thing. Also, I've learnt that fewer calories + exercise -> body going into starvation mode -> no weight loss.
So imagine my surprise today at the diabetes management class my endo required me to attend. The nutritionist gave the normal advice of "eat less, exercise more", which is true to an extent, but not always. And then we moved onto label reading and carbohydrate counting. Somewhat naïvely, I now realise, I expected a long lecture re complex versus simple carbohydrates, the "carbohydrate" versus "sugars" lines on food labels, and advice that you probably wanted "sugars - dietary fiber" to be less than ~10% of the total carbohydrate load. Basically, foods full of complex carbs, that would be digested slowly, releasing a steady stream of glucose into the bloodstream, that would keep one fuller for longer. I also expected more about glycemic loads and how to put into practice the fact that some foods release carbs faster than others, and are, in many ways, more lethal for one's control than just chugging pure glucose. (There's also the role of acids in slowing glucose uptake, but I figure now, that that's really advanced stuff.)
How wrong was I. Her basic advice was "eat a lot less, count your carbs, but don't actually pay attention to where those carbs are coming from." Oh, she conceded that stuff without added sugar was better, but really, if it didn't have added sugar, it didn't really matter if your 15g of carbs came primarily from sugars or from other sources. I almost headdesked. Repeatedly. I asked about glycemic loads and indices, and was told that "well, its not FDA approved so we can't say that it works." Because research from the rest of the western world doesn't count, obviously. My comments of "these are the regimens that doctors in France and England had me on, and it worked" was met with "well, it could have been the meds". The fact that since I went back onto a low GI diet, I saw immediate improvement didn't sway her. She blithely insisted that it was only the total number of carbs that mattered in a meal, not the source of said carbs. Really lady, because a diabetic having a brownie for lunch and a diabetic having a green leafy salad, with grilled chicken, croutons and some form of multi-grain bread are going to have identical blood sugars 2 hours after lunch.
I can understand being nervous for a totally unproven therapy, but is approved in most near rest of the world, and is a proven way to help diabetics keep blood sugars under control. What I absolutely cannot fathom though is the "all carbs are created equal" line. They're not, at all, and anyone with half an iota of awareness of how their bodies function will tell you this. FFS, they taught us this in high school.
Drugs to control diabetes are all well and good, clinically necessary, and I am thankful for mine as they keep me alive with a very high quality of life. But as is emphasised in the rest of the class, this is a condition that affects one's entire self, and so, it should be treated, IMO, holistically (in the entire body sense of the word). And yes, that includes proper diet, teaching people about proper diets and how different carbohydrate sources do affect you differently. In other words, not all carbohydrates are created equal. And the more that people that realise this and act accordingly, the easier it becomes to control your diabetes.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Sunday, 14 March 2010
The Annual Rite of Writing Observing Proposals
So I've been pretty quiet the past few days, and not because I've lost interest! Instead, I've just been horrendously busy with work, trying to write observing proposals for an impending deadline, since alas, I can't just ask my boss if I can point our space telescope at my favourite objects!
The way it works is like this; there's a finite amount of time available per year for observing, once you've taken into account the time allocated to the people who built the instruments, to calibration and things like that. For Chandra, the one with the impending March 18th deadline, the ratio of available time to people who want to use that time is about 1 to 10, so obviously, there has to be some sort of system to allocate the time. Enter the calls for proposals and the time allocation committees.
Every year, major observatories put out a call for proposals; basically an announcement saying that if you want a chance to use the observatory in the next observing year, you need to get your scientific cases in by such and such a date. So you have to decide what you want to observe, why you want to observe it, why its scientifically interesting, is it doable with the observatory and most importantly, why should the time allocation committee give your proposal time over someone else's? All in 4 pages.
Deadline arrives, proposals are submitted (by category) and collated, and time allocation committees are appointed and convened. These committees are other astronomers in the field, with expertise in the category you're proposing. There's an over-arching time allocation committee that has the final cut, but the proposals themselves are discussed in panels, arranged by category, broadly matching the categories that proposals were submitted to. The members of each panel read all the proposals in their panel, review them, and decide within their specific panel which ones they want to give time to. At the end of those deliberations, the panel chairmen go to the time allocation committee and argue it out as to who gets what time. 90% of the proposals are rejected.
