Is it Albert Einstein? How about Marie Curie? Charles Darwin? Richard Feynman?

Post a comment below to tell me who you think is the best! Don’t feel obligated to stick to those I mentioned.

Whoever gives the best argument will have his or her favorite scientist featured as the next blog post.

Two-and-a-half years after Kepler was launched to study planets beyond our solar system, scientists are uncovering planets and other discoveries that are reminiscent of America’s best-loved works of science-fiction.

Photo credit: NASA (Public access photo)

Like this beauty, Kepler-16b (the tiny black circle). Or should I call it Tatooine? The red globe is a dwarf star, so this is the first time scientists have found a planet that orbits two suns. And new discoveries like this just keep pouring in from the stream of data Kepler has been producing.

I asked Eric Ford, University of Florida astronomy professor who collaborates with the Kepler mission, what he thought about the discoveries.

“Kepler is returning such beautiful and unprecedented data that it will enable exciting discoveries for at least the next decade,” Ford said.

The data Kepler gets from planets that lie in a habitable distance from their suns will be crucial when studying whether life is possible on these planets.

“The results of these future observation will help scientists address fundamental questions, like whether Earth-like life is common or rare,” Ford said.

He said the discoveries Kepler is making, which he said are “revolutionizing” several fields of astronomy, are the product of decades of work. But he said the Kepler mission could be cut this spring if Congress decides to nix the mission’s funding.

“It would be a real shame not to fully exploit the capabilities of the Kepler observatory,” he said. “Science will continue to advance in our global society, regardless of whether the USA chooses to make the investments required to foster scientific leadership or to let our country become an importer of science and technology from other countries.”

Just as Kepler is starting to show exciting promise, economic pressures may win out against this observational giant, but that doesn’t mean all is lost.

Once Kepler points out an interesting planet, observatories on the ground will follow up and study the planet more.

And since Kepler is pouring in such massive amounts of data, scientists will spend years analyzing all of it.

The fruits of Kepler’s labors are only just beginning. Personally, I can’t wait to hear what it’s found out there.

It seems that nearly everyone I come across nowadays is either an engineer or pre-med. To answer this question, I’ll interview students who have a type of science major to find out why they choose this career and this college.

First up, I spoke over the phone with my friend Josh Bauer — physics major, box drum extraordinaire and Rubik’s Cube master. He’s a third-year at UF, and he started as an aerospace engineering major and switched to physics in his sophomore year. He interned this summer for the group that works with the CMS detector, which is an instrument that collects data from the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator the size of a city.

Why did you decide to study physics?

“Well, I’ve always enjoyed interesting intellectual problems, for one thing, and math and physics are two things that have always provided those in ample supply. … I’ve always been curious about how things work — even as a little kid my parents said I would always ask, ‘How does that work?’ … And going into the field allows me to get paid for answering the questions that I would’ve [wanted] answered anyway.”

What do you enjoy most about it?

“The ability to kind of see the inner workings of the universe slowly come together is pretty cool.”

Why did you choose the University of Florida?

“I actually applied to Georgia Tech and got in, but it’s very expensive to go there. … When I came into the college I wasn’t 100 percent sure I knew what I wanted to do, and if I went to a place like Georgia Tech I was basically stuck in a technical major. … [Plus] UF is pretty strong in most areas.”

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

“There really are a lot of paths that students with physics degrees take. … If I choose to take the graduate school route then I could end up with a career as a researcher. … Or I could end up teaching somewhere as a professor. Or, ultimately, a lot of people end up in main-stream industry. … I’m still trying to figure that out for myself right now.”

Why physics rather than engineering?

“In engineering, the main goal is not to figure our the answers to the big questions, but it’s rather to figure out how to make practical things work, which hasn’t always interested me as much. …  The advantages [to studying physics] are that it’s crazily interesting and at times a lot of fun. It is a pretty heavy workload though, which is less of an enjoyable thing, but all in all I’d say it’s a pretty enjoyable experience.”

Keep checking back for more interview from UF students! Post a comment if there’s any subject or person you’d like to see highlighted.

For one thing, the department merged with the materials sciences and engineering department. The move is meant to help the department grow by allowing for a larger pool of professors to teach classes and deal with administrative duties.

But most nuclear engineering students can attest to the fact that the department is small. Personally, I know three nuclear engineering students — for the sake of full disclosure, one of those three is my boyfriend — and they say the department doesn’t have the popularity that other facets of engineering have.

Did this play into why the departments merged? I’m no expert, but I’m guessing probably not. I’m thinking it has a lot to do with the fact that nuclear engineering classes are tough and nuclear energy itself is under attack after the Fukushima incident.

From what David Hintenlang, interim chairman for the department in January, told me, the move would merge the departments’ budgets — which is a good idea given the budget cuts every department is facing.

Until 170,000 years ago, humans hung around Africa in their birthday suits.

