Science Cheerleader

My pal, Jacquie, linked me up with Walter Smith, a physics professor at Haverford College. Smith put together a remarkable collection of Physics Songs! The online, searchable database includes an endless supply of favorites such as: “I Got Physics,” and “I Walk the Incline.” Enough chit-chat, let’s sing-a-long to this classic:

Twinkle, Twinkle, Now I Know, by Pietro Calogero (2004)

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, now I know just what you are:
Fusing sphere of plasma mass, wrapped in iridescent gas;
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, super-hot that’s what you are.

(flinging arms outward)
Nebula of fading light, spread into the outer night.
Blast remains of grand events, distribute new elements.
Gossamer in majesty, monument to entropy. (more)

I’m an R. Surprised an R would dedicate her career to science literacy and citizen participation in science and policy? Me too!   I can understand why Newt Gingrich isn’t keen on spending public dollars to create, yet another, Congressional agency. But he’s wrong to think the Office of Technology Assessment, which he axed in the 1990s as part of his Contract with America, was a waste of public dollars and resources. The scientists and policy wonks who worked there published hundreds of reports at the request of Congress to help them make sense of often complicated science and technology policy matters. You can find archives of the reports here. Many are still referenced today.

Last year, I launched a national effort to reopen the OTA and it has sparked a strong, well-organized movement within the science community now to lobby Congress to refund the OTA. On one hand, I’m thrilled! Wait, let me back up a bit to tell you how I became obsessed with the OTA.

I stumbled upon the OTA as a graduate student at UPenn (this is me on graduation day with comedian Yakov Smirnoff, seriously!) where my History and Sociology of Science professor handed me an assignment to “write about the rise and the fall of the OTA.” I read every piece of literature that existed and contacted many of the authors and former staffers of the OTA. I even met with Newt Gingrich and Rep. Rush Holt and chatted with Rep. Vern Elhers and several of the architects of the OTA.
I was convinced that Congress was lost a bit without its only source of dedicated, nonpartisan tech assessments and believed the Office should be refunded (it was never really killed by Congress…it was just stripped of its $23million +/- budget).

However, in this era of public participation, open source, collaboration, and transparency, I sought to open a new, decentralized, 21st Century OTA, one that would provide a mechanism to both inform the public and seek their input before Bills are posted for public comment (who really comments on posted Bills besides lobbyists and special interest groups anyway?). It’s not an entirely new idea. Richard Sclove, the founder of the Loka Institute, more than hinted at this suggestion back in the 80s. Ironically, following a major public, political and economic disaster surrounding the 1990s roll out of genetically modified foods in Europe, the E.U. opened parliamentary OTAs with a twist: the science and technology assessment undertaken by the experts at their OTAs often include citizen participation as this has been found to help assess risk, create a better informed public, and better understand societal implications of emerging technologies. All of which are key ingredients in good policy making decisions, no?  Do you want scientists or special interest groups to represent you and your questions/concerns societal impacts of science and emerging technologies? Congress knows no more than you do about these and many other scientific issues and they openly admit this. While I think it’s imperative for scientists to drive a discussion and impart their expertise on such matters, it’s equally vital that WE are afforded the opportunity to learn about and weigh in on these matters BEFORE Bills are created.
This is where the organizers of the current effort to reopen the OTA (the science community) and I differ. For the most part, they either do not understand or they don’t see the value in public participation. I can understand why if recent Town Hall meetings are what they’re basing their opinions on…but that’s not the type of participation I’m advocating for. I’m talking about a deliberate, well-constructed, inclusive approach that’s been proven to be successful in Europe (and even in China for crying out loud) and here in the U.S. although those efforts were not directly tied to Congress.