This is the cut-throat peer-review basically -- time, and in the case of a lot of US observatories, grant money is at stake. Sure, you're not allowed to be in the room when a proposal you wrote, or your mates wrote is discussed, but there's still a lot riding on being able to write a decent scientific justification in 4 pages (including your pretty pictures), of being able to persuade a panel that you know your stuff, and of them knowing your reputation in the field.
And its to make sure I make that final cut, and get the time and money, that I've been working like a blue-arsed fly the past few days. Admittedly, actually having energy for a change helps a lot, but it has been days of non-stop writing.... I'm a scientist, not a liberal arts major, Jim! ;)
Monday, 8 March 2010
International Women's Day
So, today is March 8th, International Women's Day, and what better thing to talk about today than the role of women in science and science participation in women. Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer) wrote a very interesting blog post about this last year, and this year commented that not much really had changed. And that's what's prompted this blog post. The comment that not much has changed. Well, really, would we expect things to change in just over a year? Are attitudes just going to do a sudden 180º turn and all of a sudden we'll have women flooding the physical sciences? (I'm going to talk mainly about astronomy, as well, that's what I know about.)
Well, first of all, let me say, progress is being made. Its slow, but there is progress, and you can see said progress almost every year. When I first started college, 12 years ago now, in my class of 120, there were 8 women. A woman wanting to go into science was still seen as a bit odd. I was warned away from certain grad schools because their faculty were known to choose their female grad students on less than enlightened criteria.
True story: when I was in high school, around 1996 choosing my A-Levels and chose physics & mathematics rather English Lit and History, my history teacher, a woman, rather than thinking that I was doing this because I found physics interesting, told me straight to my face that she "knew" I was doing physics because I had the hots for the physics teacher! Yeah, which is why I wanted to make a career out of it.
When I started grad school (in England), my intake of grad students had the largest number of women seen in years. We quadrupled the female grad student population, and doubled the number of women in the department in science roles. There were three of us in that year. My advisor, a woman herself, expected really high standards out of me straight off the bat -- "you're a woman, you have to prove your worth", whilst my faculty advisor, the head of department, still expected high standards, but from everyone and never singled anyone out. When I went to conferences, I would stick out like a sore thumb because I'm a woman. When people asked me what I did for a living and I told them, there'd be surprise and shock that a woman would be in that sort of role. When I went into schools, the boys would be all "no way! Miss, you're really an astrophysicist???!!" Girls would sidle up to me afterwards and tell me how glad they were that they now knew they weren't freaks for wanting to do science. The first residential course I taught was 100% male.
That was almost a decade ago. What about now though? Well, its a new continent, a new set of social mores, but I think the sexism is slowly disappearing. Yes, my department could do with a hell of a lot more women in science roles, but there just isn't that "women cannot do astrophysics" vibe amongst the general population, in my opinion.
Well, first of all, let me say, progress is being made. Its slow, but there is progress, and you can see said progress almost every year. When I first started college, 12 years ago now, in my class of 120, there were 8 women. A woman wanting to go into science was still seen as a bit odd. I was warned away from certain grad schools because their faculty were known to choose their female grad students on less than enlightened criteria.
True story: when I was in high school, around 1996 choosing my A-Levels and chose physics & mathematics rather English Lit and History, my history teacher, a woman, rather than thinking that I was doing this because I found physics interesting, told me straight to my face that she "knew" I was doing physics because I had the hots for the physics teacher! Yeah, which is why I wanted to make a career out of it.
When I started grad school (in England), my intake of grad students had the largest number of women seen in years. We quadrupled the female grad student population, and doubled the number of women in the department in science roles. There were three of us in that year. My advisor, a woman herself, expected really high standards out of me straight off the bat -- "you're a woman, you have to prove your worth", whilst my faculty advisor, the head of department, still expected high standards, but from everyone and never singled anyone out. When I went to conferences, I would stick out like a sore thumb because I'm a woman. When people asked me what I did for a living and I told them, there'd be surprise and shock that a woman would be in that sort of role. When I went into schools, the boys would be all "no way! Miss, you're really an astrophysicist???!!" Girls would sidle up to me afterwards and tell me how glad they were that they now knew they weren't freaks for wanting to do science. The first residential course I taught was 100% male.
That was almost a decade ago. What about now though? Well, its a new continent, a new set of social mores, but I think the sexism is slowly disappearing. Yes, my department could do with a hell of a lot more women in science roles, but there just isn't that "women cannot do astrophysics" vibe amongst the general population, in my opinion.
