science | Introduction post

yvi posting in

Since this community has now existed for over a week and already has over 60 subscribers, how about an introduction thread? I will likely repeat this a few days/weeks after the star of open beta, but it can't hurt to do it now as well.

Anyway, hi, I am your geeky neighborhood moderator/maintainer. You can call me Yvi. I am 25 years old and am just beginning my Master thesis at a German university. I officially study Biology and also have a Bachelor's degree in that, but haven't seen the insides of a lab in a while - I'd probably break everything in sight. Instead, I work at the intersection of Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Biology, spending most of my time looking a sequences and scripting (as shown by the fact that I just created

python...)

My personal interests are a bit wider, though. I am interested in most aspects of Biology (evolutionary, neuro, developmental, etc.) and also very interested in Physics and Astronomy. My non-fiction book shelf is very full :) I also have about two dozen blogs with a scientific content on my Google Reader and spend too much time reading it.

So if you want to, tell us a bit about where you're from, what you are doing, what you are interested in etc.

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: Germany

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cesy

I studied maths at university, focusing mainly on the applied/theoretical physics side, and now I am working in IT.

Edit: I'm also quite keen on space stuff, having been involved with Cambridge University Spaceflight (www.cuspaceflight.co.uk) while I was at uni.

Edited Date: 2009-05-06 03:45 pm (UTC)

From:

majicke

Hi, I'm in Australia. I specialised in Pharmaceutical Science and Chemistry, and am currently managing a QC lab in the pharmaceutical industry.

From:

sqbr

I spent the first 25 years or so of my life OBSESSED with science: after school I did a Pure maths/Computer Science major, then a Pure Maths Phd, and then got a job as a Science Communicator at a science museum aimed at kids.

And then I got kind of sick of science, even the fun stuff, it felt too much like work.

I now wrangle demographic data, which is (a)Specific and un-hard-sciencey enough that I feel able to think about those subjects again and (b)Turning me into the sort of person who corners others at parties to talk about the fascinating properties of medical records :D

EDIT: Oh, and I'm also Australian. Wow, a "random" sampling of four people on the internet and none of us are in America, what are the odds of that? :D

Edited Date: 2009-04-22 09:08 am (UTC)

From:

yvi

EDIT: Oh, and I'm also Australian. Wow, a "random" sampling of four people on the internet and none of us are in America, what are the odds of that? :D

I think that can really only happen at this time of day. It's somewhere around 2-6 a.m. in their time zones right now I suppose - every other time of day, there would be one or two comments from someone from the Americas by now :)

From:

sqbr

Pfft, you and your logic ;)

From:

quoththeravyn

i'm 30, did a PhD in physics, and nowadays seem to be more in astrophysics, though i also think about x-ray detectors and shock waves and stuff. i live in the Boston 'burbs with my wife of, uh, it's been 11 months now! She's a linguistics adjunct or assistant or something at another university in the area.

not only did we come up with a solution to the two body problem, we did it while married to same-sex partners. we're really lucky.

From:

nanila

I'm in awe. The bloke & I have been in different cities since we started seeing each other. He's a chemist, I'm a lapsed chemist working in space physics. Fortunately, we're finally close enough (Cambridge & London, UK) to move in together in the next few months!

I've added you to Subscriber/Access lists. Let me know if you mind either. :-)

From:

quoththeravyn

Cool! Welcome! I'm in The Other Cambridge these days.

A colleague looked at me over his glasses when we announced we were buying a house, and said "You know, I never really understood what entropy is until I owned a house." Ouch. He's right.

From:

shirou

I'm 27 and finishing up my PhD in theoretical physics (I'm defending this summer). I'm most interested in dynamical systems theory, and I've recently become very interested in systems biology. I also have a side interests in gravity, cosmology and stochastic processes.

From:

nanila

Hello, just wanted to say you inspired me to have a look round your journal, as I'm in space physics, and have added you to my subscription list. If this is a problem for you, please let me know.

Good luck with your thesis defense!

From:

hammond

Another Aussie here! I'm 23 and in my final year studying Radiation Therapy. I previously did most of a Medical Radiation Physics degree and although I enjoy physics, I didn't want to spend the rest of my life working in the field, so I switched over to the patient-oriented side of things and haven't looked back.

