Animating Molecules with Dr. Janet Iwasa

What if diagrams in biology textbooks were animated and could be viewed from any angle?

 

Dr. Janet Iwasa, Molecular Animator, TED fellow and Assistant Professor in Biochemistry at the University of Utah, explains how she began creating 3D animations and the impact within current medical research. We are also joined by my friend and past guest Dr. Lina Dalberg, associate professor in Biology at WWU. 

 

I hope you enjoy hearing our attempt to describe visuals with enthusiasm. 

 

To view Dr. Iwasa’s animations, visit animationlab.utah.edu

Unforeseen Roadblocks & Helpful Detours: Becoming a Physicist and Mathematician

When I was young, my mom often dropped me off at my grandma’s house on her way to work.  My grandma and I would spend the day watching Stargate SG-1 together (If you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest it but beware, there are ten seasons, several affiliated movies, and additional spin-offs). The show was so engrossing, even at a young age, that it quickly became one of my favorite shows. After watching for some time, I realized that my favorite episodes were the ones that revolved around the scientific conflicts.  Then I realized that of those “science episodes”, the ones that dealt with time dilation, wormhole physics, and other stuff that messed with the very fabric of reality, were the ones that really captured my interest. At some point, I remember thinking to myself “I want to get my PhD in physics and do what Samantha Carter does.  Fast forward to when I started college.

Second-in-command and physicist Lt. Col. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) featured in the center of the group

When I first started college, I knew I wanted to study physics.  So on the first day, I went to the physics department and I declared my major.  Now, the physics coursework, where most courses are only offered once a year, starts with taking introductory physics and calculus at the same time, but I wasn’t able to take calculus when I started.  So I had to take beginning pre-calculus (two classes behind calculus) before anything else. Since I started only part of a year behind in math, by the time I started physics in my sophomore year, I was actually ahead in math (taking multivariable calculus when others were taking beginning calculus).  Even though the hiccup turned out to be a silver lining, this was only the first step in a certainly nonlinear experience.

Jump forward to winter quarter my junior year at WWU, I’m now fully in a love/hate relationship with physics.  I really struggled this quarter (thinking back now, a big chunk of that was probably due to seasonal affective disorder and overloading myself) and ended up not passing Modern Physics, which is only offered once a year.  I knew my dream was to do physics and study the universe, so I decided to persevere and stay the extra year to try again. During that time, since there weren’t any physics classes I could take yet, I decided to also pursue a degree in math.

For a while, this was great!  I was just taking math and only focusing on one thing at a time.  Then winter came around again, and I had to fight the beast that is the never-ending string of dark, cold days in winter-ridden Bellingham.  By now, my original friends, whom I had struggled with the first time, were all in different classes (though we all still hung out outside of class), and I was retaking Modern Physics with mostly new people.  Struggling for the second time, I managed to come out on top.  

Now I’ve graduated with those new people who I now call friends, a B.S. in physics and a B.S. in math, and a minor in astronomy.  I also had the opportunity to conduct original physics research with Dr. Brandon Peden on the theory of ultra-cold molecules. This work actually won me a grant from the physics department to research full-time over this past summer, and the “Best Poster” award for an undergraduate at the recent APS Northwest meeting.  I also got to present on it in Milwaukee at DAMOP. I was also lucky enough, for my whole six-year college career, to have had a steady and necessary job assisting faculty. And now I, obviously, am blogging for Spark Science to help communicate science to the world.  

All in all, I did struggle quite a lot, and it definitely wasn’t easy to justify (both mentally and financially) staying two extra years more than the traditional four-year college experience.  I was very lucky that I had numerous supportive friends, a department and faculty that I knew really cared about me, and a dream that I had the financial support to pursue.  Now that the undergrad chapter of my life has finished, I just want to thank my friends and the faculty of the WWU Physics & Astronomy Department. Even though there are dark times (where sometimes it seems like there’s no light at the end of the never-ending tunnel), you can definitely overcome the unforeseen roadblocks and maybe even find some helpful detours.

  • Nathan Chapman (WWU 2019 Graduate – BS Physics & Math) 

Image credit: Stargate SG-1 TV Review – Plugged In

Science, Music & Studies with Dr. SAMMUS

Music is a science! Many of us see this connection. SAMMUS does. She is a rap artist, producer and at the time of this recording finishing her PhD in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. 

Together we dissect academia (those ivory towers), her path and the music industry. She is now Dr. Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo. We are big fans of everything she has accomplished and excited about everything she will accomplish in the future.

