Star Stryder
type: channel
description: Science, Technology, and Space Art
date: 2024-04-24T17:46:33Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The Endangered Antarctic Meteorites & the researchers who feed on them.
items: Introducing: Election Year Story Time Picks
items: Back in 2015, I knowingly blew up my life.
items: The Earth is trying to give you more hours in your day… but it wasn’t always
items: NANOGrav: Fluctuations in space captured in real-time
items: The echos of genetics
items: COVID-19 — Do more than wash your hands
items: Toward a greater good: TMT & Starlink
items: For every generation a hero: Remembering Apollo 1, Challenger, & Columbia
items: Will the Boeing / SpaceX space race be fair?
items: Astronomy conference economics
items: Counting rocks: Maybe it’s enough
items: Living in this body
items: Big Data and our Humanity: A Talk
items: The Unacknowledged Costs of Academic Travel
items: Why I fly American
items: The Care and Starvation of Ignorance
items: Rerouting or How Google Maps Tried to Kill Me
items: Science March 2017
items: Resist; Persist.

The Endangered Antarctic Meteorites & the researchers who feed on them.
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2024-04-24T17:46:31Z
subject: Personal
description: As glaciers around the world transform into rivers and ultimately dry ravines, entire ecosystems will be changed forever. While we often talk about the problems faced by polar bears and penguins, we must also consider the less fluffy endangered creatures, such as the rare planetary science graduate student. This starved-for-data subgroup of humans, along with […] The post The Endangered Antarctic Meteorites & the researchers who feed on them. appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: The researchers with their 16.7-pound find. White helmet: Maria Schönbächler. Green helmet: Maria Valdes. Black helmet: Ryoga Maeda. Orange helmet: Vinciane Debaille. Photo courtesy of Maria Valdes. Credit: Maria Valdes As glaciers around the world transform into rivers and ultimately dry ravines, entire ecosystems will be changed forever. While we often talk about the problems faced by polar bears and penguins, we must also consider the less fluffy endangered creatures, such as the rare planetary science graduate student. This starved-for-data subgroup of humans, along with the more common geology graduate student, is known to migrate by the dozen to glaciers every summer as they search out one of their favorite research foods: meteorites. Working side-by-side with members of their sub-group who have somehow survived to become senior scientists and faculty, these early-career researchers learn to forage along the surfaces and melting ends of glaciers for meteorites revealed by the glaciers’ melting. It is estimated that 300,000 meteorites are at the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet. During their summer meteorite hunt, eager researchers can gather as many as 1000 meteorites that can feed their research for months or sometimes even years. Without climate change, these rare scientists could go centuries without needing to find new hunting sites. Unfortunately, because of climate change, things are going to get much harder for these young researchers. With every 1/10 degree of warning, it’s estimated that 5,100 to 12,200 meteorites will be lost from the ice sheet. By 2050, it’s estimated that a quarter of these precious space rocks could be lost forever. These lost space rocks could contain the samples needed for these students to get PhDs… or maybe even discover life from other worlds. It is up to all of us to protect all the rare and endangered flora, fauna, … and researchers in this world. In the words of Harry Zekollari, “To secure this invaluable extraterrestria…

Introducing: Election Year Story Time Picks
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2024-03-04T22:24:10Z
subject: Personal
subject: Politics
description: N.B. This series has nothing to do with astronomy, but the future of science requires a nation with the capacity and the will to support science and nurture a highly educated populace. This year, 2024, is a presidential election year here in the United States. There are no perfect candidates, but this year’s choices are […] The post Introducing: Election Year Story Time Picks appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: N.B. This series has nothing to do with astronomy, but the future of science requires a nation with the capacity and the will to support science and nurture a highly educated populace. This year, 2024, is a presidential election year here in the United States. There are no perfect candidates, but this year’s choices are – to judge by current primary results – particularly unappealing. For the first time in my adult life, we’re seeing “None of these candidates” picking up traction. Like Diogenes looking for one honest man, modern political parties are struggling to come up with ideal candidates; people young enough that “death by natural causes” isn’t a concern, people who put country before self, and who act with honor and integrity. I believe these people do exist, but in our 24-hour news cycle, where attacks on character are food for jokes by late-night comedians, these people likely keep their heads down and serve in other ways than as elected officials. But what happens to a nation when good people turn silent? This particular question is explored in countless novels. The best example of what can happen when the populace disengages may be Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (that’s an Amazon affiliate link – so are other links in this post). This 1953 novel imagines a future where all media is made to hold onto your attention while saying nothing. All pleasures are allowed and the only rule seems to be “No books allowed.” Why? Because then people just might think independently and recognize the horrors going on around them. This cautionary tale is a must-read in our world where book banning is again on the rise. This novel, while more than 70 years old, is still under copyright here in the United States. If it was out of copyright, I’d be getting ready to record this book on YouTube in hopes that I can get more people to hear its words. Sadly, many of the classic cautionary tales that I feel are must-reads for modern society – books like George Orwell’s “1984“, Octa…

