Marian Koshland Museum

Today, I had the opportunity to visit the Science Museum of the National Academy of Science (that I previously talked about HERE). AND IT WAS TOTALLY COOL!

Initial Impression: Small museum and only has touch screens.
    I will have to admit: when I see touch screens at a museum, I just want to walk past.  
But then I sat down at one of the exhibits:
     AND IT WAS TOTALLY COOL! One of the exhibits put me in charge of reducing America's CO2 emissions.
     First, I marked which categories were  my "priorities" such as low cost, environment, petroleum independence.... Then I had to figure out which industries would reduce the CO2 while maintaining my priorities.  Basically, I learned that it's going to cost quite a bit of money to revamp our energy policy (well, I guess that's kinda a no-duh).  Also, it made me sad that nuclear energy wasn't an entirely viable option (I am a supporter), but it would be with some money :-)

There was also an interactive involving HIV/AIDS and the pushing to get rid of it.  They had a cool video which talked about the current drugs which stop certain parts of the virus from pushing on.  They even talked about future drugs need to do to create a vaccine.
     Did you know: in 1998, it was estimated that nearly 40% of the people in Botswana had contracted HIV?  And they've been able to reduce that amount with simple prevention techniques! 


This exhibit included talk of prevention: with most viruses/epidemics, one of the best things to do is prevention, not treating the disease! It was an interesting perspective.

Final Impression: the interactive touch screens are probably the best in a museum I have ever seen.  Kids would definitely like this museum...you just need to get past the size of the museum because there is a lot of valuable information that the museum gives.

So if you are in Washington DC, be sure to check out the museum.  It was well worth the $3 (price for students).

Link to the Museum's Website

When you're feeling blue...

There are times where you are just feeling down. It could be related to school, life, work, or maybe nothing! Often your productivity gets shot, but you still gotta push on.  

My Go-To's: 

Coffee: Usually good if my productivity is down, and I need something to get a jump start.  I started drinking coffee lately, and my sad times have definitely decreased. Maybe they should start prescribing coffee for depression...

Saturn Rings/Peachy-O's: Just enough sugar to get me going, and think about how I got to NASA.  You look up at the stars and wonder, "Who am I in this vast universe?".  Just don't eat candy while you are hungry: It can cause major sugar crashes and headaches, which are never good.

Working Out/Dancing: Getting your adrenaline going often helps you to worry about something else.  I love coming back from my modern class feeling better and ready to tackle my homework problems.  

Chilling with Friends: Another diversion technique.  Resist the urge to rant about your classes or he or she.  Just sit around and watch stupid youtube videos.  Or watch a movie, and make fun of the characters.  Do something to get your mind off of school.

Sleeping can be evil sometimes.  I'll lie awake, worried about everything. And in the morning I'll feel even more anxious than I am now.

What are you favorite stress relievers/pick-me-ups?

Reason for Blogging

Hi Everyone,

So I've read some of the comments to my blog, and I read that some of the male readers indicate that it isn't purely "female." 

You're right! The purpose of this blog is to do a few things

• Show that female STEM students exist and are active in the STEM community
• Encourage other females about STEM fields
• Give light to fun STEM topics (whether they be feminine or not) 

The purpose of this is not to exclude anyone.  In fact, I often promote this blog to my male colleagues as well as my social science friends.   

I encourage you to leave comments regarding material, including ways we can improve this blog to fit your needs.  Also, I encourage you to email me if you would personally like to contribute.

I hope you enjoy the posts we've had so far, and thank you for reading! 

Serena C.

New York City, New York

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

It got me thinking about the huge marketing advantage that Macy's have. The city was absolutely packed.  Basically, if you can sell the idea of Christmas, you can make some money.

What are the balloons filled with? Helium! After my internship this past summer, I was able to know the politics with Helium.  Basically, the US has the largest reserves of Helium in the world, and the world is running out....quickly.  You're soon gunna see all of the Helium skyrocket in price! 

