After 10 of the most crazy and wonderful days ever, during which I've been crazy sick, in Germany, training for my first rowing race, hosting my dad, falling for a British boy, hurting my ankle, and dealing with winter...
I think I've finished my first essay of graduate school.
The story of the pliosaur fossil and the sociology of the fossil preparator's role in paleontology has been spell-checked, has footnotes and pictures, is under the 5000 word limit (after cutting what felt like 10000 words), and has given me 6 weeks of research joy and heartache... so it must be ready to turn in.
HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope the examiners don't mind my American spelling. :)
I'll have to wake up tomorrow to print it and turn it in and go to the pub with my classmates and THEN I'm going to sleep for next 10 days and try not to worry about the meaning of this incomprehensible website:
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/students/markingmphil.html
Happy Monday!
zzzzzzzz
Sunday, 23 November 2008
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Adventure in social healthcare*
*This entry is of special interest to anyone interested in medicine and anyone who voted Obama in the hope of revolutionizing American healthcare. So that should be everyone reading this blog...
My neighbor convinced me that the British go to the doctor for much less serious illnesses than Americans do. So after 5 days of worsening sore throat and my mother's voice ringing in my head ("Get drugs... whatever it takes, get medicine...") plus a huge and growing curiosity about British healthcare, I called the doctor. When I asked to make an appointment, the receptionist said, "Today or tomorrow?"
Whoa. The only time I've ever heard that from a doctor was when I showed up at a Chicago ER this summer with a broken arm. And that doctor wanted me to choose "tomorrow".
3 hours later, I was in the waiting room. There was no one at the desk, only a computer screen that said "Touch here to sign in." COOL. 10 minutes later, a different screen lit up and flashed my name and a room number. A smiling Irish doctor met me at the door and chatted about the weather. I was at the level of sickness that makes politeness not an option, and I blurted out something like, "I've never been to the doctor outside the U.S., so you'll have to bear with me." He laughed and then chatted about the weather in Chicago. Then he asked when my ancestors had left Ireland (thanks to my super Irish first name) and if I knew my Irish family's last name. Then he chatted about the Donahue clan. I tried to smile and not have it hurt my throat.
Finally he asked what was wrong, and I listed everything very efficiently like a good American patient. He said "awww" and asked how my studies were going. Then he lamented the rise of modern culture that makes it impossible for people to stay in bed and rest when they're sick. He looked in my ears (why?), then down my throat and said thoughtfully, "it's red." Okay.
I waited for him to get the swab and do the 10-minute throat culture that my pediatrician always did to find out if it's a bacterial or viral sore throat. He didn't. When I asked for it, he said that by the time they got the lab results back, I would be better. But he offered to do the test anyway, since "it's no skin off my nose." I guess that's right, he gets paid the same no matter what services he gives me. Imagine that.
After providing me with sympathy, a friendly personality, some social criticism, minimal clinical testing (not even a temperature check!), and a solid 20 minutes of his time, he wrote out a "prescript" for penicillin. I was surprised, since he couldn't know if I had strep throat and penicillin would work without doing a strep test. When I asked if I would get better without the penicillin, he laughed and pointed out that people got sore throats before the 1920s invention of penicillin and survived. Right. Smart ass.
He directed me to the nearest pharmacy ("Are they drug stores in America? Here they're called pharmacies."), with explicit instructions on how to pronounce the owner's name. His directions included how many hedgerows to pass and that it was "just beyond the butcher's." As I left, I asked the receptionist if I needed to do anything like sign out, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Not crazy, just foreign, I wanted to say. It was pretty amazing to walk out of a doctor's office having only given them my name and not my insurance card.
All prescriptions, whether they are for penicillin or chemotherapy, cost 7 pounds 10 pence. I happily forked that over at this charming "chemist" that looks straight out of the 1800s:
And I made sure to pronounce the owner's name right. :)
So in my limited experience, social healthcare = a doctor who listens and wants to be your friend and connect with you culturally (ideally through common ancestry), who doesn't bother to do tests that are not useful, who respects the body's ability to heal itself and instead blames society for sickness, who prescribes medication but advises you on whether or not to bother taking it and leaves the choice to you, and who is part of a community where he knows the pharmacist/"chemist" personally.