Back in 2015, I knowingly blew up my life.
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2024-02-28T00:00:00Z
subject: Personal
description: Back in 2015, I knowingly blew up my life. That is not an exaggeration. That is not hyperbole. It is, quite simply, a thing I did because it was the right thing to do. At the time, I was at the top of my career. I’d just been awarded a $12 million grant. I was […] The post Back in 2015, I knowingly blew up my life. appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: Back in 2015, I knowingly blew up my life. That is not an exaggeration. That is not hyperbole. It is, quite simply, a thing I did because it was the right thing to do. At the time, I was at the top of my career. I’d just been awarded a $12 million grant. I was an officer in multiple professional societies. My podcasting was continuing to grow, and I was traveling the world to promote science. But then I gave voice to victims of sexual harassment who had been brave enough to come forward. I did what you are supposed to do as a society officer and a senior researcher – I reported the information that was brought to me. I did what I could to make sure this one particular man would never again harm any future women. And I had a congresswoman’s aid. I worked with Congresswoman Jackie Speier to try and say “never again”. You can read about what happened here and google as you will. Honestly, this situation was the best a woman could possibly be in when reporting a sexual harasser. What happened to me should serve as a cautionary tale about why women are reluctant to report harassment and how our system works against them. In late 2016, I was sued for $33 million in a defamation case brought against me for reporting what those women told me, for sharing the evidence they brought me, and for sharing my personal experiences. Due to retaliation related to this lawsuit and all its trickle-down effects, I ultimately had to switch jobs twice, and my $12 million grant was canceled. A colleague trying to help me manage the situation was able to put together over 900 pages of documentation demonstrating how the cancelation was retaliation. The documentation was presented to the inspector general to no avail; there was no getting that grant back. And all the while I was being utterly isolated by the lawsuit. At one point, I had an employer (not my current) who forbade me from discussing the lawsuit on pain of being fired. I lost my savings because I couldn’t ask for help through a l…

The Earth is trying to give you more hours in your day… but it wasn’t always
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2023-07-08T21:02:55Z
subject: Astronomy
subject: Planets
description: As we gear up for our yearly fundraiser, I feel confident in saying that just about everyone on our team is wishing we could somehow cram more hours into every day. At a certain level, our world is happy to oblige, and every year our days get the smallest fraction of a second longer and […] The post The Earth is trying to give you more hours in your day… but it wasn’t always appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: As we gear up for our yearly fundraiser, I feel confident in saying that just about everyone on our team is wishing we could somehow cram more hours into every day. At a certain level, our world is happy to oblige, and every year our days get the smallest fraction of a second longer and the Moon gets a few centimeters farther away. Prague’s Astronomical Clock. Credit: Pamela L Gay In science, we often find things related in the wildest of ways. In this case, conservation of momentum is trying to keep everything rotating with the same amount of energy: we have the Earth rotating about its axis, the moon rotating and revolving around the Earth, and the Earth and Moon going round and round the Sun. All things being constant, everything would stay exactly the same forever, but… things aren’t constant. Because our Earth isn’t perfectly spherical, the Moon’s gravity is pulling on mountains and others high-mass points a little bit harder, and in the process slowing our world’s rotation. As the Earth slows, the Moon moves outward. This is the same physics that describes how an ice skater can slow down by flinging their arms outward. In this simple situation, everyday from here forward will get a little bit longer, and everyday — looking back through history — we thought the days would be getting a little bit shorter. But the universe and our planet are rarely simple, and it turns out that our moon isn’t the only thing affecting our world. Our Sun also affects the Earth, and it has the ability to speed things up. And new research shows that when the Earth’s day is about 19 hours long, the Moon’s habit of lengthening the day and the Sun’s efforts to shorten the day almost balance out. According to a new paper by Ross N. Mitchell & Uwe Kirscher appearing in Nature Geoscience, fossil records indicate that from about 1 billion years ago to about 2 billion years ago, our Earth’s rotation rate stalled out at about 19 hours. During this time, evolution also stalled out in its own w…

NANOGrav: Fluctuations in space captured in real-time
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2023-07-08T20:55:33Z
subject: Personal
description: Heading into the holiday weekend, social media exploded with news that a massive discovery was going to be announced on Thursday June 29 by the NANOgrav collaboration. This network of North American observatories had been watching the sky in radio light for over 15 years and now they had something big to share. For those […] The post NANOGrav: Fluctuations in space captured in real-time appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: Heading into the holiday weekend, social media exploded with news that a massive discovery was going to be announced on Thursday June 29 by the NANOgrav collaboration. This network of North American observatories had been watching the sky in radio light for over 15 years and now they had something big to share. For those who’d been following the team’s work, hopes were high. This team had been carefully monitoring the metronome-like ticking of radio pulsars to see if they could see alterations in the fabric of space-time that are caused by gravitational waves. That big news — we hoped — would be a description of our universe warping in observable ways. Funded by the National Science Foundation in 2015, NANOGrav used the Arecibo and Greenbank radio dishes, as well as the CHIME and Very Large Array to monitor an ever increasing number of pulsars. These spinning neutron stars blast our radio light like an over-caffeinated lighthouse spinning 1000 times a second. Neutron stars are the high-density remnants of massive stars that can no longer fuel nuclear reactions. Neutron stars are just what their name implies: giant balls of neutrons. Because these particles can get much closer together than a mix of protons and electrons, neutron stars can cram all their mass into a volume that could rest comfortably on Manhattan Island. That mass — it is 1.4 solar masses to something like 2.2 solar masses. Pulsars blast out radio light like lighthouse as they rotate. Credit: NANOGrav.org When that much mass crams into a space that small and spins extremely rapidly, that you end up with a nature-made top that doesn’t have a single wibble or wobble to its motion. A stand-alone pulsar is the ultimate clock, and when we find pulsars paired up in binary systems, their obits can be precisely measured by the shifting of their pulses. Essentially, as the pulsar moves toward us in its orbit, each pulse has to travel a little less distance than the one before, so the ticking of the clock seem…