So what's going to happen with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? Three things can happen:

• Macy's will pay for the expensive helium
• Macy's will get rid of the balloons (this would greatly damage their image and marketing power)
• Macy's will fill the balloons with Hydrogen...which we all know....is flammable (this may also destroy some of the supporters of the parade).

According to Wikipedia (I know...what a source.), 2006 saw a helium price increase.  So the organizers decided to reduce the amount of balloons.  Still...I don't know what they are going to do...

Dalai Lama

I love this posting! It's the Dalai Lama's 18 Rules for Living. I hope you enjoy it.

Making Things Look Pretty: Formatting

One of my favorite things about the computer is the ability to format. As you can tell, I love italics.  It makes everything stand out. :-)


Formatting becomes very important in many instances: papers, posters, presentations, resumes, this blog...So here are my tips!

Pictures are worth 1000 words.  I don't care if you are an English major or not: people do not like to read. Use your text to describe what your pictures are saying.

Make your own graphics! You don't need to be a graphic artist to do this.  Paint is awesome...and the new Windows 7 Paint is even awesome-r.  Take advantage of the zoom tool. If you hate Paint: use MS Word/Powerpoint and create a "New Drawing Canvas".  If you are able to, maybe take a look at Photoshop; my last lab had the program, and I started to use it for precise calculations on our drawings.

Empty space is your best friend.  Empty space is a sign of cleanliness, organization, and intelligence.  Imagine Einsteins's home office. Is it a mess? Or is it pristine with books surrounding a big comfy chair with a simple lamp in the middle?  Intelligent people are seen as clean (whether or not they are).  So keep your publications and works of art clean.

Use fonts, bold, italics, and underlines.  It helps to make things standout, similar to what I do here.

And for your papers/publications: Use EndNote! A few graduate students told me about this program.  I initially blew off their advice until I had about 20 sources.  You usually can download the program for free from your school's website.  However, it takes a little getting used to.  After a full semester of writing about 6 extensive papers with figures, tables, and (not to mention) sources, the program was able to organize them very neatly.  You can also look up a book/journals ISBN from the Library of Congress, and it'll format the Bibliography for you! Final tip: look up a journal using Google; usually you'll be able to download the citation STRAIGHT into your EndNote Library...talk about a time saver.


Hope this helped :-) If you have any questions, feel free to write in the comments or email me.

Poster Sessions vs. Presentations

I don’t know if any of you have ever done a poster session before at a conference or anything similar, but it’s one of my favorite kinds of presentations. Today the NASA interns had their "End of the internship poster session" where we basically just talked about all of the research we did through the entire semester.

What's a poster session you may ask? Well it's just like you would imagine: a bunch of interns with their posters standing around ready to answer any question that the invited guests ask. You don't have to prepare flashcards, or a speech, or really anything. All you have to do is know your project inside and out (which sometimes is not an easy task).

Personally though, I like powerpoint presentations better because you can anticipate what questions you will be asked easier. Those take more practice to actually engage people into listening to you ranting about your research for a while, but once you get down a routine it's a snap. Powerpoints eliminate the awkwardness that's at a poster session when someone is just reading your research and you're standing there smiling and thinking "do I look like an absolute crazy person smiling and standing here??".

So what's the moral of this post? Basically presentations are scary until you get used to them no matter what the format. If you're going to be in a field where research is the main goal, then you need to know how to engage people and persuade them into thinking your topic is the most interesting stuff they've ever seen. How do you do this? PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE! My mentor last year told me to make as many presentations as I can whether it be at school, during school clubs, ResLife, at work or wherever. Just practice explaining your point and getting people interested. Today was my 3rd poster session and my 4th one will be in April. Of course I feel more comfortable during Powerpoints because I've been doing them since freshman year of high school. But see? That's because I've been practicing.

Well that's my advice for tonight. Now I have to get to bed so I can write a boring paper that's due next Friday. Wish me luck!