This is pretty great, although shocking that my little suburban American pediatrician had more advanced lab capabilities than this clinic.
Come on, America, let's socialize!!
My neighbor convinced me that the British go to the doctor for much less serious illnesses than Americans do. So after 5 days of worsening sore throat and my mother's voice ringing in my head ("Get drugs... whatever it takes, get medicine...") plus a huge and growing curiosity about British healthcare, I called the doctor. When I asked to make an appointment, the receptionist said, "Today or tomorrow?"
Whoa. The only time I've ever heard that from a doctor was when I showed up at a Chicago ER this summer with a broken arm. And that doctor wanted me to choose "tomorrow".
3 hours later, I was in the waiting room. There was no one at the desk, only a computer screen that said "Touch here to sign in." COOL. 10 minutes later, a different screen lit up and flashed my name and a room number. A smiling Irish doctor met me at the door and chatted about the weather. I was at the level of sickness that makes politeness not an option, and I blurted out something like, "I've never been to the doctor outside the U.S., so you'll have to bear with me." He laughed and then chatted about the weather in Chicago. Then he asked when my ancestors had left Ireland (thanks to my super Irish first name) and if I knew my Irish family's last name. Then he chatted about the Donahue clan. I tried to smile and not have it hurt my throat.
Finally he asked what was wrong, and I listed everything very efficiently like a good American patient. He said "awww" and asked how my studies were going. Then he lamented the rise of modern culture that makes it impossible for people to stay in bed and rest when they're sick. He looked in my ears (why?), then down my throat and said thoughtfully, "it's red." Okay.
I waited for him to get the swab and do the 10-minute throat culture that my pediatrician always did to find out if it's a bacterial or viral sore throat. He didn't. When I asked for it, he said that by the time they got the lab results back, I would be better. But he offered to do the test anyway, since "it's no skin off my nose." I guess that's right, he gets paid the same no matter what services he gives me. Imagine that.
After providing me with sympathy, a friendly personality, some social criticism, minimal clinical testing (not even a temperature check!), and a solid 20 minutes of his time, he wrote out a "prescript" for penicillin. I was surprised, since he couldn't know if I had strep throat and penicillin would work without doing a strep test. When I asked if I would get better without the penicillin, he laughed and pointed out that people got sore throats before the 1920s invention of penicillin and survived. Right. Smart ass.
He directed me to the nearest pharmacy ("Are they drug stores in America? Here they're called pharmacies."), with explicit instructions on how to pronounce the owner's name. His directions included how many hedgerows to pass and that it was "just beyond the butcher's." As I left, I asked the receptionist if I needed to do anything like sign out, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Not crazy, just foreign, I wanted to say. It was pretty amazing to walk out of a doctor's office having only given them my name and not my insurance card.
All prescriptions, whether they are for penicillin or chemotherapy, cost 7 pounds 10 pence. I happily forked that over at this charming "chemist" that looks straight out of the 1800s:
And I made sure to pronounce the owner's name right. :)
So in my limited experience, social healthcare = a doctor who listens and wants to be your friend and connect with you culturally (ideally through common ancestry), who doesn't bother to do tests that are not useful, who respects the body's ability to heal itself and instead blames society for sickness, who prescribes medication but advises you on whether or not to bother taking it and leaves the choice to you, and who is part of a community where he knows the pharmacist/"chemist" personally.
This is pretty great, although shocking that my little suburban American pediatrician had more advanced lab capabilities than this clinic.
Come on, America, let's socialize!!
Monday, 10 November 2008
DISCOVERY!!
Today I made a historical discovery.
I have been sort of chuckling under my breath for a month now when people in my department talk about the "historical discoveries" they've made- of a previously unknown book, or an obscure mysterious artifact that makes sense only in the context of the discoverer's new fabulous idea, or the fact that medieval Brits believed that crocodiles were monsters rather than reptiles. These are big deals, obviously, but I was a novice enough historian to be underwhelmed by these "discoveries". I also thought it was ridiculous to consider anything that is not science to be a "discovery". You discover a new species, or a new gene, or a new island, not an old forgotten book.