The echos of genetics
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2020-08-09T03:50:25Z
subject: Personal
description: When I was in 8th and 9th grade, whenever my parents wanted to buy my grandmother something to wear, I had to try it on. That was the age I stopped growing taller, and she and I were the same height. She was a slight women and I was a gangly teen. Thin is not […] The post The echos of genetics appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: When I was in 8th and 9th grade, whenever my parents wanted to buy my grandmother something to wear, I had to try it on. That was the age I stopped growing taller, and she and I were the same height. She was a slight women and I was a gangly teen. Thin is not the norm of my family, but as far back as I can remember, grandma was the exception due to allergies. When she was going to visit, finding foods she could actually eat was a trial. Wheat – no. Most fruits – no. Item after item could send her to the hospital, and as a child no one would explain to me what was wrong. She died of cancer when I was in 9th grade, when she was not yet 60 and I was 14. Looking back from the perspective of adulthood, I see now that my grandmother had celiac disease that was complicated by a Latex allergy and Latex Fruit Syndrome. I had figured out the celiac disease years ago, but it took developing my own latex allergy in 2017 to understand that this slight women really just couldn’t find anything she could eat because she had latex fruit syndrome. This blog post is the first in what will be a periodic series on my journey in figuring out how to live with a Latex Allergy and includes Latex Fruit Syndrome. Allergies suck, and we live in a society where allergies cause many to roll their eyes and say “those aren’t real.” Others think that if something is wrong, it probably isn’t that bad, and you’re just being dramatic. It can be exhausting, and I’m writing this as I realize that for the rest of my life, I’m going to be that pain in the ass person who has to say, “Here is a sheet of paper listing all the ingredients I absolutely cannot eat.” I am not slight like grandma anymore. I’m used to eating almost everything. This is all still new to me. Sure, I have a diary allergy, but it didn’t used to be that bad, and stress munching food is part of my identity. Or at least it was. Now … now I’m a bit afraid of food. I’m tired of itching. From developing a basic latex allergy in 2017, when I …

COVID-19 — Do more than wash your hands
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2020-03-04T21:07:29Z
subject: Politics
description: As I watch the COVID-19 virus boil up in hotspots scattered around the globe, I look around at the US and realize that 40 years of presidential economic decisions that favour profit over people have set us up to struggle as a nation. From lack of affordable health care, to lack of major factories we […] The post COVID-19 — Do more than wash your hands appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: As I watch the COVID-19 virus boil up in hotspots scattered around the globe, I look around at the US and realize that 40 years of presidential economic decisions that favour profit over people have set us up to struggle as a nation. From lack of affordable health care, to lack of major factories we can repurpose to fit current needs, we have set ourselves up to see people avoid doctors and spread disease while our health systems are crippled by lack of basic goods and equipment. These issues have their source in Reagan’s deregulation of healthcare and the economics of Clinton. To get through the coming COVID-19 outbreaks, we must do more than just wash our hands; we must prepared to help one another when social systems fail us. credit Tama66 Back when I started college in 1992, I was an international relations major in James Madison College at Michigan State University. As part of our election-year course work we read the latest books by Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, respectively Bush & Clinton’s economic advisors. This had 3 out-of-the-classroom effects on me. The first impact was perhaps silly. I was so impressed by Paul Krugman’s book that the next time I was in Boston visiting my boyfriend at MIT, I emailed Krugman to ask to meet. He was heading off on a trip himself, but we overlapped at Boston Logan airport. We met in the terminal, he signed my book & we talked econ. The second impact was life changing. I discovered I hated understanding economics — understanding that what is best for the rich also destroys the working class — that I switched to astrophysics. Yes folks, the fact that it is beneficial for a factory to kill rather than maim drove me to astronomy. The third impact is the one that is actually relevant here. In reading these books, I decided that my 18 year old, Massachusetts democrat, socialism-loving self was going to vote for Bush because I wanted to live in Paul Krugman’s economy instead of Reich’s. We didn’t get to see Paul Krugman’s 2nd-ter…

