Whorl by Whorl, I Am Science

Path through the Winter Garden at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum at N.C. State University (c) 2012 Michele Arduengo.
Walks outside with paper and paint, camera, notebook and pen, or just my thoughts and the setting sun have always been a habit of mine. Consequently, the Art Walk and Tour through the J.C. Raulston Arboretum at North Carolina State University at the Science Online 2012 (SCIO12) Meeting sounded like a delightful way to spend an afternoon. So I packed my camera, some additional watercolors and brushes and wandered the paths of the winter gardens on a cool, damp overcast afternoon along with a troop of other SCIO12 folks who were searching for new ways to communicate science.

Since the SCIO12 meeting, I have followed the #Iamscience discussion with interest. Reading the posts of others made me wonder, how did I become a scientist? When did I become a science writer? Where did the interest start? How did I end up where I am now? Continue reading “Whorl by Whorl, I Am Science”

A Little Science Humor for Lunch

At ScienceOnline 2012, Brian Malow also known as @sciencecomedian performed a short routine during the Saturday lunch. He complained that several jokes floating around the web were not attributed to him so I thought I would share a few I remembered complete with attribution. His sense of humor appealed to me as I was raised in a home rife with puns. Yes, my family can carry on an entire conversation dedicated to a single theme, no music necessary.

Fans of the television show “The Big Bang Theory” are likely to understand this reference: Schrödinger’s cat walked into a bar…or did it?

For chemistry buffs: Helium drifted into a bar. The bartender says “We don’t serve noble gases in this bar.” Helium doesn’t react.

If you enjoy reading about the Large Hadron Collider and the search for a certain particle: A Higgs Boson entered a church. The priest said “We don’t allow your kind in here.” The Higgs Boson replied “Without me, you have no mass.”

Microbiologists may appreciate this one: An infectious disease enters a bar. The bartender says “We don’t serve your kind. You’re Staph.”

More wordplay with particles: A neutron enters a bar. The bartender says “For you, no charge.”