But now I know. I am of the initiate. I have discovered.
I'm writing my first essay on the role of the fossil preparator (the person who removes the rock from fossils and fixes up the broken parts so the paleontologist can study them, i.e. what I did at U of C for 4 years) in paleontological research. I'm also giving the history of a specimen that a preparator in London (my boss when I volunteered as a preparator there two years ago) worked on, to act as a case study of how preparation is done. This specimen is a pliosaur, a giant Jurassic marine reptile (think Loch Ness monster). It was found in 1848 in England, covered in plaster and cement to hold it together, and put on exhibit/stuck in storage for 150 years. The pliosaur's skull was recently re-prepared (all the old gunk was removed by my friend as I watched over his shoulder in 2006) and studied for a new article about pliosaur ancestry. So I have modern information about it from the museum in Dublin that owns it, from my friend who just prepared it, and from the researcher who just wrote an article about it. But I was missing the original article from 1863 announcing the fossil and giving it its scientific name. I looked all over the internet, I emailed everyone who knows about this fossil, I searched Cambridge online catalogues, and couldn't find it (however I did find, much to my chagrin, that the University of CHICAGO has the article...).
BUT thanks to my department's librarian who knows how to work the Cambridge library catalogue better than I do and was very polite about my catalogue ignorance, I finally had a classmark (= call number) for the journal I needed!!
I biked frantically through the rain to the University Library, rushed to the Rare Books room (after of course stowing my forbidden bag, raincoat, and ink pens in a locker), filled out a "book request form", tapped my foot for 30 minutes while someone searched the treasure trove of the UL Rare Book storage stacks, and THEN was handed an ancient leatherbound book of scientific knowledge from the 19th century... omg.
I stood at the Request Collection Counter and (breaking the rules by not setting up a cushioned Book Support Stand...) OPENED the journal. And there it was! My long-sought article about the new species of pliosaur! It was prefaced by a sentence in italics saying "Read by Mr. Bailey and Mr. Carte [the authors] in 1863". Read! This article was read aloud to an audience of people excited about science 150 years ago.
BEST YET- at the end of the article were two fold-out pages, the pin-up girls of 19th century science: DRAWINGS OF MY PLIOSAUR. (At this point the librarian came over presumedly to yell at me for neglecting the Book Support Stand procedure, but when he saw my face he laughed and asked me what I was reading. I gave him way more info than he wanted, I'm sure, but he politely shared my enthusiasm.)
I was amazed. It was like coming upon a friend in a history book. I wanted to wave and ask my pliosaur what it was like to be drawn in a scientific journal.
Right, so the discovery, besides the surprise of actually finding the article in the usually useless University Library and finding that it included drawings, was that the fossil was drawn missing a foot. The pliosaur as it is now has 4 feet (paddles, really, for swimming), but it was found with 3 feet... somehow my fossil had regrown a foot?! FOSSIL FORGERY, 19th century style!
I'm sure people who have seen the body of the pliosaur already know that one foot is a fake (I've only seen the skull, and a cast of the body), but boy, does it make the history of the specimen more interesting. And it was a huge thrill to see something familiar in such an old piece of scientific research.
Phew, it's exhausting to geek out so completely... thanks for bearing with me. :)
Also, my pliosaur was found on July 27th, 1848. My birthday. It was meant to be.
A photo from Google of the cast of my pliosaur on display on a wall at the Natural History Museum in London- count the feet! Can you spot the fake??
(If you can, please clue me in... :) )
I have been sort of chuckling under my breath for a month now when people in my department talk about the "historical discoveries" they've made- of a previously unknown book, or an obscure mysterious artifact that makes sense only in the context of the discoverer's new fabulous idea, or the fact that medieval Brits believed that crocodiles were monsters rather than reptiles. These are big deals, obviously, but I was a novice enough historian to be underwhelmed by these "discoveries". I also thought it was ridiculous to consider anything that is not science to be a "discovery". You discover a new species, or a new gene, or a new island, not an old forgotten book.