Toward a greater good: TMT & Starlink
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2020-02-05T01:00:53Z
subject: Personal
description: [N.B. This post has been bouncing around in my head since I was in Hawaii for the American Astronomical Society Meeting several weeks ago. I haven’t written it yet because I suspect I’m going to piss off everyone, and that is actually not a goal, but sometimes finding the greatest good requires pissing off everyone, […] The post Toward a greater good: TMT & Starlink appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: [N.B. This post has been bouncing around in my head since I was in Hawaii for the American Astronomical Society Meeting several weeks ago. I haven’t written it yet because I suspect I’m going to piss off everyone, and that is actually not a goal, but sometimes finding the greatest good requires pissing off everyone, and I mean everyone.] While I was at AAS I saw two different groups of humans talking about how their/our heritage by preserving the sky. They talked about how preserving their culture included preserving the sky; a sky that is sacred. I also saw two different groups of people saying that culture is nice; saying they’d do what they could to preserve cultural heritages, but they’re going to do what they’re going to do because it advances greater things. One of these groups – in both situations – was astronomers. TL;DR 1 – Starlink: We are at a turning point. We have a choice to launch Starlink and other satellite constellations that will provide internet access to people in rural and remote places, or we can deny people the internet to make it easier for astronomers to do ground-based astronomy, in the process denying them educational, financial, and other opportunities. If we launch Starlink there will be consequences. Yes, it will slow the progress of astronomy, as we are forced to build into our observing plans the need to linger longer on targets and observe things in weird orders to make sure we get satellite free images. Yes, the sky will be full of satellites. But which is the greater good? TL:DR 2 – TMT: We also have a choice about building one of the largest telescopes planned – the Thirty-meter Telescope – at Mauna Kea. We can forcibly deny people the chance to maintain their ancestral traditions at the top of Mauna Kea without the scar of one more massive telescope. Alternatively, we can mend relations and find a way to make TMT something everyone looks forward to, or we can build that telescope in the Canary Islands where the the science won’t…

For every generation a hero: Remembering Apollo 1, Challenger, & Columbia
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2020-01-29T01:56:34Z
subject: Personal
description: This morning my Google calendar of space history woke me to say that the space shuttle Challenger exploded 34 years ago today. If you are GenX like me, you remember exactly where you were in 1986 when the Challenger lifted off but failed to reach orbit with a crew of 6 astronauts and one schoolteacher […] The post For every generation a hero: Remembering Apollo 1, Challenger, & Columbia appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: credit: Jaideep Khemani from Dubai, United Arab Emirates This morning my Google calendar of space history woke me to say that the space shuttle Challenger exploded 34 years ago today. If you are GenX like me, you remember exactly where you were in 1986 when the Challenger lifted off but failed to reach orbit with a crew of 6 astronauts and one schoolteacher from New Hampshire. For each of the older generations there has been this kind of a winter disaster. For the boomers, there was the Jan 27, 1967 loss of Apollo 1. The 3-man crew lost their lives during a preflight test when a spark ignited their cabin’s oxygen atmosphere. For Millennials there were was the February 1, 2003 loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated during re-entry. One of the things we talk about over on CosmoQuest is the simple fact that space is hard. Getting to space is one of the most challenging things a machine with or without humans can accomplish, and the only task that is more challenging is getting to the bottom of the ocean. It is amazing that so few astronauts have died. This month, we saw the inflight abort test of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule. That successful test sets us up to start sending astronauts to space in a brand new spacecraft. As we do that, it is important for us to both remember past tragedies, and not let them hold us back. I wrote about my experience with the Challenger loss in a blog post I apparently wrote 12 years ago. Rereading that post today, and looking at how long it has been since the final shuttle launch on July 8, 2011, I feel sad and tired and old. I am sad because so little has happened in the “Dare Boldly” category since 2008. I feel tired because I know how hard so many people including myself have worked to advocate for space and innovate new ways to do science, and it seems that we’re still always 6 months away from something happening. I feel old because I just realised the current NASA administrator is two years my junior. In 2008, I …

Will the Boeing / SpaceX space race be fair?
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2020-01-22T01:45:00Z
subject: Personal
description: This Sunday, January 19, 2020, after multiple weather-related delays, SpaceX was able to launch a 3-time used Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A. Atop this rocket was a Crew Dragon capsule containing two mannequins and a whole lot of sensors. This wasn’t a normal launch; this was the inflight abort test many […] The post Will the Boeing / SpaceX space race be fair? appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: This Sunday, January 19, 2020, after multiple weather-related delays, SpaceX was able to launch a 3-time used Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A. Atop this rocket was a Crew Dragon capsule containing two mannequins and a whole lot of sensors. This wasn’t a normal launch; this was the inflight abort test many of us have been waiting months to see. Less than 2 minutes after launch, and after sustaining Max Q (that point in flight when the rocket experiences maximum dynamic pressure), SpaceX had their Falcon 9 just… turn off. This had two effects. As planned, on board software correctly processed sensor and system data to recognize the problem, and released the Dragon Crew Capsule and fired its Draco Engines to get it the hell out of there. The next thing that happened was the unpowered and now unstable rocket, as planned, exploded in a very dramatic way. The jettisoned capsule accelerated away with a maximum acceleration of 3.4 g. This is significantly easier on the body than what astronauts experienced during a necessary abort of a Soyuz capsule in October 2018. After the Crew Dragon reached a maximum altitude of around 25 miles or 40 km, the capsule began its safe journey home, with all parachutes deploying as planned, concluding with a safe splashdown into the ocean. This successful test prepared the way for a crewed launch sometime this year. In a press conference following the abort test, there was a clear attempt to maintain a single narrative between NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk; Musk even stated they’d agreed on messaging prior to appearing, roughly 15 minutes late, on the press conference stage. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="650" height="433" src="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1_TAPFUpqK4s6IuWqLrPnCvg.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-3293" srcset="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1_TAPFUpqK4s6IuWqLrPnCvg.jpg 650w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uplo…

