Skip to main content

Blogs

See What's New in Science

A&S is proud to launch What’s New in Science, a new series designed for science teachers interested in learning more about the most recent discoveries, events, and advances in science today.  The series is held in a casual round table format, with professors from different scientific disciplines and science teachers from Kentucky schools talking among themselves, asking questions, and getting answers about new and emerging knowledge. Each session focuses on a new topic in one of the sciences – there will be four different sessions this spring.

The series kicks off on February 2 with physics and astronomy and a discussion about the Big Bang event, dark energy, and dark matter. Panelists for the first talk include Randal Voss (Department of Biology), Ganpathy Murthy (Department of Physics & Astronomy), Karen Young, (Dunbar High School), John Anthony (Department of Chemistry), Susan Barron (Department of Psychology), and Gene Toth (Lafayette High School). Video of the sessions will also be recorded and uploaded to the A&S website, allowing science teachers across the state to view the discussions and incorporate them into their classes.

Sparc-ing Things Up

I recently got invited to Sparcet by A&S. It's a online reward/recognition social network for the work place. I check into my feed on Sparcet and found other Hive members lighting up the board with awards and compliments. The way it works (from what I can tell) is that anyone can give a "medal" to another working for any amount/quality of good work that they think deserves to be recognized, and it shows up in everyone else's feed. I began to read through all the "sparcets" that were given and couldn't believe it! We've got some awesome people at the Hive.

The Hive is a huge and growing entity. We are physically spread out, and often it's hard to keep track of what everyone else is up to. In this way, Sparcet is a great way to keep in touch with work related activity of others. And my favorite part is that it seems to be based off a simple principle: give credit where credit is due. Sparcet is great for this and demonstrates what a cool work environment the Hive has. 

Kudos to all my fellow Hive members for being awesome!

Cool London Transportation Cool.

Here are some photographs that are themed in someway with London’s transportation. Some are photographs that I took a photograph of inside a museum, or photographs that I took while using their transportation, such as the tube system, walking on the streets, riding double decker buses, and coaches, bridges etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wanna Learn Some Cool Stuff?

I was looking through some Wired Campus articles from The Chronicle of Higher Education, and I found this one about some resources where you can learn computer programming. I have always wanted to learn more about computers, programming, web design, etc. Last Christmas break I learned HTML and CSS, so this year I think I'm going to delve into Python. I just signed up for the free Stanford University online course on Computer Science, and also the one for Cryptography. I'm pretty excited to start learning about these topics. Anyone wanna join me?

Street Performances!

Salut tout le monde! My ever-exciting blog continues with one of my favorite aspects of travelling to and visiting a big city: street performances! In places like London and Paris (and even places like New York and Chicago!,) street performances can be quite excellent. I say, if you enjoy the show, don't hesitate to donate a little and help the musicians along. I'd like to add that, what I find really cool about a lot of street performances that I've seen in Paris, many of them aren't even bothered by the police. Or, sometimes when they are drawing particularly large crowds as some dancers often do, the police will watch with crowd, allowing the performers to finish before they break the crowd up and shoo the performers away. So go! Enjoy the talents that people are sharing with the world!

Photographer Cindy Sherman at the Tate Modern

A museum I visited in London called the Tate Modern had a series of portraits in the “States of Flux” exhibit, created by Cindy Sherman. This series stood out to me among the other pieces of art, and I thought I’d share it with all of you. This work of art is a series of portrait, black and white photographs, in which Cindy Sherman is the subject in each image. However, it seems like the subject of each image are different people. Sherman changes her makeup and facial expression in each portrait so much that each portrait looks like people of different ages and gender.

According to the “cindysherman” website, her biography says, that or a work of art to be considered a portrait, the artist must have intent to portray a specific, actual person. This can be communicated through such techniques as naming a specific person in the title of the work or creating an image in which the physical likeness leads to an emotional individuality unique to a specific person. While these criteria are not the only ways of connoting a portrait, they are just two examples of how Sherman carefully communicates to the viewer that these works are not meant to depict Cindy Sherman the person. By titling each of the photographs "Untitled", as well as numbering them, Sherman depersonalizes the images.

Alright. Okay.

I went to London, England; as some of you may already know.

I’m speaking in past tense, since I was not able to create blogs in London when I was actually there. This is because they are behind America when it comes to most technologies by 2 years approximately, as said from experience of using their Wi-Fi and being told by their advertising agencies.

Anyhow, I studied in the UK so that I could expand my knowledge in global advertising, and purely just to use my passport, finally for the first time in my life. London was the perfect place to go, to be immersed into the world of advertising and business; being home to many award winning advertising agencies such as DDB (having clients such as Volkswagen, Harvey Nichols, Marmite; also claimed to be the start of creative advertising), and McCann Erickson (whom are creating all work for the upcoming Olympics campaign). However, London was not the best place to travel for a first experience of being out of the country, only because it’s really not that different or shocking, aside from the accents and driving on the wrong side of the road.

Applied Statistics Lab Will Foster Collaborative Research, Provide Statistical Support

 

I’d like to point your attention to the newest installment of the Dean’s Channel where I spoke with statistics professors Arne Bathke and Arny Stromberg. In 2011, UK opened its first Applied Statistics Lab (ASL), with the help of the Office of the Vice President for Research, several UK college deans, and infrastructure grants such as the university's recent Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), UK statisticians in the College of Arts & Sciences' Department of Statistics, and the College of Public Health's Department of Biostatistics.

The main objectives of this venture are to provide improved statistical services to groups preparing grant proposals, direct faculty involvement from the Departments of Statistics and Biostatistics for study design and data analysis throughout UK, foster collaborative research between scholars who develop quantitative methodology and those who use such methodology in their work, and to become a resource which may be referenced in institutional support for larger grants, in addition to direct statistical support typically included in such grants.