But now I know. I am of the initiate. I have discovered.
I'm writing my first essay on the role of the fossil preparator (the person who removes the rock from fossils and fixes up the broken parts so the paleontologist can study them, i.e. what I did at U of C for 4 years) in paleontological research. I'm also giving the history of a specimen that a preparator in London (my boss when I volunteered as a preparator there two years ago) worked on, to act as a case study of how preparation is done. This specimen is a pliosaur, a giant Jurassic marine reptile (think Loch Ness monster). It was found in 1848 in England, covered in plaster and cement to hold it together, and put on exhibit/stuck in storage for 150 years. The pliosaur's skull was recently re-prepared (all the old gunk was removed by my friend as I watched over his shoulder in 2006) and studied for a new article about pliosaur ancestry. So I have modern information about it from the museum in Dublin that owns it, from my friend who just prepared it, and from the researcher who just wrote an article about it. But I was missing the original article from 1863 announcing the fossil and giving it its scientific name. I looked all over the internet, I emailed everyone who knows about this fossil, I searched Cambridge online catalogues, and couldn't find it (however I did find, much to my chagrin, that the University of CHICAGO has the article...).
BUT thanks to my department's librarian who knows how to work the Cambridge library catalogue better than I do and was very polite about my catalogue ignorance, I finally had a classmark (= call number) for the journal I needed!!
I biked frantically through the rain to the University Library, rushed to the Rare Books room (after of course stowing my forbidden bag, raincoat, and ink pens in a locker), filled out a "book request form", tapped my foot for 30 minutes while someone searched the treasure trove of the UL Rare Book storage stacks, and THEN was handed an ancient leatherbound book of scientific knowledge from the 19th century... omg.
I stood at the Request Collection Counter and (breaking the rules by not setting up a cushioned Book Support Stand...) OPENED the journal. And there it was! My long-sought article about the new species of pliosaur! It was prefaced by a sentence in italics saying "Read by Mr. Bailey and Mr. Carte [the authors] in 1863". Read! This article was read aloud to an audience of people excited about science 150 years ago.
BEST YET- at the end of the article were two fold-out pages, the pin-up girls of 19th century science: DRAWINGS OF MY PLIOSAUR. (At this point the librarian came over presumedly to yell at me for neglecting the Book Support Stand procedure, but when he saw my face he laughed and asked me what I was reading. I gave him way more info than he wanted, I'm sure, but he politely shared my enthusiasm.)
I was amazed. It was like coming upon a friend in a history book. I wanted to wave and ask my pliosaur what it was like to be drawn in a scientific journal.
Right, so the discovery, besides the surprise of actually finding the article in the usually useless University Library and finding that it included drawings, was that the fossil was drawn missing a foot. The pliosaur as it is now has 4 feet (paddles, really, for swimming), but it was found with 3 feet... somehow my fossil had regrown a foot?! FOSSIL FORGERY, 19th century style!
I'm sure people who have seen the body of the pliosaur already know that one foot is a fake (I've only seen the skull, and a cast of the body), but boy, does it make the history of the specimen more interesting. And it was a huge thrill to see something familiar in such an old piece of scientific research.
Phew, it's exhausting to geek out so completely... thanks for bearing with me. :)
Also, my pliosaur was found on July 27th, 1848. My birthday. It was meant to be.
A photo from Google of the cast of my pliosaur on display on a wall at the Natural History Museum in London- count the feet! Can you spot the fake??(If you can, please clue me in... :) )
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Formals and Fireworks
England is a place of many contradictions. The striking one this week was between the high-society formal dinners held several times a week at each college, and the bonfire and fireworks celebration of Guy Fawkes Day on Nov 5.
(This is Clare in her formal gown at the college bar- funny to see a gown next to all those beer taps, right?)