Astronomy conference economics
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2019-06-27T01:30:12Z
subject: Personal
description: What feels like a million years ago, I attended my first American Astronomical Society meeting. It was my senior year at MSU and it was expected that I’d be presenting research to help me get into grad school. I can’t remember exactly what was in my poster, but I remember hanging it side by side […] The post Astronomy conference economics appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: What feels like a million years ago, I attended my first American Astronomical Society meeting. It was my senior year at MSU and it was expected that I’d be presenting research to help me get into grad school. I can’t remember exactly what was in my poster, but I remember hanging it side by side with “famous female astronomer” Erika Böhm-Vitense’s poster. I was overwhelmed because I had just bought her books and now I was presenting my research right beside her. It was amazing. In the (mumble mumble) years since that first poster presentation, I have attended a never ending march of these astronomy meetings. Sometimes I go as a journalist, and my media badge precludes me from presenting. Sometimes I go as a scientist, and there is a professional expectation that I must present, no matter what, as much as possible. The thing is, if everyone is presenting (often multiple things), it becomes extremely hard to find the best content, and to find the time to consume that content between presenting and meetings. Sure, there are award talks and plenary sessions, but outside these rare longer presentations, everyone is trying to cram their science into 5 minutes or onto a 3’x4’ sheet of paper. There is little incentive to do more than a last minute effort when you know that if you’re lucky maybe 10–20 people will take the time to take in your work. These massive conferences often turn into a life changing event for the students (yea!) and there are social gatherings that may lead to new collaborations for more senior attendees, but mostly conferences lead to bitch sessions over beer. The economics of this makes no sense in our funding strapped reality. At the cost of typically $1500-$2000 per person per meeting, and with typically a few thousand participants per year at just the AAS meetings, these events consume millions of dollars and I’m honestly not sure what the return is beyond getting to hangout and eat overpriced food with people I otherwise might only see in a video…

Counting rocks: Maybe it’s enough
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2019-06-08T15:31:12Z
subject: Astronomy
subject: Citizen Science
subject: Meetings
subject: Personal
description: [N.B. Yesterday I accepted the Issac Asimov Science Award from the American Humanist Society. This is my acceptance speech, which you can watch it over on YouTube. If my voice sounds off, it’s because I’m still recovering from #@$!(*^!@% Bronchitis.] Memory is a strange and fickle thing. Not every moment is stored. Somewhere I lost […] The post Counting rocks: Maybe it’s enough appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: [N.B. Yesterday I accepted the Issac Asimov Science Award from the American Humanist Society. This is my acceptance speech, which you can watch it over on YouTube. If my voice sounds off, it’s because I’m still recovering from #@$!(*^!@% Bronchitis.] Memory is a strange and fickle thing. Not every moment is stored. Somewhere I lost the names of the dinosaurs that I knew when I was 5. Gone is the family tree of the Greek gods I memorised in 5th grade. There is an inexplicable alchemy to what is remembered – did you know, birds can’t fart, wombats poop cubes, and Ceres was a former planet more than 70 years before Pluto was even discovered. Somethings, I just can’t forget. There is this one memory that stays with me. I was about 12 years old – a 7th grader – and I was getting teased for my intelligence as we all lined up to go inside that morning. I can remember the crowding, the noise, and his taunt of: “You just think you know everything!” I still remember my retort “No. I. Don’t. … but someday I will.” I was wrong, I will never know everything, but that hunger to try – to work each day to learn more and understand more, that hunger that pulsed through that pre-teenage me is what has carried me to become and stay a scientist. Scientists aren’t people who know everything: we are people that strive everyday to expand humanity’s understanding of this universe we share. As I stand before you, I see echos of that little girl in who I’ve become. Back then, I read all the science fiction I could, from the Star Trek novels that made my English teacher roll her eyes to the Frank Herbert and Michael Crichton novels that left me terrified of viruses and genetically engineered plagues. I’m not going to lie, I still read too much, and the works of Gaimen, Jemisin, Scalzi, Okorafor, Wendig & Lafferty fill my ears and eyes as I whisper sync from audio book to paper white in stolen moment found everyday. Back then, by day, I filled my brain with the latest astronomy as I poured thr…

