I Think I Did Something Actually Worthwhile In Science This Week.

This week in “TBDMSCl crystals”

me: can u please study

my brain: but that makes me stressed

me: fine then dont study

my brain: but that makes me stressed

me:

Periodic table showing the cosmogenic origin of each element.

Via APOD

Original source: Wikimedia Commons (Nucleosynthesis periodic table)

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

my graduate school professor

Yes, even in graduate school, we are still being told this

(via misbehavedscientist)

Check out the colors on this one!

The Academy Awards won by scientists

Did you know there is another set of Oscars devoted to the scientific side of movie making?

Two weeks before the televised Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives out awards to the innovators who make blockbusters like “The Martian” or “Mad Max: Fury Road” possible. 

Combining style *AND* brains, the Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony celebrates technological innovations ranging from camera rigs to software systems to inflatable green screens.  

This year’s recipients included Michael John Keesling, who developed the Image Shake, a remote-controlled lens attachment that creates a jerky, hand-held look without shaking the camera. The tool has been used in movies like “Saving Private Ryan” and the Jason Bourne films to create a gritty, “real” aesthetic seen in a lot of contemporary action thrillers.

Brian McLean and Martin Meunier won an award for pioneering the use of rapid prototyping, a process that allows animators to quickly and exponentially produce replacement puppet parts for stop-motion films like “Coraline.”

Past winners of the awards have also included academics. 

UC Santa Barbara’s computer science professor, Theodore Kim, won a technical achievement award for creating an algorithm that helps simulate realistic smoke and fire effects seen in dozens of movies, including “Super 8″ and “Avatar.”

Curious about the science behind these effects? Check out the video below:

Chemist screws up:

Your lungs are now filled with hydrogen cyanide

I have a lot of friends who are premeds, so they definitely aren't all bad. That said, some of them are pretty hard to be in class with. Especially the ones who are SUPER competitive - they dominate office hours and take up the instructor's time with questions that are sometimes only relevant to themselves. One of my TAs was complaining about one of the that argued with him for 30 minutes over half a point. There's a point where it goes past acceptable academic competition.

At the risk of being incredibly whiny, what exactly is everyone's beef with med students? D: I just finished my biology degree with pre-med and I guess I was just surrounded by med students because I do not understand

It’s just exhausting to be in a class you enjoy and are taking because you want to do science and be surrounded by students who are constantly complaining about how much they hate it, and don’t need it, and are only taking it because it’s going to be on the MCAT. Certainly not all pre-meds are like that, but even the 10% who constantly ask questions about if they’re going to get an A and look down at the mere science students kind of ruin it when you have to deal with them in every class.

I will say, a large part of the problem isn’t even pre-med students themselves, it’s the fact that biology departments have to bear the burden of the majority of their students being pre-professional in some capacity, who have completely different needs than pre-doctoral students who want to be biologists. Bio programs end up teaching to the MCAT almost out of necessity, which does a disservice to the students who want to be scientists. 

I know that at my university, I considered switching to bio from chem, but ended up staying in the science and engineering college because the bio college was so focused on pre-professional students that they did a really poor job preparing you to be an actual scientist. Just based on the classes I took for my biochem minor, it was really obvious. I suspect that this is the case at a lot of schools, which sort of compounds the issues and makes pre-doctoral students frustrated with pre-meds, even though it’s not their fault directly.

THE VERGE REVIEW OF ANIMALS, STARRING: TRILOBITES

They were survivors, up until they went extinct.