Clare Hall, my college, doesn't follow any Cambridge traditions and I complained about that enough to my friend Clare (funny coincidental name- she should live in Clare Hall!) that she invited me to the formal at her college, Selwyn, which is ancient and very traditional. (Very kind of her, and probably an effective way to shut me up about missing out on wearing Harry Potter gowns and saying Latin prayers...) So we went to Selwyn on Tuesday (prior to Obama Night, which didn't start til about 2AM our time anyway). There were long Hogwarts tables for students and a separate table, the "high table", for fellows (professors). There was candlelight and an ancient dining hall with an enormous vaulted ceiling and stained glass and an army of bowler-hat-wearing waiters. There was also a laminated card on each table with The Rules of Formal Hall. I eagerly read it, as I was very aware of minding my manners and not exposing myself as clueless about anything formal. The rules included no picture taking in the presence of the fellows, college gowns required (though not required for guests, thank goodness, since my college doesn't have a gown. They're amazing and ridiculous at the same time. Clare proudly calls hers her Bat Cape.), no standing up once you've sat down (i.e. NO bathroom trips during dinner- ?!), "no behaviours that encourage excessive drinking" (this is to outlaw a traditional game called "pennies", where your friends/enemies drop a penny in your wine glass and you have to chug the wine. Think binge drinking, with style.), and you have to respond to the closing prayer with "[insert something Latin that everyone else knew]". Yikes.
So the dinner really did open with a Latin prayer, as Clare had warned me, and the fellows really did sit at the high table and ignore us the whole dinner. One student drank too much and- gulp- stood up during dinner. He was escorted from the hall. I dutifully used the correct silverware and resisted the temptation to steal my paper napkins with "Selwyn College" printed on it. It was really fun, and eye-opening to see the real Cambridge as it's been for 800 years. It was also shocking to see 18-year-olds complain about their pepper steak and moan about the waiters and let their gowns hang open to show off their tiny and sort of indecent fancy dresses underneath. They all drank a lot and talked loudly. I very much played the part of a participant observer. Nothing like anthropology research over coffee and mints.
It was a great experience, and satisfied my desire for beauty and tradition. It also made me very glad to belong to a graduate college where formals are basically the same as everyday dinners with the lights lowered. Fellows and students sit wherever we want, everyone is polite and happy to be there, and we are wearing dressy clothes from every culture you can imagine, without any Bat Capes to make us all look the same. This would have been very inappropriate to the Cambridge Class of 1209, but I love it.
(Look at the height of that bonfire! OMG. It was so hot that it blurred all my photos... :) )
After this experience of the cultured English, I got to see a very different side the next night: Bonfire Night, aka Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in London in the 16th century with kegs of gunpowder and got caught. So now every town in England builds an enormous bonfire and burns scarecrow-like effigies of Guy Fawkes. Whoa. Before the bonfire, according to my British friend, they do a hedgehog check to scare the poor beasts out of the giant pile of sticks. This fire is meant to burn a person, not animals, apparently. After the Guy (usually clothes sewn with straw inside) goes up in flames, traditionally kids toast marshmallows on the bonfire.
I'd seen Guy Fawkes Day before in London, but somehow it didn't strike me as so incongruous with English culture. But for a country obsessed with Health and Safety guidelines and preventative healthcare and taking care of the environment, a huge bonfire in every town surrounded by cheering crowds sounds unthinkable. Yet Cambridge's event had thousands of people in the crowd and a bonfire seriously about 20 feet high (which my friend poo-pooed as being far too small for a proper Guy Fawkes bonfire). We also had fireworks, which were shockingly low to the ground and I'm sure a few people lost eyebrows to flying sparks. How could people who shun each other for stirring their soup the wrong direction (you MUST go clockwise... I think?) burn a fake person on an enormous bonfire? with glee?