For this reason, while I wish the scientists well in their effort to persuade Congress to refund the old OTA (for the most part, although Congress did recently appropriate funds to the Government Accountability Office specifically for “technology assessments” )  I am helping to organize a new network that values the significance of both expert and citizen analysis in technology assessment. I’ll have more to say on this in the coming weeks. It’s pretty exciting and I hope you’ll join me for the journey.
In the interim, here’s what Newt recently said about the OTA. Editorial note here: this idea is worse than reopening the old OTA w/o public participation-not only is he suggesting an “expert-only” approach, but a mere handful of experts at that. This former cheerleader can smell a clique a mile away

Meet Taylor: a self-described math girl who’s as passionate about her healthcare career as she is about the L.A. Clippers and our troops overseas. I’ll let Taylor explain.

Thanks for reaching out to us, Taylor! We’re psyched to have the opportunity to interview you in our quest to playfully challenge stereotypes. Before we get started, congratulations on being on the cover of Shape magazine! So, we hear you’re a dancing CT/MRI technologist. Is that right?

Taylor: That’s right! After dancing for the Los Angelos Clippers, I decided to travel the world with the Sweethearts for Soldiers to cheer on the men and women of the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard. I’m hoping to meet healthcare workers overseas so I can sharpen my skills and share my experiences as a CT/MRI Technologist.

Tell us about that. What turned you onto that field?

Taylor: My father is a radiologist, so he is the type of doctor who reads the scans. I take the scans–using Xrays for the CT scans and magnetic fields for the MRIs–and a radiologist interprets them. It’s because of him that I became interested in this field.

What’s it like having one foot in the pro dancing world and the other in the field of health care?

Taylor: In my case, I believe my looks and career as a dancer results in people questioning my ability…whether it’s other technologists, physicians, administrators, and even patients sometimes! I have had to prove myself time and time again. I am confident in my capabilities and have to show that I am just as good if not better than anybody else. (more…)

We’ve got a few announcements to make this week re: awesome awards for inventors. More on that shortly. In the interim, check out this video from Motherboard TV about the world’s most prolific inventor.  Yoshiro Nakamatsu, better known as Dr. NakaMats has over 3000 patents. If that isn’t impressive enough, things he made up include floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, and the karaoke machine. However, he won’t settle with that. He also invents ways TO invent! Like cutting off the circulation to his brain until he almost dies. Not too shabby for a young man of 82 years.
Watch Dr. NakaMats: Patently Strange here:

Meet Rachel: A former Washington Redskins Cheerleader who enlisted in the Navy and now has her sights set on becoming an anesthesiologist. How does she synthesize these seemingly different worlds? She’s here to tell us.

Tell us about your job in the Navy and how science prepared you for that role?
I commissioned as an officer in the Navy out of college as a Registered Nurse in the Navy Nurse Corps.  I started out on a Surgical/OIF/OEF injury ward at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD for two years and switched to the multi-service Intensive Care Unit for the next two years.  In that time I was deployed to a small firebase in Afghanistan with a Forward Surgical Team operating alongside Army Special Forces.  Science and medicine go hand in hand.  Learning all we can about the different sciences from biology to physics has assisted me and continues to assist me in understanding –and staying committed to–evidence-based practice.

Tell me about your current field of study? Why did you choose it?
I am currently in graduate school for Anesthesia.  I fell in love with taking pain away, not only as a nurse, but when I worked at Bethesda on the wounded soldiers coming back from overseas.  We used the newest technology in pain control and I had a chance to see how much I could help control someone’s pain.  When I was deployed to Afghanistan that solidified my passion for anesthesia as I was able to “shadow” the CRNA (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist) for the eight months I was there, while I was also applying to Anesthesia programs.  Putting people to rest, pain control, managing trauma, all were amazing amounts of autonomy and adrenaline rushes to the max for me.  It has been a great challenge applying to and getting into my program but I couldn’t be more excited about where I am now.