Living in this body
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2019-04-09T16:34:22Z
subject: featured
subject: Personal
description: Earlier today I ran by the post office to ship a package. It’s full on spring & I decided it was time to pull out spring dresses. A women in line complemented me on my look & when I told her it was from #eShakti she was totally confused, & we had a good laugh as I […] The post Living in this body appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-1024x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-2913" width="256" height="256" srcset="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-300x300.jpeg 300w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-768x768.jpeg 768w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-240x240.jpeg 240w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-96x96.jpeg 96w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-121x121.jpeg 121w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-60x60.jpeg 60w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-184x184.jpeg 184w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-600x600.jpeg 600w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IMG_7327-100x100.jpeg 100w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 256px) 100vw, 256px" /> Examining the Flowers (by Pamela Gay) Earlier today I ran by the post office to ship a package. It’s full on spring & I decided it was time to pull out spring dresses. A women in line complemented me on my look & when I told her it was from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/eshakti?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARDlmb1V3RCPsE2ex8RT0P4TyVf3v9_XVFPSbm0c7_Cd_vGniLNKQ1BfXyAPQGijug3biEXJau2xon4lvpkuV3vLJCazI1FrrTBtM7gTBy9f2_ldrpElyq2PZ7x5UN1vUGaihGUuMqNk5-wPCZiPONvQEdxVwS1Xr8QSPTzhWYS4q9-h-FgeMpmMX2E4vinezPSpaEsaumrTgUPdb0NRZ5jgbkzGIJGi26cw43AdPwgtbtpb2fU7Bn0OAxVMMPYS6kcTHJBkkIhn3_KsJpKMXNrM55Jqu-HXgqm97c30PmSRLg27skm8jS1x_FhE7W8U0twpc-O0YOFMrNPODQ&__tn__=%2ANK-R">#eShakti she was totally confused, & we had a good laugh as I explained yes they are as good as they claim on Facebook. Pockets, custom sizing and all, they are tha…

Big Data and our Humanity: A Talk
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2018-03-20T21:16:29Z
subject: featured
subject: Personal
description: [Background: The week of March 11, 2018 I attended the “Computing Morality: Artificial Intelligence and ‘Big Data’ in Science and Faith” conference at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. This was a conference with talks ranging from how we train self-driving cars to handle people dashing in front of the car, to how we understand understanding. I […] The post Big Data and our Humanity: A Talk appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: [Background: The week of March 11, 2018 I attended the “Computing Morality: Artificial Intelligence and ‘Big Data’ in Science and Faith” conference at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. This was a conference with talks ranging from how we train self-driving cars to handle people dashing in front of the car, to how we understand understanding. I was asked to give a talk introducing the theme of moral issues that arise from big data, and what follows is the notes I spoke from, along with links to references. (image credit:NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)] When I was 15, I was able to travel to the Soviet Union for the summer to study astronomy. I was part of a People to People exchange program with 20 some odd students from 15 to 18. We were young, and thought we knew everything in that way that only clever teenagers can think. A highlight of the trip was visiting the 6-m telescope in the Northern Caucasus mountains. At the time, it was the largest in the world, and here we were – high school students – getting to explore its dome and sign the visitors wall alongside some of the best astronomers in the USSR and the world. That night, exhausted but exhilarated, we piled into the back of a bus to travel down the mountain. It was a long ride, and we were too drunk on being alive to consider sleep. As we rode, we asked those fundamental 4am questions that at the time had no answers. How will the world end? Where did our universe come from? Where did life come from? Are we alone? Back then, it was impossible to know any of these answers, and we could only debate our opinions. We drew on science, and we drew on our religions and lack of religions as we argued. It was the last 80s. Laptops weren’t yet a thing, the Internet was only a science fiction dream, and the fundamental questions had no answers. We didn’t know if in our lifetimes these questions could have answers, but like Aristotelian philosophers, we wanted to believe the truth of life the universe and everything could be gotten …

The Unacknowledged Costs of Academic Travel
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2017-07-18T07:04:52Z
subject: Academic Politics
subject: featured
subject: Travel
description: I travel a lot. I travel for conferences, for planning meetings, for NASA collaboration meetings, for filming, for launches… for a ton of things that are related to my work. I can’t really complain about the travel; I get to see the world while being exposed to new ideas and new opportunities, and to cultures […] The post The Unacknowledged Costs of Academic Travel appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: I travel a lot. I travel for conferences, for planning meetings, for NASA collaboration meetings, for filming, for launches… for a ton of things that are related to my work. I can’t really complain about the travel; I get to see the world while being exposed to new ideas and new opportunities, and to cultures and cuisines I’d never experience in the confines of St Louis. I can’t complain about the business travel, but I can wish that it came at lower personal cost to academics – especially those academics who must travel but lack a travel budget. Right now, I’m at 35,000 ft somewhere over Arizona. I’m on my way home from spending just over 24 hours in San Diego. For several hours, I enjoyed the productive boredom of working in the Phoenix Admirals Club. This gave me a chance to contemplate things and stuff. More accurately, I contemplated spending and stuff. My 24 hours of work-related travel cost me the tips I left, the insane mark up on the Kleenex I bought at the airport (because of the cold I picked up), and the cost of the coffee that went beyond what I can expect to get reimbursed, but needed to keep functioning through sleep deprivation. This trip, I got off cheap. There wasn’t anything I needed to buy to work effectively while traveling. I didn’t lose anything during this trip. It could have been a whole lot worse. We don’t generally talk about the cost of travel. There are taboos involved in anything regarding money. Those of us with funds know we’re lucky, and to complain would be to be ungrateful. Those who travel on their own dime know it is a choice: we do it to advance our careers and the money is an investment in our future… but this is a false economy. We need to stop being silent, and start recognizing that academia taxes people for the right to keep and advance their careers. I have worked with many faculty who know that in order to be promoted, they must present their work at academic conferences. They also know that the alternative is to be fired…