Maybe these two traditions (formality and fire) just go to show us how much the English respect and value tradition. Why else would they preserve crazy habits that don't make sense, like table manners and bonfire building? Even if they are crazy traditions, though, it sure is fun to be part of them as an outsider. Even though I'm making fun of them, it's a thrill to learn about things that are utterly foreign in a place where I feel more and more at home. I'm glad there will always be things that are mysterious! Just think of all the crazy shit Americans do that I haven't even realized is crazy... yet. :)
(This is Clare in her formal gown at the college bar- funny to see a gown next to all those beer taps, right?)Clare Hall, my college, doesn't follow any Cambridge traditions and I complained about that enough to my friend Clare (funny coincidental name- she should live in Clare Hall!) that she invited me to the formal at her college, Selwyn, which is ancient and very traditional. (Very kind of her, and probably an effective way to shut me up about missing out on wearing Harry Potter gowns and saying Latin prayers...) So we went to Selwyn on Tuesday (prior to Obama Night, which didn't start til about 2AM our time anyway). There were long Hogwarts tables for students and a separate table, the "high table", for fellows (professors). There was candlelight and an ancient dining hall with an enormous vaulted ceiling and stained glass and an army of bowler-hat-wearing waiters. There was also a laminated card on each table with The Rules of Formal Hall. I eagerly read it, as I was very aware of minding my manners and not exposing myself as clueless about anything formal. The rules included no picture taking in the presence of the fellows, college gowns required (though not required for guests, thank goodness, since my college doesn't have a gown. They're amazing and ridiculous at the same time. Clare proudly calls hers her Bat Cape.), no standing up once you've sat down (i.e. NO bathroom trips during dinner- ?!), "no behaviours that encourage excessive drinking" (this is to outlaw a traditional game called "pennies", where your friends/enemies drop a penny in your wine glass and you have to chug the wine. Think binge drinking, with style.), and you have to respond to the closing prayer with "[insert something Latin that everyone else knew]". Yikes.
So the dinner really did open with a Latin prayer, as Clare had warned me, and the fellows really did sit at the high table and ignore us the whole dinner. One student drank too much and- gulp- stood up during dinner. He was escorted from the hall. I dutifully used the correct silverware and resisted the temptation to steal my paper napkins with "Selwyn College" printed on it. It was really fun, and eye-opening to see the real Cambridge as it's been for 800 years. It was also shocking to see 18-year-olds complain about their pepper steak and moan about the waiters and let their gowns hang open to show off their tiny and sort of indecent fancy dresses underneath. They all drank a lot and talked loudly. I very much played the part of a participant observer. Nothing like anthropology research over coffee and mints.
It was a great experience, and satisfied my desire for beauty and tradition. It also made me very glad to belong to a graduate college where formals are basically the same as everyday dinners with the lights lowered. Fellows and students sit wherever we want, everyone is polite and happy to be there, and we are wearing dressy clothes from every culture you can imagine, without any Bat Capes to make us all look the same. This would have been very inappropriate to the Cambridge Class of 1209, but I love it.
(Look at the height of that bonfire! OMG. It was so hot that it blurred all my photos... :) )
After this experience of the cultured English, I got to see a very different side the next night: Bonfire Night, aka Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in London in the 16th century with kegs of gunpowder and got caught. So now every town in England builds an enormous bonfire and burns scarecrow-like effigies of Guy Fawkes. Whoa. Before the bonfire, according to my British friend, they do a hedgehog check to scare the poor beasts out of the giant pile of sticks. This fire is meant to burn a person, not animals, apparently. After the Guy (usually clothes sewn with straw inside) goes up in flames, traditionally kids toast marshmallows on the bonfire.
I'd seen Guy Fawkes Day before in London, but somehow it didn't strike me as so incongruous with English culture. But for a country obsessed with Health and Safety guidelines and preventative healthcare and taking care of the environment, a huge bonfire in every town surrounded by cheering crowds sounds unthinkable. Yet Cambridge's event had thousands of people in the crowd and a bonfire seriously about 20 feet high (which my friend poo-pooed as being far too small for a proper Guy Fawkes bonfire). We also had fireworks, which were shockingly low to the ground and I'm sure a few people lost eyebrows to flying sparks. How could people who shun each other for stirring their soup the wrong direction (you MUST go clockwise... I think?) burn a fake person on an enormous bonfire? with glee?
Maybe these two traditions (formality and fire) just go to show us how much the English respect and value tradition. Why else would they preserve crazy habits that don't make sense, like table manners and bonfire building? Even if they are crazy traditions, though, it sure is fun to be part of them as an outsider. Even though I'm making fun of them, it's a thrill to learn about things that are utterly foreign in a place where I feel more and more at home. I'm glad there will always be things that are mysterious! Just think of all the crazy shit Americans do that I haven't even realized is crazy... yet. :)
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Obamania- UK Style
Advertisement for The London Times, the main newspaper... but somehow there's no picture of prime minister Gordon Brown!
Scariest Halloween mask ever.
This random British student said he spent 3 hours carving this!
There are several bars in London and Cambridge having election watch parties all night. I'm not sure if these are meant to calm people's fears by bringing them together or to encourage the MASS RIOTING that will ensue if Obama doesn't win...
Europe's behind you, Barack!!
Field trips in grad school?! AWESOME.
My department has a weekly seminar called the Cabinet of Natural History (cabinet as in the case where naturalists put their specimens... like a museum cabinet full of cool stuff!). It has been meeting since the 1980s, and they publish papers and write books and the presentations are just generally fascinating. One week a researcher presented on a military testing site on the east coast of England called Orford Ness, and then the next day we went there! It's a long skinny gravel island, really a sandbar, and completely flat and barren and COLD and deserted, and dotted with deissued military bunkers. It's owned by the government, so it's open to tourists but no one goes there because it's scary and also still secretive and largely unknown, even by the people who live nearby! The UK did secret military testing here from the 1920s until 1996. Radar was invented here, as was the trigger system for the WWII atomic bomb and later atomic bombs during the Cold War. They actually had an atomic bomb on display! Because they did so much bomb testing here, you are urged not to leave the designated pathways. SERIOUSLY.
(ordnance = BOMBS)
This week the Cabinet went on their annual Fungus Hunt. One of the professors is an expert mycologist (fungi scientist!), so this trip is really designed to add to his fungus collection. The idea is that we all run around and bring him mushrooms and he identifies them and gets excited if they're poisonous or rare, and REALLY excited if they're edible! Here's a photo of his mushroom-full "trug" (special fungi basket made only in Suffolk- very scientific?).
I spent a whole summer collecting fungi for the Field Museum and I was not super excited about doing it again (fungus-collecting is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that you should only have to do once in a lifetime...) so instead I had a great time watching the distinguished HPS (history and philosophy of science) scholars and students get excited about fungi. And then, just at the height of my participant-observation, I found a fossil. It's a little brachiopod shell, stuck in a chunk of rock that I happened to spot. Clearly my mind was not on mushrooms... My supervisor thought that was hilarious because my first essay is about paleontology and I've been living/breathing/reading fossils for a month. While other people were vying for "Most Deadly Fungus" or "Most Colorful Fungus" or "Most Rotten Fungus", I got the distinguished title of "First Fossil Found on a Fungus Hunt". :)
I love out-of-classroom science learning!
(ordnance = BOMBS)
This week the Cabinet went on their annual Fungus Hunt. One of the professors is an expert mycologist (fungi scientist!), so this trip is really designed to add to his fungus collection. The idea is that we all run around and bring him mushrooms and he identifies them and gets excited if they're poisonous or rare, and REALLY excited if they're edible! Here's a photo of his mushroom-full "trug" (special fungi basket made only in Suffolk- very scientific?).
I spent a whole summer collecting fungi for the Field Museum and I was not super excited about doing it again (fungus-collecting is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that you should only have to do once in a lifetime...) so instead I had a great time watching the distinguished HPS (history and philosophy of science) scholars and students get excited about fungi. And then, just at the height of my participant-observation, I found a fossil. It's a little brachiopod shell, stuck in a chunk of rock that I happened to spot. Clearly my mind was not on mushrooms... My supervisor thought that was hilarious because my first essay is about paleontology and I've been living/breathing/reading fossils for a month. While other people were vying for "Most Deadly Fungus" or "Most Colorful Fungus" or "Most Rotten Fungus", I got the distinguished title of "First Fossil Found on a Fungus Hunt". :)
I love out-of-classroom science learning!
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