Do you find that your looks (or being a former cheerleader) helped or hindered your professional experiences? (Were you taken seriously?)
That is such an interesting question.  I was often called into different patient rooms when one of my fellow nurses or Navy corpsmen (similar to a civilian ‘’tech’’, but they are amazing and so capable of just about anything!) would slip about it to a patient and the patient wanted to meet me (or joke with me about their rival team).  It was great fun and most people just wanted to know what it was like.  I was surprised at the respect I received because we all know the stigmas associated with dance teams and cheerleaders.  I knew I had to prove that I belonged in the military and I could be taken seriously.  When I was deployed to Afghanistan I was quite firm in making sure I didn’t let it slip because I didn’t want to lose any respect I had gained.  I left the blow-dryer, the hair products, the make-up, all at home.  I figured if I looked au naturale no one would second guess me.  I wasn’t able to keep the secret for long, it leaked from a few places and ended up spreading like wild fire.  I suppose I had either proven my capabilities or folks were less superficial than I had suspected.  It turned out to be a great morale booster in the end! (more…)

Really doesn’t have much to do with the dino sculpture my son created, next to the THANG  on our family’s fireplace matel. But I bet Carl Zimmer has a guess. I recall the time I brought this heavy THANG into HIS office at Discover. Back when HE had a windowed office and I did not. Cut me a break, HE was 28, I was still young…and, oh yeah, there was that AAAS award he won for “God-like writers under the age of 30″.

I asked, genuflecting upon entering his office, as we all did: “Carl, what do you think this is? My father-in-law found it in a local, Long Beach Island, NJ, fishing shop.”

HE said: “Looks like a Mastodon tooth, maybe a molar. Probably a young one because it’s not worn down too far. You should take this to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly, near where you live,  and I bet they can tell you more.”

So I did. I pulled the THANG out of my baby’s diaper bag, and asked the resident paleontologist: “What do you think this THANG is?”

He replied: “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT? DID YOU STEAL THAT?!”

I spent the next hour ’splainin’ the situation. Hey, Carl, back then, they never heard of YOU. The best thing I had going for me was the real baby in the real baby stroller…and two, twenty dollar bills.

But I digress.

I never did learn more about the origins of this tooth. Who knows more about this tooth? Closest to the tooth-truth earns a Tshirt. And now that I FINALLY have some street-cred with the National Academy of Sciences, I know I can find the answer there if you all fail.

I had so much fun doing Science Cheers with 1,500 kids at a Temple University basketball game yesterday. Those kids were awesome! Thanks for the invite, Temple and thanks for the assistance Hootie and Temple cheerleaders! Stepping on campus brought back a flood of wonderful memories. Goooo Owls! I’ll post the video shortly. I’ll be in San Francisco, L.A., Jacksonville, Washington, D.C., and NYC in the coming months. If you’d like me to get some Science Cheers going at a location near you, just email me at Darlene@sciencecheerleader.com
“LET’S go, SCI-ence,” clap, clap, clap-clap-clap! “4, 3, 2, 1, Science is for EVERYONE!”

Thanks, John, for sharing this from Utne.com, “a digest of independent ideas and alternative culture. Not right, not left, but forward thinking. Most interested in creating a conversation about everything from the environment to the economy, politics to pop culture.”   (Or “poop culture” in this case!)

From Utne.com:

Offices around the world struggle for good uses for all the computer paper they waste every day. One company has a solution: Turn it into toilet paper. A company called Oriental is marketing a machine called White Goat that shreds old office paper and converts it directly into ready-to-use toilet paper. Watch a video of it below:

This is Regina, our latest addition to our collection of Sexy Scientists and Engineers. Sure, she cheered for the Washington Redskins but she’s also held a beating heart. True story (read on).