Why I fly American
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2017-07-16T18:28:12Z
subject: featured
subject: Personal
subject: Travel
description: Today I’m flying from St Louis to San Diego on Southwest Air and I feel a bit like a traitor. For years, I’ve flown on American Airlines pretty exclusively. One of my only speaker requirements is that my travel gets booked on American. This isn’t because they have the best planes, the most delightful staff, […] The post Why I fly American appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: Today I’m flying from St Louis to San Diego on Southwest Air and I feel a bit like a traitor. For years, I’ve flown on American Airlines pretty exclusively. One of my only speaker requirements is that my travel gets booked on American. This isn’t because they have the best planes, the most delightful staff, or the best frequent flier program; it’s because they have saved my frequently flying butt more times than I can count. This includes getting me home from Moscow when I wasn’t sure home was going to happen. I started flying American pretty exclusively after moving to St Louis in 2006. There wasn’t any real reason for this beyond they fly international and St Louis (at the time) had a ton of flights because it was a slowly fading TWA/American hub. The first time they saved me, it was a little thing. I had plans in 2009 to go to an event at Microsoft Research in Seattle, and after everything was all set for that trip, I had a random “Want to go to Shanghai?” opportunity open up related to that year’s solar eclipse. Because of how my initial trip to Seattle was booked, I ended up with a ticket that got me home to St Louis from Seattle after I was supposed to leave St Louis for Shanghai. When I looked at the change fees and price differences, I despaired. Rather than try and move flights bought by others, I just bought a 1-way cheap seat on another airline that would fix everything, but leave me exhausted. The thing is, American called me a few days before this crazy flight fiasco was set to begin, and basically said, “Um, you know your one set of flights forces you to miss your other set of flights? Let us fix that for you for free.” They rebooked my Seattle to St Louis flight at no cost (and I kept my 1 way cheap seat as a backup), and off I went. It turned out this was a trip saver! The plane my cheap seat was booked on never flew. I would have been rebooked, leaving Seattle after my flight to Shanghai was supposed to take off! I would have missed the cruise ship …

The Care and Starvation of Ignorance
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2017-07-05T20:35:26Z
subject: featured
subject: Teaching
description: To quote Randall Monroe: “Saying ‘what kind of an idiot doesn’t know about the Yellowstone supervolcano’ is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.” In astronomy education, we spend a lot of time saying “what kind of idiot doesn’t know about lunar phases.” I think it’s time […] The post The Care and Starvation of Ignorance appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: To quote Randall Monroe: “Saying ‘what kind of an idiot doesn’t know about the Yellowstone supervolcano’ is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.” In astronomy education, we spend a lot of time saying “what kind of idiot doesn’t know about lunar phases.” I think it’s time to ask ourselves why we get upset that people (especially kids!) don’t understand things we haven’t yet taught them, and how we can make it ok for people to say “I don’t know” instead of BSing bad answers. I’m currently attending The International Symposium on Education in Astronomy and Astrobiology (#ise2a) in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Over the weekend, I attended the Psychology of Programming Interest Group (#ppig2017) meeting in Delft, the Netherlands. While the one meeting uses the modifier “Education” and the other uses the modifier “Psychology” they both had largely overlapping content, with talks addressing: barriers to learning; educational frameworks and progressions; and ways of determining expertise. There were/are two major differences between these conferences. The kinds of interdisciplinary engagement is not the same. At the computer science conference (N ~ 25) there was an amazing mixture of CS professors, industry programmers, neuroscientists, psychologists, and people focused on education – there didn’t seem to be any clear majority. At the astronomy conference (N ~ 80) we have astro professors and people with astronomy and education degrees who are focused on education and communication, and who work in research centers or schools. The majority of attendees are people with astronomy degrees at some level. The way novice/new learners are discussed is very different. In computer science, the focus was on transforming blank slates and novices into experts. In astronomy, people start from a point of concern about misconceptions, and actively pre-test for knowledge but get frustrated with the wrong answers on the pre-tests. I’m …