To find out more about SAMMUS visit https://sammusmusic.com/

Image credit: Zoolo Brown

A Frigid, Swirling, Vortex of Doom

Story by Sarah Francis

It’s 8:17 am, and it’s time to go to work. You bundle up in your Midwest-winter attire, complete with two pairs of long underwear, a heavy parka, and a face mask. You shuffle outside to warm up the car, and a rush of cold air nearly knocks you off your feet. The first thing you notice is the cold air in your lungs: your body struggles to warm it up, and you feel out of breath. The next thing you notice is a burning sensation on the tip of your nose, the only part of your body exposed to the bitter cold. After a few seconds, you feel that the hairs inside your nostrils have frozen. You look at the thermometer over your shoulder: it reads -43°F.

This is a photo of me in a very typical Minnesota winter.

This bitter cold is caused by a disruption of the polar vortex: an atmospheric phenomenon where the jet stream shifts, pulling a mass of arctic air down into the Midwestern (and sometimes Eastern) United States. -43°F is very cold. To put this in perspective,  the average temperature at the North Pole in the dead of winter is somewhere around -20°F. At the McMurdo research station in Antarctica, winter temperatures fall to around -18°F. -43°F is a good 20 degrees colder. Even your double-long underwear and winter parka are barely enough for this cold.

 

To me, the term “polar vortex” makes it sound like the Midwest was being consumed into a frigid, swirling, vortex of doom. But the polar vortex is actually a very normal part of the way our atmosphere functions; it just refers to the cold, low-pressure clump of air that hangs out north of 60 degrees latitude (the approximate latitude of Anchorage, Alaska), and spins with the rotation of the Earth (spinning = “vortex”).

Polar Jet Stream – Image modified from NOAA

The “jet stream” is a river of high winds that occurs where this cold arctic air collides with the warmer, mid-latitude air. The jet stream shifts naturally; this is due to the chaotic nature of air swirling around in our atmosphere. The polar vortex tends to be strong in the winter, which means that its rotation is fast, and its location (and thus the location of the jet stream) remains pretty constant. Think of it like a spinning top: when it spins fast, it stays upright and stationary, but a slow-spinning top gets all wibbly-wobbly and moves all over the place. Any sort of uneven warming, or storm event, can cause the jet stream to snake around in the upper-atmosphere. A wibbly-wobbly jet stream in the wintertime can cause the arctic polar vortex to be pulled southwards, bringing apocalyptic cold to the Midwestern United States. (Images from NOAA)

 

The Polar Jet Stream – Image from NOAA

This disruption of the polar vortex is a natural process, but the patterns of how often and when it will happen are still not well-understood. This year, the polar vortex disruption was caused by unusual warming (known as “Sudden Stratospheric Warming”) in Siberia in early January. Some scientists have shown that a warming arctic climate may result in more polar vortex disruptions, paradoxically bringing more unusually cold weather despite overall warming temperatures. However, climate science takes time. Since “climate” is defined as weather patterns averaged over thirty years or more, it takes several decades of information for us to be able to observe changes in climate. Because of this, many others argue that we do not yet have conclusive evidence that climate change is resulting in more polar vortex disruptions.

We do know that during this extreme cold, it’s best to bundle up and stay inside as much as possible. Only five minutes of exposure can result in frostbite, and the most recent polar vortex disruption resulted in school closures, cancelled flights, and left hundreds of homeless folks particularly vulnerable. Several people lost their lives in this record-setting cold.

(Image from ABC News)

But, the good news is, in typical Midwest-nice fashion, some community members really looked out for each other. One woman took it upon herself to rent hotel rooms for people who were stuck out on the street. Thanks to social media, she received enough donations to more than triple the rooms she could provide. Hopefully, the next time the polar vortex arrives in the Midwest, we will be ready, and we will continue to support our community through the bitter cold.

 

The Beauty of Gravitational Waves with Corey Gray

Gravitational Waves are ripples in space, distortions in reality as we know it. Learn more about this ground-breaking physics from Corey Gray, Lead Operator at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Hanford, Washington in this episode.

 

Corey has been featured by NPR–  not only because he was there at the start of LIGO, but also because he is an amazing science communicator. Corey’s mother is also part of an effort to translate LIGO press releases into Blackfoot.

You can follow Corey’s adventures on Twitter @QuantumOfSalsa

A Golden Age of Discovery with Dr. Lauren Esposito

Who wants to pet a scorpion? Our guest does. Dr. Lauren Esposito was a keynote speaker at the national SACNAS convention and spoke with us about how she is only one of a dozen scientists who study scorpions, what are some misconceptions about these creatures and also how she is a founding member of 500 Queer Scientists.

 

 

Special thanks to SACNAS & Dr. Lauren Esposito who was a delight to interview. She is hilarious.

 

Follow Dr. Esposito on twitter @ArachnologyNerd and @500QueerSci

 

Audio from Arachnophobia courtesy of Hollywood Pictures & Amblin Entertainment

 

Photo Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey