Top row, from left: Jim Mimiaga, Suzie Lechtenberg and Michael Kodas. Bottom row: Anne Minard (that's me), Robert Frost (emeritus?) and Laura Frank. Photo by Dona Olivier.
I couldn’t have known how weird it would be to return to the classroom. It’s only been about nine years, after all, since I left it. It hit me when I was standing in the school supplies aisle at the supermarket yesterday, because I realized I should have a notebook, one with multiple sections for the different subjects. I hadn’t shopped for such a thing in a long time, and I found myself befuddled: recycled, or sturdy and divided? How much money should I spend on a notebook? How much writing space will I really need? The purchase took a silly amount of time.
As Ted Scripps Fellows at CU Boulder, we don’t get credit for the courses. We audit classes that we hope will deepen our knowledge of environmental issues and support a major journalistic work of our choosing (we were selected in part on the project idea). Because of that, and because I’ve been out in the working world for a while, my approach is different than it was when I was a credit-seeking student. I’m really here to learn. Before classes started, I understood that in my business (science and environmental journalism), knowledge makes for better stories because it allows for deeper understanding of the science and the issues surrounding the science.
What I didn’t realize until I started reading for these classes, and then visiting them for the first time today, is that they’re going to give me (and my writing) something else: new perspectives. It’s already started. I’m blown away by this realization, and unspeakably excited.
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Magnificent Desolation, the new autobiography by Buzz Aldrin
I very much enjoyed chatting with Buzz Aldrin a couple of weeks ago, for some National Geographic News stories leading up to the 40th anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I found him honest, personable and generous with his time.
But when his publicist offered to send a copy of his new book, “Magnificent Desolation,” I didn’t set my expectations too high. I didn’t know what to make of an autobiography by a retired Air Force pilot and astronaut. Doesn’t that history put the “Rocket Hero” pretty squarely in the category of techie or a jock — a non-writer type?
Well, color me impressed. The book arrived late last week, and I turned the last page this morning — looking for more to read!
Note: This review is cross-posted at Universe Today.
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Date posted: July 12, 2009
Written by: Anne Minard
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I’ve been busily working on some last stories before the 9-month freelancing hiatus I’ll take as a fellow. That’s not the WHOLE reason I haven’t been blogging much lately, though. Fact is, I’ve found Boulder quite entertaining in other ways! I’ve met some new friends, joined a Scrabble Club, and enjoyed a resurgence of interest in all three triathlon sports. So besides running, I’ve been back at the pool, and starting to push the cycling beyond commuter riding. To add fuel to this rekindled fire, I watched part of a triathlon this morning out at the Boulder Reservoir. When I first got there, I was greeted by these hot air balloons firing up and getting ready to go. What a lucky sighting! Apologies for the slowdown in science, but I hope you enjoy the pretty colors.
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When the researcher sent the link to thise image for a Universe Today post, my jaw dropped. Absolutely incredible view of a sunspot, by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in my new town of Boulder.
You can read more about it in the UT story, or get the full scoop at the NCAR website. Or simply enjoy it here, for as long as you dare!
©UCAR, image courtesy Matthias Rempel, NCAR
More about the image: It’s the interface between a sunspot’s umbra (dark center) and penumbra (lighter outer region) shows a complex structure with narrow, almost horizontal (lighter to white) filaments embedded in a background having a more vertical (darker to black) magnetic field. Farther out, extended patches of horizontal field dominate.
This diagram of the Sun's internal structure shows the Sun's major parts, including the jet streams believed to be linked with sunspots. The jet streams extend deep into the Sun, to the base of the solar convective zone. Courtesy of AAS.
I was the only journalist who attended a press conference in person today at the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Physics Division meeting in Boulder (several others participated by phone). I’m attending just because I happen to live here, as of two weeks ago. What a rare treat!
The meeting is a hotbed of brand new insights into the Sun’s recent odd behavior. As a division meeting, it is mostly a sharing of information between working solar physicists, not necessarily an outreach event.
But the buzz here is running parallel to a very hot topic lately in public spheres: the unexpected and perplexing lull between the end of the Sun’s Solar Cycle 23 and the beginning of Solar Cycle 24. Our Sun should have started stirring again after a predicted minimum between the cycles, last year. But until recently — as in, last month — it was mum.
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