Category: science

#Scio12 Pt 1: Family Reunion

#Scio12 aka Science Online 2012 is an annual event held in North Carolina that brings together librarians, scientists (all disciplines), students (k-12, ug, & grad) researchers, publishers, non-profits, communicators, authors, journalists, videographers, tech geeks, podcasts, comedians, and anyone else you can think of that is involved with science.? I was fortunate to grab one of about 450 spots to attend this conference for a second year in a row.? For every person who had to cancel and couldn’t attend another two were added to the waiting list.

I met many more people in the online community than I did at #scio11,? the fact that there is a constant community presence online means that you are never without your science family.? If you’re interested in joining in the current hashtags in use are #scio12 and #scio13 (the tag for next year’s conference).? In many ways we are kinda like the science version of the Island of Misfit Toys, if you read the #IAmScience stories (started by Kevin Zelnio) curated on the I Am Science Tumbler (both on twitter and long form on blogs) you’ll see that over 140+ stories have been shared and very few if any of us fill the science stereotypes.? I suspect in part that people who are drawn to Science Online are the misfits, the risk takers, the innovators, the people who never stopped asking why.? If we were square pegs in square holes we’d never be interested in attending a conference built by a community, ran by a community, and based on discussion instead of presentation.?? If you have a chance to attend next year I highly encourage you to try and grab a spot, but even if you can’t you can join the online family of science communicators that is Science Online.

To give you a taste of how diverse the participants on this conference are in every way please check out this fun and quirky music video put together by the smart, talented, and oh so witty @DrBondar

Notice the large number of people in the video, I know about half of them, what other conference video can you say that about?

People don’t usually understand why a science librarian would go to such a conference, here’s why I attend:

It’s the only conference I attend where I get to meet top people in every discipline I work with.? This is incredibly valuable to me, it gives me friends who I can trade advice with, insight into how researchers and students view specific resources, and increases my knowledge of their subject areas so that I can better serve the faculty and students at my school.

There is a huge science librarian contingent. Being part of the Science Online Science Librarians subfamily is a fantastic experience, these are the peers who do what I do, who solve the same problems, deal with the same challenges and many of them are not only subject specialists but also library directors and managers.? We always try and have a group lunch one of the days so that everyone knows what each other look like and then we seek each other out as time permits.? We dish the dirt on our pet projects, we ask for advice, we encourage, and we plot world domination through information dissemination :-)

There is a huge Open Access Open Data contingent, I get to find out what just came out, and what’s in the works from the people who are working on these great projects.? I learn so much in just a few days about which projects are hot, what people think is really great that I’ve never heard of.? There’s so much great stuff out there that you can’t find it all on your own.

Networking.? Everyone who attends is amazing and with this group you never know when a request will come for career advise, peer-review, a speaking engagement, an invited paper or article, or for collaboration.? You may even get to help advise or become part of a new science non-profit or educational group.? But beyond the career benefits it’s simply wonderful to make friends with a group just as obsessed about science and diverse in their interests as you are.

I’ll write more another day on some of the things I learned at Science Online, but for today I’ll leave you with a question.? Who are your communities?? Where do you go for unconditional professional support, guidance, and friendship?

I’m very fortunate to have additional support communities through ALA, ACRL, and ARL.? That might seem like overkill but if we were honest we’d admit, people are rarely truly successful without support.

WoPhy11 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics

WoPhy11 Program Cover read Material Girls and shows a UNL student dressed and posed as Rosie the Riveter against a white background with yellow edge.
WoPhy11 Program Image

Last week I was fortunate to be able to attend about half of WoPhy11. Meeting all the fantastic undergraduate researchers in Physics was a bit intimidating, they’re all so driven and their projects, may of them self-designed, have the potential to impact millions. A friend suggested I blog a few of the sessions that I was able to attend. I was writing rather quickly so you should assume that I’m paraphrasing liberally unless otherwise indicated.

*Disclaimer – I am a physical chemist not a physicist, any mistakes should be attributed to my note taking and not the presenters.

Practical Quantum Mechanics: Semi-Conductor Materials for Mid-Infrared Laser
Linda Olafsen, Professor of Physics, Baylor University (Creates finite quantum wells.)

Important Points:

Researches lasers to defend ourselves from laser weapons.
Quantum Mechanics is very practical!
We want lasers that are on all the time, not pulsing.
We also want devices that we don’t need to cool with liquid nitrogen tanks, currently they’re not very practical to carry around.

Did you know?

Lasers can be used to test breath as an early Asthma detection system.
Lasers could be use to decoy off heat seeking missiles.

Computational Materials Science: Designing Materials from First Principles
Julia E Medvedeva, Professor of Physics, Missouri University of Science and Technology
(Computational physics).

Materials are all around us. We want materials to be: safe, lightweight, efficient, strong, durable, small, and eco-friendly. Using simulations we can study materials and optimize them before we spend thousands of dollars fabricating and testing them. Much of the wok in this field is being done by corporations not academia.

Before we had to start with the composition and atomic arrangement and try to create the physical properties we needed. Now we can start with the physical properties and design materials based on our needs saving time and money on experimentation. We can also model situations which are impossible to create experimentally. Because we can control all of the parameters we can determine whether the driving forces are: charge, spin, or orbital degrees of freedom.

While computational physics is a valuable tool it is important to remember that computer modeling is not a Simulation of Reality, rather an accurate computation of relevant quantities to prove or disprove a theory.

Computers don’t solve problems, People Do!

Timeline of Ab-Initio Modeling

1960s — Bulk Material Calculations
1970s — Defects and Impuraties calculations allow optimization of materials.
1980s — Interfaces, Surfaces, & Thin Layers calculations (diff. properties than bulk materials.)
1990s — Simple Molecules (Fullerenes, clathrates, carbon nanotubes).
2000s — Polymers

Now we can study structural, energetic, electronic, optical and magnetic properties of any element, any bonding situation, periodic structures, and single molecules. These calculations have a high accuracy rate allowing greater variations in system size to be addressed than was previously possible.

Illustration based on lecture slide of How Nanotechnology Connects Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, and Engineering
Illustration based on lecture slide of How Nanotechnology Connects Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, and Engineering

Nanotechnology and Materials Science
Heike Geisler Professor of Nanoscale Science & Engineering, University at Albany- SUNY

Nanotechnology is the fundamental student of materials on the nanoscale measuring 1nm-100nm in one or more dimensions.

Physical and chemical properties are totally different on this scale due to the increased surface to volume ratio. Possible uses include Roll to Roll production of ultra large scale graphene films could be used to make ultra-light and durable laptops.

The illustration is based off of a slide which demonstrated how nanotechnology crosses many disciplinary boundaries. Economics is not an obvious match, but the point was made that the cost, or energy, to achieve a goal is an important factor in determining what nanotechnologies are commercially viable.