CERN Attacked by Aliens

News organizations love exciting titles, so we end up with 'UFOs' Disrupting Search for 'God Particle'. Unfortunately there aren't glowing lights in the Geneva night sky. It is just (unidentified) stuff falling into the beam pipe, blocking the protons. So this isn't exciting at all, it is just another item on the list of things that have gone wrong with the LHC.

Physics Bets

The New York Times recently published an excellent story about a bet between two physicists: Janet Conrad and Frank Wilczek, both of MIT. I am very fond of the betting tradition in particle physics - a letter written up with the bet, signed by the parties. I have seen a few at SLAC. Sometimes the bet money is even attached - a nickel or dime. The case in the NYT article is a bit unusual, being chocolate candies.

I haven't heard of this tradition existing outside of particle physics, where people often bet on experimental results or which theory will prevail. It is hard to imagine it quite working in medical physics or biology. I hope to find some way to participate in this great tradition, and have my own quarter taped to a wall somewhere.

Conflicting Commitments

The deadline for TA applications was the week before Thanksgiving, and at roughly the last minute, I realized I should TA next quarter. Specifically, I miss teaching. And my schedule would allow it. So I put in my application, putting an upper level course as my first choice. I wanted to TA for Physics 120 (Intermediate E&M) because the professor cares about teaching, I can handle the material, and I haven't TAed an upper level course before. I really like the intro classes for biologists and engineers, but part of a faculty interview at many schools is teaching an upper-division course, so I wanted to have some experience.

After I submitted the application I realize I had one big conflict: March meeting. In the past, March meeting occurs in March, which would be after the term is over. This year it is the last week of February. So it occurs at week 6 or something like that. I particularly wanted to go this year because of a tutorial and focus session on the "Physics of Cancer" - I don't yet know when the session is, so perhaps I can just go for the first few days.

Dear Nature: I have this excellent paper on hypercube...

There was a recent piece (of sh$$) titled "Womanspace" in Nature (a highly prestigious journal) that was meant to be funny, but did it by making an extended "joke" at the expense of women. Both the fact that plenty of readers are female, and the fact that women aren't actually a character out of a 1950's sitcom. The best theory is that this was meant to get a lot of publicity for Nature, given the comments from Nature editors (initially) that they were surprised over the lack of outrage. The journal did publish critiques recently, but that doesn't "fix" what was done.

Many people have given this article its fair criticism, and I yield to their superior blogging skills. What I particularly like is that many have found constructive things to do... I only swore a lot and thought about slashing tires.

Hate misogyny in science? Here are some fun things to try:

• Occupy Nature! Kate Clancy's blog is through a subsidiary of Nature, but instead of abandoning her blog she has decided to use it to highlight other bigotry. Find other things to be angry about at Nature? Send them to her.
• Submit your own crap! Lab Lemming points out that this is a a call for submissions - anything and everything. This is similar to using "postage paid" envelopes from junk mail to return bricks to them.
• Submit followup articles on gayspace, blackspace, and jewspace.

Further critiques of the article

• Dr Isis
• Janet D. Stemwedel at SciAm
• Anne Jefferson, All-geo
• Christie Wilcox , SciAm

Mistakes in Science

While I am happy about the coverage the OPERA faster-than-light neutrinos have gotten, I'm not looking forward to the eventual conclusion. The result will likely be overturned and be due to an uncertainty that wasn't well understood. Will that be reported on? Will the public understand? I know how hard it is to get undergraduate physics majors to understand error bars and error analysis, so I just don't think Fox News will give it a fair coverage. Either it will be "Physicists were wrong" or.... silence.

Biomedicine is a bit different. The rules are less firm, so unexpected experimental results get published much more often. But they also have bigger consequences. Recently a lot of attention has been paid to whether a certain virus causes Chronic Fatigue. One group has experimental results that it does, but many groups have not been able to get the same results. The result? People with CF have paid money for tests (and possibly treatments) that are ineffective.

While CF isn't a disease with many treatment options, some types of cancer are. If a study showed that Treatment A works very well, patients will be given Treatment A instead of Treatments B or C. What if the study was wrong? Patients may die who would have responded well to treatments B or C. A consoling point is that it takes a lot of work to get a treatment to the clinic - many papers that show Treatment A is effective. But what if mistakes get made?

The ethical violations of someone fabricating research are fairly clear. But what about unintentional mistakes? They happen. I've found mistakes in my own work, far after I thought I had a "final" result. I've found mistakes in published papers. Usually these things are small - though really, the big ones stand out. I dread the day that I find a mistake in my own work - after it has been published. The best thing we can do, as scientists, is to remember that the entire enterprise is meant to be like a conversation. We share ideas and data with each other in order to get feedback and improve our work. We must give reasonable feedback, be open to criticism, and be very honest.

The public has a right to expect us to not fabricate research, but they must understand we are only human.

"Live" Blog: Startup Panel at APS

I am at the APS California Regional meeting, at SLAC. They are having a panel on "How to Start Working for a Startup Company?", so I am going to try "live-blogging" it.

Panel Members:
Yi Cui
Stanford Professor
"Every professor on campus has a startup"
Says that as a 3rd year faculty member, he wasn't thinking about statups. But being in Silicon Valley, VC/entrepreneurs keep approaching him and he ended up starting a company.