All our astronomy grad students are female; in my group, all the staff/faculty under 35 are female. Yes, the rest of the department is very very male dominated, as are the senior positions in my own group, but there is a change occurring. When I go to conferences, I have more female peers/near-peers than when I started as a grad student. When I give public talks at the planetarium, the audiences have a lot of women and girls, the girls are genuinely interested and there isn't that same sense of "ZMG! Woman astrophysicist!!!" as I got 10 years ago; its more "ZMG!! astrophysicist!!" ;)
Girls are now seeing science as a viable career choice, but these girls have time before they go to college, before they go to grad school, before they become professional scientists. Yes, there are still problems. especially with my superiors sometimes, and yes it can be tough for a woman in science to be taken 110% seriously, but those problems are disappearing. My peers are totally comfortable with my being a woman, most of the older academics are perfectly fine with it too. A change is happening. Yes, the sexism is still there, there are still glass ceilings, and don't get me started on the whole work-family balance (though ironically I have a better balance here in the USA than I did when working in France!), but its not as prevalent, I don't think.
I suspect that in a decade's time, there will still be issues re gender and science, and that they won't go away overnight, but they won't be as severe. But before we make grand proclamations of "no change", let's give the programs that are in place now that are encouraging our girls to go into science and tech a chance to actually get those girls into science and tech. This won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
I suspect that in a decade's time, there will still be issues re gender and science, and that they won't go away overnight, but they won't be as severe. But before we make grand proclamations of "no change", let's give the programs that are in place now that are encouraging our girls to go into science and tech a chance to actually get those girls into science and tech. This won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
VDM Publishing AKA Lambert Academic Publishing & Co
So, this morning, I woke up to an email from Lambert Academic Publishing, AKA LAP. The writer told me she was researching publishable academic papers at my old grad school and came across my PhD thesis, that she worked for LAP and would I consider cooperating with them towards a worldwide marketed publication of my work. Oh and that I should reply including an email address where I can be contacted.
My first thought was "oh great, another VDM-esque publisher", and then I scrolled to the bottom, where no, it turns out that LAP is just another name for VDM, who manypeople have blogged and talked about already, its been the subject of mainstream newspaper articles (German), and basically, in the words of Victoria Strauss, is nothing but a great big author mill for academics.
All that aside, I'm amused at the lengths these folks go to and just how half-assed they are. I'm in my second job since leaving grad school, and my academic email address has changed twice since that point, and yet they've managed to contact me on my current (not well publicized) email address, and then they ask for a contact email address and offer to publish my thesis. Which, as a matter of fact, has already been published as peer-reviewed journal articles. So, its enough research to get my thesis title and a current email address, but not enough to realize its all already published! D'oh!
My first thought was "oh great, another VDM-esque publisher", and then I scrolled to the bottom, where no, it turns out that LAP is just another name for VDM, who manypeople have blogged and talked about already, its been the subject of mainstream newspaper articles (German), and basically, in the words of Victoria Strauss, is nothing but a great big author mill for academics.
All that aside, I'm amused at the lengths these folks go to and just how half-assed they are. I'm in my second job since leaving grad school, and my academic email address has changed twice since that point, and yet they've managed to contact me on my current (not well publicized) email address, and then they ask for a contact email address and offer to publish my thesis. Which, as a matter of fact, has already been published as peer-reviewed journal articles. So, its enough research to get my thesis title and a current email address, but not enough to realize its all already published! D'oh!
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Rockets, V2s, NASA
So I went to a very interesting talk last week by Dr Michael Neufeld, (Chair of the Space History Division at the Smithsonian) on the role of the Mittelbau-Dora forced labour camps that provided the unskilled labour to produce the parts for and assemble the German V2 rockets. These rockets, of course, after the end of WW2, basically laid the foundation of the US and Russian space programs, and the team responsible for sending man to the moon? German scientists and engineers that developed the V2.
He posed an interesting "challenge" for both the Space & Rocket Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center, both here in Huntsville. Namely that we can no longer pretend that the history of rocketry started in 1949. That we have to admit the role of Mittelbau-Dora and Peenmünde in the development of rocketry, and that distasteful as it may be, we have to acknowledge what exactly went on both at Dora and Peenemünde. And that the scientists and engineers, von Braun et al, were not "clean" in the sense that they had no idea of the forced labour/slave camps, that they knew what was going on, but its not entirely black and white and that there are serious shades of grey in all of this.