From:

hkellick

Allo. I'm HK, a civil/environmental engineer. :) Professionally, I'm interested mostly in the movement of chemical substances through natural systems (rivers, lakes, groundwater)

In my own free time, I love Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry and a portion of the Earth Sciences (Volcanoes are cool, Earthquakes are cool, CO2 trapped underneath lakes and coming out in an explosive reaction that kills THOUSANDS is really cool ;) ). Dinosaurs are cool too. ;)

I just signed up to the community because it looks interesting and I'm at least mildly interested in most true sciency stuff.

So, like, hi n stuff! :)

Edited Date: 2009-04-22 12:09 pm (UTC)

From:

cesy

CO2 trapped underneath lakes and coming out in an explosive reaction? That sounds very cool. Can you explain any more, please?

From:

hkellick

It happened in 1986 in Cameroon. Lake Nyos is a lake that's built over a magma chamber. Volcanic gasses such as CO2 built up in the lake bed, supersaturating the water (which, btw, is the same process by which we put CO2 in Cola Beverages and why you do not want to open a can that's just been vigorously shaken!). It typically escaped in.. reasonable quantities until an earthquake hit, suddenly all the C02 that was saturated in the bed and water escaped and a wave of gas moved off, killing thousands. It was a terrible natural disaster. Scientifically, however, it was really cool due to.. just.. the science involved in stratification of the lake, the build up of gas, the supersaturation of CO2.. scientifically, it was really cool. ;)

From:

cesy

So the earthquake opened the shaken cola can?
Yes, scientifically that sounds very cool.
Did the wave of gas kill people by being hot, or by depriving them of oxygen, or what?

From:

hkellick

Depriving them of Oxygen. There was simply not enough O2 to Breathe.

Since the CO2 was in the lake and the lake bed, and not the Magma Pocket itself, it probably wasn't the heat...

From:

heathershaped

Hey, I'm Heather - I work in molecular biology and virology; at the moment I'm studying different properties of HIV DNA; investigating which sequences control what function. I'm working on my Master's degree in Biomedical Science with a focus on biotechnology in my off-time, which really only allows for one class per semester so it'll be a year or two before I'm finished.

I love all sorts of science; though I'm more into life sciences I like environmental science as well. Physical sciences gave me a bit more trouble in college, though I do enjoy the theoretical bits. *g*

From:

reginagiraffe

I thought HIV was a retrovirus (i.e. RNA). No?

From:

heathershaped

It is - but I don't do much with it (the RNA, that is) until I reverse transcribe it into DNA. :D

Edited Date: 2009-05-02 11:06 pm (UTC)

From:

reginagiraffe

aHA! Good to know I'm not completely out of the loop. *g*

From:

floit63

I'm Nicholas, 23. Burnt out of a combined MD/PhD programme due to undiagnosed ADHD and am now at cosmetology school to get my confidence back up. I tend to focus on immunology and virology with a special interest in HIV, but I also like to dabble in pretty much any field.

From:

healingmirth

Hi! I did my undergraduate degree in Geochemistry (with a particular interest in paleoclimatology and the environment) at a science and engineering school about 10 years ago, and then I decided that veer off in a completely different direction from graduate school.

I would have made a horrible academic, because I'd much rather learn a little bit about everything than delve deeply enough into one field to make a career of it, so I'm very much looking forward to what people contribute here!

From:

stellar_dust

I'm 27 and just about to leave a career in orbital mechanics for a fresh start in archaeology. :D I'm really, really excited about it! And I'm interested in pretty much everything related to science.

From:

ladyseishou

I’m an Electrical Engineer with a bent towards the theoretical (which marked me as an oddity among my more practical brethren). I worked for the consumer electronics division of an American company that is now better known for their financial/credit division. Suffice to say, I am now a woman of leisure with many and varied interests.

From:

great idea! hi everybody!

my main interests are neuroscience and psychology. I'm hoping to go into electroneurodiagnostics soon -- EEG and other fun things involving brain electrical activity.

From:

troisroyaumes

I'm in a Ph.D. program in molecular and cell biology in California. I work in a yeast genomics lab.

From:

ex_beautyofgr925

I've sort of already introduced myself - but I'm an environmental scientist, I have a lowly B.S.P.H. in environmental sciences & engineering, and I work for a consulting company on a variety of projects, all of them related to air quality (emissions inventories, permitting, enforcement, regulatory development, etc.)

From:

maryavatar

I'm 37 and I used to be a biochemist working as part of team producing vaccines for livestock. I took a break to have kids, then realised I didn't want to go back to spending my days removing the intestines from parasitic worms, so I went back to college and qualified as a web developer. I'm currently employed by a charity, in charge of building and maintaining their various websites.