Rerouting or How Google Maps Tried to Kill Me
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2017-07-04T12:30:18Z
subject: Travel
description: Because I wanted to take a pretty photo, Google Maps tried to kill me. I’m currently in Utrecht, the Netherlands for a conference. My hotel is in the city center, and the conference is a few kilometers away at the University. The conference site recommended biking, so I rented a bike for the week. No. Big. […] The post Rerouting or How Google Maps Tried to Kill Me appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: Because I wanted to take a pretty photo, Google Maps tried to kill me. I’m currently in Utrecht, the Netherlands for a conference. My hotel is in the city center, and the conference is a few kilometers away at the University. The conference site recommended biking, so I rented a bike for the week. No. Big. Deal. Bikes here are just enough different from bikes at home that I’m not as comfortable zipping around and weaving between other cyclists as I might usually be, and I don’t start out as that much of a zipping weaver. This personal discomfort leads to a fair amount of trepidation about making left hand turns across roads in heavy bike traffic. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2634" src="http://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_9321-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_9321-200x300.jpg 200w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_9321-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_9321-683x1024.jpg 683w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />While kind of zipping along this morning I totally missed a left due to dense bike traffic and I triggered the Google “Rerouting” thing. While it was sorting a new route, I spotted this gorgeous tower and decided going an extra block wouldn’t be the end of the world, so I went an extra block, took the photo below, and instead of going back to the turn I missed, I let it reroute me through old Utrecht. This was a mistake. As I worked my way back toward my intended destination, I found Google resolutely telling me to go the wrong way down one way streets… Um… ok? I’m on a bike, maybe that is a thing here? The roads were utterly empty, so, whatever. And then it told me to TURN RIGHT NOW onto a fairly busy road. As an American, I know this can be a thing. I’ve more than once plugged along the side of a 55 mph road as the highway bridged f…

Science March 2017
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2017-04-22T13:00:29Z
subject: Personal
description: Along with many other Americans, I peacefully and legally took to the streets on Saturday, April 22 to make a public call for the support of science. Below is my planned speech, to be given in Springfield, MO. I must start this by saying I am here as an individual. My words are my own. […] The post Science March 2017 appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: Along with many other Americans, I peacefully and legally took to the streets on Saturday, April 22 to make a public call for the support of science. Below is my planned speech, to be given in Springfield, MO. I must start this by saying I am here as an individual. My words are my own. I represent no company, no government, and no sponsor. I am here speaking my mind, and my opinions. I am here to speak my truth. It’s Earth day. I have admit, this is a holiday that never stood out for me. My Freshman year of high school, my geometry teacher made us right papers for Earth day, and I remember resenting the assignment, and I don’t remember what I wrote on. I don’t think I really even noticed Earth Day again until 2009, when it was celebrated as part of the International Year of Astronomy, and the world was ask to turn of their lights off for a single hour on a single night so everyone might see the stars. Earth Day, isn’t a day most people mark on their calendar. For the most part, this holiday has largely been ignored here in the US. It lacks the commercial tie-ins of candy and cards that make Valentines Day and Easter so popular. It’s missing the drinking and parades of Saint Patrick’s Day. No, Earth Day – this Day – is not a day of consumerism that the marketing machines can get behind and remind us of. Earth Day is a celebration of our planet, and the science that is used to study it and the conservation that is needed to help humanity and our ecosystem thrive. In 1970, Denes Hayes founded Earth Day and encouraged peaceful protests to demand environmental reform. Today, 47 years later, we’re here to recognize that understanding our world and its place in the universe requires not just Earth Science but all science. Earth Day has become our day – a day to March for Science and demand better of ourselves and of our world. We demand that science be supported through excellent educational opportunities; and through sufficient federal funding that our scientists have the…

Resist; Persist.
type: item
creator: Pamela Gay
date: 2017-02-11T20:51:32Z
subject: Personal
subject: Politics
description: It’s been 20 days since the Women’s March on DC (and the World). Resistance is not futile, but persistence is hard. Earlier this week I shut down Twitter while trying to get some work done. Messages were flying so fast it was bogging down my system – and here I mean my computer not my […] The post Resist; Persist. appeared first on Star Stryder.
encoded: It’s been 20 days since the Women’s March on DC (and the World). Resistance is not futile, but persistence is hard. Earlier this week I shut down Twitter while trying to get some work done. Messages were flying so fast it was bogging down my system – and here I mean my computer not my head, although both may certainly have been true. When I turned things back on I was inspired by the stories flying past with the quote, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” <img decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-2602 alignleft" src="http://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.05.23-PM-240x300.png" alt="Screen Shot 2017-02-11 at 2.05.23 PM" width="25%" srcset="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.05.23-PM-240x300.png 240w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.05.23-PM.png 508w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" /> <img decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-2603 alignleft" src="http://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.05.01-PM-275x300.png" alt="Screen Shot 2017-02-11 at 2.05.01 PM" width="25%" srcset="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.05.01-PM-275x300.png 275w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.05.01-PM.png 509w" sizes="(max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px" /> <img decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-2604 alignleft" src="http://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.04.29-PM-260x300.png" alt="Screen Shot 2017-02-11 at 2.04.29 PM" width="25%" srcset="https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.04.29-PM-260x300.png 260w, https://www.starstryder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Screen-Shot-2017-02-11-at-2.04.29-PM.png 494w" sizes="(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px" /> These words resonated…