Now, I have to agree with him on that level. Except he misses a very major point. Namely that anybody with two braincells to rub together and who has an interest in this sort of thing knows all of this already. Its already out there. The Davidson Space & Rocket Center does have information on this in the exhibits. The books in the gift store discuss this in depth. No one is actually trying to hide anything. As a friend of mine put it, "I'm a liberal arts educated Southern Boy from Decatur. I know of this stuff.
So no one's really hiding it. Yeah, OK, its not being shouted from the rooftops, but does it really need to be? Neufeld's argument is that even if we did shout it from the rooftops, its not going to change anything. That Apollo was long enough ago, that really no one really cares. No one in academia/serious scholarship that is. And yes, 10-15 years ago, I would have agreed that OK, we probably need to be a little more "pro-active" about conveying it to the public.
But now, in the age of the blogosphere? The age of the internet, where everyone and his pet dog has a voice and can amplify it to be heard the loudest, regardless of their credentials? I'm not so convinced. I think there's a real chance of fringe elements, with an agenda, taking hold of this stuff if we shout it too loudly and making a rather big fuss about this all. And well, you can see the nutjob headlines now (courtesy of RF): NASA Born from Nazi Deathcamps" "Congress Calls NASA Administrator to Explain Agency SS Connection." "American Space Program - Jews Die So Americans Could Fly."
We all know what really happened, most people with any awareness of the Apollo program do, why rock the boat and drill a hole in the bottom too?
He posed an interesting "challenge" for both the Space & Rocket Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center, both here in Huntsville. Namely that we can no longer pretend that the history of rocketry started in 1949. That we have to admit the role of Mittelbau-Dora and Peenmünde in the development of rocketry, and that distasteful as it may be, we have to acknowledge what exactly went on both at Dora and Peenemünde. And that the scientists and engineers, von Braun et al, were not "clean" in the sense that they had no idea of the forced labour/slave camps, that they knew what was going on, but its not entirely black and white and that there are serious shades of grey in all of this.
Now, I have to agree with him on that level. Except he misses a very major point. Namely that anybody with two braincells to rub together and who has an interest in this sort of thing knows all of this already. Its already out there. The Davidson Space & Rocket Center does have information on this in the exhibits. The books in the gift store discuss this in depth. No one is actually trying to hide anything. As a friend of mine put it, "I'm a liberal arts educated Southern Boy from Decatur. I know of this stuff.
So no one's really hiding it. Yeah, OK, its not being shouted from the rooftops, but does it really need to be? Neufeld's argument is that even if we did shout it from the rooftops, its not going to change anything. That Apollo was long enough ago, that really no one really cares. No one in academia/serious scholarship that is. And yes, 10-15 years ago, I would have agreed that OK, we probably need to be a little more "pro-active" about conveying it to the public.
But now, in the age of the blogosphere? The age of the internet, where everyone and his pet dog has a voice and can amplify it to be heard the loudest, regardless of their credentials? I'm not so convinced. I think there's a real chance of fringe elements, with an agenda, taking hold of this stuff if we shout it too loudly and making a rather big fuss about this all. And well, you can see the nutjob headlines now (courtesy of RF): NASA Born from Nazi Deathcamps" "Congress Calls NASA Administrator to Explain Agency SS Connection." "American Space Program - Jews Die So Americans Could Fly."
We all know what really happened, most people with any awareness of the Apollo program do, why rock the boat and drill a hole in the bottom too?
Why I'm starting this?
Quite simple really. I mentioned to a friend of mine that there's no way that "a day in the life of a NASA astrophysicist" is really all that interesting. He begged to differ. And so was born "Astronomers do it with heavenly bodies". Cause we do*.
So, what about me then? I'm an astrophysicist/astronomer, originally from Britain, but currently living, working (and getting headaches) in the USA. I use Chandra (in Earth orbit, see where it is right now, by clicking here) and the SZA in California to investigate galaxy clusters and the evolution of our universe, and seem to spend most of my day either reading articles, writing articles, battling with code, or beating my head against the desk thanks to statistics. And sometimes, when I'm really lucky, I get to go to cool places under the guise of "conference", "meeting", or "observing trip". In my spare time (what little there is of it!), I cook, dance, and do a bunch of science outreach stuff with the local astronomical society/planetarium.
I guess this blog's going to be a mixture of "Oooh, looky, cool science", "huh, this is interesting", general musings on the nature of doing science today, and things like that. Together, with, of course, obligatory conference/meeting/observing trip photos.
*If you count "doing it" as "analyzing", that is.
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