Jessa Lee
Graduated Stanford in 2009 with BS Physics, MS EE
Works for Pacific Biosciences making DNA sequencers
Was interested in a startup instead of a PhD in order to "understand the ecosystem that science exists in"
Had interned for Pacific Biosciences before graduating, which interested her in industry rather than just going straight to PhD.

William E. White
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Company: Positive Light, TiSaph amplifiers
Started working full time on company in 1999, sold company in 2003. Then came to SLAC.

Andrei Terebilo
PhD at UCLA, dissertation on SSRL
Works for Pacific Biosciences

Question 1: How hard is it to come back to academia?
Bill: It depends on what you do. Some fields it is harder than others. It seems easier to come back to a National Lab, compared to a University.
Advice Do internships. The culture is different, so you can figure out rather quickly if it is for you.

Question 2: How do you get funding?
Yi: Establish credibility through publication of research, etc.
Bill: Take business classes while you have access to them.
Andrei: Join a small company where you can learn these things.

Jessa: It is very helpful to do non-technical internships to learn about product development on the marketing side. It needs to be a good product, not just good technology.

Yi: If you come across as very capable and credible (ie, Steve Jobs) the investors will give you money, no matter what the idea is.

Question 3: How does one protect their IP - ie, get money for it?
Yi: Students need to understand the value of the idea, then get patent protection before going out and giving talks on it.
Bill: Dealing with patents easier in the academic setting. In companies, it is so hard to fight patents, people just keep things secret.

Question 4: What are the options for a theory student?
Jessa: Do you want to keep doing theory? Companies are always looking for smart people. If you want to branch out - computing, modeling - there is a huge industry.
Yi: A theorist can found their own company.

Question 5: Does industry prefer Masters degrees to PhDs?
Jessa: Bigger companies have more specific ideas; startups tend to be more flexible and will want you to do everything.
Bill: I've hired a lot of scientists and the interview - how you are perceived - is more important than Masters vs PhD.
Andrei: The "inflexibility" reputation may come from how complete PhD's expect to understand and know a problem and the solution, compared to the standard in the business world.

Question 6: What type of skill set is academia actually looking for?
Jessa: Communication skills are critical.
Uwe (moderator): It is important to have an expertise, rather than be a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Yi: When interviewing, I drill people on their technical skills.
Bill: Don't underestimate the value of a network. I know who I want to hire before I post the job. Because these industries are small, everyone knows if you leave a company on bad terms.
Andrei: Really research the company, know what their big problems are. Show your application to that in the interview.

Question 7: How does the current economy affect the jobs? What are the pros and cons of a startup vs a government job
Bill: I don't think it is hard to find money if you have a good idea right now.
Yi: (Analogy about sinking boat) A company is a small boat where everyone is bailing, the government is a big boat that takes a long time to sink but no one helps bail.

23% Hate Everything

Living in California, I get to see some incredible elections. Yesterday I voted on school district board members, community college board members, fire district members, and two propositions. One was a bond measure of the community college, and the other was "fire district appropriations". The text was:

Measure F: "Shall the appropriations limit applicable to the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, currently set at $40,000,000 pursuant to Measure G approved by the electors of the district on November 7, 2007, be continued at $40,000,000 for a period of four years from the date of the election?"

This isn't even an increase in funding. And right now, it isn't enough money for them to run the fire district! A "no" vote would mean a decrease in funding. In our voter guides there was a page with the argument in support. What was the argument in opposition? There was none!

This isn't the first time where I have seen a measure which seems like it shouldn't be up for vote. There have been measures that were superseded by the legislature, so the voter guide said votes don't even matter on it. But I consider these unique opportunities, from a "science" point of view. After all, they are a sort of control. How many people vote yes on a law that even those responsible for getting it on the ballot don't support? How many people vote no on something like this fire district appropriations?

23% voted no on the fire district measure. Who are these people? Do they want their house to burn down? Do they not understand how flammable everything is here?

Putting it out there

I first had a webpage around the time google was founded. Since then I have designed and maintained a variety of web pages - for student groups, EXO, surveys, petitions, and most recently the Undergraduate Women in Physics Conference. Unfortunately my technical ability to do things with HTML is not matched by any ability to design things that look nice.

For some time I have thought about making some sort of personal/professional website. I had imagined something that would be an HTML equivalent of my resume, and decided I could use it as an opportunity to learn the magical new world of HTML 5. I didn't start it for some time, but then the press coverage of my Cerenkov work made me realise how little control I had on the information available about me.

So I created a website for myself. It doesn't look as amazing as I would like, and doesn't have all of the functionality I would like. But it has my papers, talks, and activities. It is what I want the world to see of me.

But there is one problem, of course. It doesn't seem to show up in google searches! I have tried to link to it on my profiles (linked in, facebook) in a few places. But yet, it just doesn't show up in the Google results. I have google analytics running on it, which shows me what search terms ARE getting people there. For reasons I don't understand, the search phrases that have brought people to my website are "adc mapping osirix plugin", "stanford html template sandstone", and "stanford software".

Now I must find ways to actually make my page exist in the great Google database. Or, re-craft my career to be about adc mapping osirix plugins.