I'm hopelessly out of date - science moves so fast - but I like to keep my toes in the water.

From:

ephemerides

I grew up among physical science laboratories, but I ended up in the humanities (might even be classified as religious studies). I know more about old Chinese math and astronomy than what most people would consider the usual sort, so I'm working my way through Smart's Spherical Astronomy to reground myself (or at least be able to make conversation). I do try to keep my hand in on agricultural sciences, seismology and climatology as well. You might say that I tend towards history of science, or science and society.

From:

aquaeri

Wow. Your description of yourself is remarkably close to what I'd have written about myself when I was 25, except that I hadn't heard the word "bioinformatics" yet, and when I did, a few years later, immediately figured out that was what I was doing. Oh, and I'm Australian. And I hadn't heard of python then, I was coding in C, but am a converted pythonista now. And my biological interests include immunology and plant biology in addition to evo, neuro and evo-devo. And I do prefer biology to most other science although I try to keep up.

Okay, there are a few difference between us. But Hi! to a fellow biologist who works in bioinformatics/evolutionary biology and sequence analysis because I'm so much better at it than wet lab work.

From:

yvi

Whee, hi!

Seriously, I suck a labwork. I can do a bit of Microbiology, but plants and animals confse the hell out of me. The group I am working in consists entirely of experimentalists and I always look at them confused at lab meeting and the other way aroudn :)

From:

reginagiraffe

I have a Master's in Microbiology and Immunology. I'm currently in a vaccine research lab, doing mostly enteric (gut) vaccines. I used to be in a cancer immunology lab (which was much more depressing).

But mostly I'm a flow jock. In both places, I ran/run a flow cytometry core facility. It's awesome. *g*

From:

julz

I have a Master's in Geology with an emphasis on Geomechanics and studied cycloids on Europa for my thesis. I currently work for an environmental consulting firm in Michigan as a Geologist.

From:

nanila

Hiya! I did my PhD in physical chemistry, in molecular dynamics, to be exact. Went on to a postdoctoral position at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but was dissatisfied so when the opportunity to move to London cropped up, I quit and took it. I've found my way back to science via space physics, and now work on operations, calibration and archiving for the magnetometer on board the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn.

I also try to spend at least two days a month doing outreach work with high school/secondary school kids. I give lectures, do demonstrations and run practicals for them.

From:

crankyoldman

One of my favorite professors fled from JPL too. XD

And aren't kids just wonderful when it comes to science?

From:

nanila

JPL has a very specific sort of culture, and if you happen not to fit into it, it's really quite miserable. My impression was that the people who work there either seem to leave quickly, within two years, or stay for life.

Yes, the outreach work definitely keeps me going. I'm always pleased to find that most students are willing to pay attention if you're trying to engage them, even if they're not especially interested in science.

From:

crankyoldman

I'm 24 and just finishing up my undergraduate in Aerospace Engineering (yes it's taken a while, I had some Real Life Weirdness). I really love rigid body dynamics and structures, so that's been my main focus (in fact, I'm studying for this Mechanical Engineering Vehicle Dynamics final right now... yes I know I shouldn't be on the internet). I'm also minoring in History, with an emphasis on technological and Russian.

When I'm not in school I work as an educational video game designer. I got hired on because one of my company's big projects is an interactive Mars game and I happened to need a job at the right time. XD It mostly involves me playing around with stuff and explaining math and science to people, playing games, and generating ideas. I also sometimes design curriculum modules for other contracts in the company. Like, engineering-based stuff for junior high and high school kids. My favorite involved designing a vehicle system to take supplies between a planet surface and an orbiting space station...sounds complicated, but I think it worked out well. Can't wait to get back on that, we just got a NASA contract.

My interests are kind of scattered, but the engineer seems to poke up there. I am a costumer/cosplayer, hobby writer (as in I've no illusions about publishing), a bit into video game/anime/movie fandoms, I actually love fashion but in a geeky sense? (hence why I made

nerdpunk). I read a lot of nonfiction, sci-fi (duh), and literature with a capitol L.

It really comes down to; I just like making stuff. XD

So hi! I hope that wasn't too long. I always thought about joining some science groups on LJ, but they were so big and intimidating... maybe on here I'll be less shy. I also hope this wasn't too wordy.