Earthquakes and Supermoons

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Originally, I had planned an entirely different blog post for this week, something that had nothing to do with science, but sometimes life can change at the drop of a hat.

On November 14, 2016 at 12:02 am (New Zealand Time), an 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck 15 km north-east of Culverden. The coastal town of Kaikoura has been devastated, effectively cut off from any help, but they are not alone. The entire country felt this.

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Removing the twinkle of stars

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This month on Conversations in Science, I spoke about something a little more closer to home. I had fun going back to my PhD roots and spoke about what I had spent nearly eight years of my life researching: how one can remove the twinkle from stars.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star... Not!
(First Aired on KLRNRadio, Monday, November 7, 2016)

When I was studying for my PhD, it was a little inside joke between my supervisors and myself. Whenever anyone asked what it was we did for a living, we would answer, "We remove the twinkle from stars." The reactions were hilarious. Most people would see it for the joke it was, but there would always be the one person who would get incredibly offended.

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Serious Politics…

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My family and friends know that I never watch the news, rarely read a newspaper, and ever since the radio died in my car, I don’t even get my news that way. No, all my knowledge of current events comes from word of mouth and the bombardment of various snippets on social media. Even my own children know more about what’s going on in the world than I do. However, there are some things that there is just no getting away from. Let’s just say that I would have to completely disconnect from the world to get away from the political stage of the USA.Read More→

There is no such thing as an aspiring writer…

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There is a term that I have seen bandied around in the bios of various writers, and it’s a term that I don’t like: aspiring writer.

What I don’t understand is how one can aspire to be a writer. You can aspire to be an author. You can aspire to quit your day job to become a full-time writer. You can aspire to share your writing with the world. But aspire to be a writer?Read More→

Pluto is a dwarf planet, but not because it’s small

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As promised, I'm putting my PhD to use and delving into an aspect of my life that has been neglected for far too long: the science geek in me. I now have my own show on KLRNRadio: Conversations in Science. (Don't ask how that happened. I'm still trying to figure that one out.)

Conversations in Science airs the first Monday of every month at 7pm EST (currently equates to the first Tuesday of every month at 12noon for those in New Zealand, but this NZ time will change come summer — daylight savings). For those who miss it, that's okay. It's downloadable. Links to the episodes are here on my site, and the show is now on iTunes.

UPDATED TO ADD:  The latest episode has now aired. Just a quick warning: we were plagued with a heavy storm during the recording and my internet was playing silly-buggers. It did have a negative effect on the recording, but we didn't have time to re-record prior to the episode going live. (Sorry, guys.)

Influences of Science Fiction on Science and Pluto
(First Aired on KLRNRadio, Monday, October 3, 2016)

Last month was the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. (Warning: I'm about to go full geek mode for a moment.)

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