Regina graduated from college with a major in Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry. She won a scholarship from the National Institutes of Health to spend summers doing biomed research at Stanford and Yale. She was a Molecular Biologist at the National Institutes of Health researching the genes that cause rare skin diseases (she found a few and had papers published in Nature Genetics, Human Genetics and The Journal of Dermatological Science).  Then she went to law school at Georgetown University while she was a Redskins cheerleader (Georgetown rescheduled her final exams so she could participate in the swimsuit calendar photo shoot!)   Also during law school she competed in a few pageants and was 1st Runner-up to Miss D.C. USA. Oh, she’s licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia as well as the United States Supreme Court. She worked as a patent attorney until science called her back to medical school. She earned an M.D. and took up a surgery internship in Texas and now she’s putting it all together by earning a LL.M., an advanced law degree she plans to someday apply to a career in health law as in-house council at a hospital. She’s also an adjunct professor teaching anatomy and physiology to nursing students and has her sights set on competing in pageants and trying out for another professional team this year.

I had a chance to interview Regina. (Thanks to Laura Eilers at Going Pro Entertaining for letting me know about Regina! Laura and I are coproducing a Stage Show at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in October in Washington, D.C. Watch Pro Cheerleaders-turned-Scientists perform on stage then chat with them in the Science Cheerleader exhibit and learn how they bridge two seemingly different worlds.)
Regina, tell us what turned you onto science.  I have been interested in science as long as I can remember.  When I was 4 I would dig around in the backyard looking for worms and insects and then bring them in and look at them under a microscope I got as a Christmas present.  My grandmother was also a nurse so that also gave me the inspiration to pursue a science related career.

Do you find that being a cheerleader helped or hindered your professional experiences. Were you taken seriously? I don’t think being a cheerleader has hurt my professional experience and I have always included it on my resume.  I can be a very shy person in person so people are often surprised to find out that I was a professional cheerleader.  It helps break the ice and most people find it different and interesting.  When I was in medical school they put my Redskin Cheerleader picture in the admissions catalog.  People do tell me that “I don’t look like a Doctor” which occasionally hurts my feelings (what exactly should a doctor look like?).

How did you balance two seemingly different worlds of science and cheerleading? The balance has been pretty easy for me.  People always tell me that I am the queen of multitasking, I am always doing multiple unrelated things at once.  Although they are seemingly two different worlds, I have learned things from each that help the other.

What are typical reactions you’ve received when people learn about your cheerleading days? They are usually surprised (especially when they see the pictures).  People that know me when I was younger (even in college), know that I was extremely shy.  When I was in my early 20’s I decided to start competing in pageants to help me break out of my shyness and become more comfortable speaking in public.  That is how I got involved with cheerleading.

What were typical reactions when folks learned about your science/law studies, when you were a cheerleader? Actually when I was a cheerleader there were 2 other law students and 1 lawyer on the team.

Tell me a little about your favorite courses you took to prepare for your professional career. My favorite courses would have to be anatomy and health law.

Why science AND law? When I was working at NIH and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do long term as a career my boss would give me articles about alternative science careers.  That is how I became interested in patent law.  There are so many ways that science, medicine and law are entangled and I love being apart of all of these field.

Do you have any advice for middle or high school girls who might feel torn between following one dream (cheerleading or dancing) associated with beauty or following another (science/engineering) usually associated with, well, geeks? My advice to girls would be to do both (follow both dreams) and, although it may be hard, to ignore the negative comments.  Cheerleading, dancing, pageants are all fantastic activities that you can learn so much from (teamwork, public speaking, fitness, etc.).  In addition to that there are so many interesting careers in science, medicine, engineering, etc.  Study hard, but continue to take dance lessons, continue to be a cheerleader or continue to compete in pageants.  Don’t let anyone talk you out of enjoying cheerleading or pageant activities and don’t let anyone talk you out of any career in the sciences.  I am prime example of someone that can be a so called “geek” yet still be a cheerleader, etc. at the same time!

Best “cheerleading” moment? It would have to be a tie between running out of the tunnel for the very first time and being asked to autograph my swimsuit calendar picture for the first time.

Best science moment? The first time I touched a beating heart (it makes you realize how fragile and precious life is).

As if we needed another reason to despise mosquitoes… Thanks, Leila, for sharing this fascinating video with us. It shows the dangers of malaria and how easily it spreads.