Then, they put on some clothes and got itchy.

David Reed, associate curator of mammals for the Florida Museum of Natural History, and his team of researchers have calculated when humans started wearing clothes by studying the lice that lived on them.

The research, published in January’s “Molecular Biology and Evolution” and funded in part by a $935,000 award from the National Science Foundation, is open to the public on the Oxford Journal’s website, mbe.oxfordjournals.org.

The research states that once humans started wearing clothes, body lice, also called clothing lice, started to appear. The clothing decayed over the years, but the lice multiplied.

Melissa Toups, co-author of the study and a former UF grad student, said being able to use lice to find out information that archaeology couldn’t find was cool.

“Using the parasites was pretty innovative,” she said.

Just as humans and chimpanzees once shared a common ancestor, Reed said, head lice and body lice once shared a common ancestor as well. Figuring out when they split into two groups was the key to figuring out when humans clothed themselves.

Instead of putting on clothing to keep warm, the research shows that humans started wearing clothing while they were in sunny Africa. Reed said the clothing might have been decorative, such as beaded belts.

When humans emigrated out of Africa and traveled to other parts of the world, the lice went with them.

Reed said his next step is trying to trace the lice’s travels from Europe and Asia to the Americas to find out exactly when humans came to the Americas.

“We think the lice will have a story to tell,” he said.

UF doctors are searching for a better way to slow cancer.

Throughout the next year, doctors at Shands at UF will work with 120 patients with advanced, inoperable liver cancer. They will search for a way to give longer, happier lives to patients whose time is precious.

“Quality is just as important, if not more important, than quantity of life,” said Dr. Roniel Cabrera, the study leader and a UF assistant professor of medicine.

Only one medication is available to treat advanced liver cancer, a chemotherapy pill called Sorafenib. The makers of Sorafenib are funding the research through a $650,000 grant.

The doctors will essentially test how effective the pill is in lower doses.

The problem with the pill, Cabrera said, is that it has side effects, including diarrhea, nausea and fatigue. Some people don’t want to take the pill because the side effects are too bothersome, but the pill has been proven to help patients live about two months longer.

Dr. David Nelson, director of UF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, said some patients can’t tolerate the pill for long periods of time because of the side effects. He hopes this research will change that.

“In this devastating disease, this approach is essential to yield the best treatment opportunities for patients with advanced disease,” Nelson wrote in an e-mail.

Usually, patients are given two pills twice a day. The trial will determine if a patient will have less harsh side effects if he or she takes one pill a day, then two pills a day and so on until they are up to the regular dose.

The clinical trial started in November, and currently Shands at UF is the only hospital participating.

Cabrera said that he wants to spread this research throughout Florida and hopes to have the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida Hospital in Orlando and about eight other Florida hospitals involved, as well as a few out-of-state facilities.

“The trial has the potential to break new ground in the treatment of primary liver cancer,” Cabrera said.

Today I will start with the connundrum of lactose intolerence. Not the most exciting thing in the world, I know, but there is actually a lot of interesting history behind your ability/inability to digest dairy.

The biology behind this goes into inhibitors and enzymes, but the specifics aren’t important. What you need to know is when lactose (sugar in milk) is in your stomach, your body has to release lactate (an enzyme) to find the lactose in order to break down the sugars into tiny sugars that your body can absorb. It’s important that the lactate is there to do its job, because enzymes are like hopeless romantics. They can only be with the one they’re meant for.

Under most circumstances, all babies are born with the ability to make lactate, and then they lose that ability when they are weaned off of their mother’s milk. Somehow (I don’t know how exactly) dairy farmers in Europe managed to develop the ability to produce lactate all the time, so they could enjoy milk and cheese all the time. That ability was passed down through genetics to my generation, so I can eat ice cream painlessly.

Obviously, not everyone originated from Europe. That’s why lactose intolerence is more common in people whose families originate from Asia, Africa and South America. It’s just a question of genetics.

Don’t worry, though. They make pills now a days that you take before you eat and it will release lactate for you, making it possible to savor that stinky cheese or rich cheesecake.

Wands:

Who doesn’t want to act like Harry Potter while watching the Harry Potter movies? This universal remote looks like a wand, and can change channels and volume levels. Just swish and flick.

Books:

Share the life of the great and powerful Woz. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and creater of the Apple I and II personal computers, released his autobiography about growing up in Silcon Valley and how he went on to found Apple. He tells about how he and his middle school friends made a house to house intercom system, and how he put together and learned to operate a ham radio while he was in sixth grade.

Pick the brain of Stephen Hawkings, the scientific mastermind, by reading his books “A Brief History of Time” and “The Grand Design.”

Stuffed Animals:

When all else fails, get your loved one a fuzzy Ebola virus. That is to say, get them a plush microbe. They’re the viruses and bacteria that everyone knows and hates. You can buy influenza, chicken pox and even the black plague. They’re infectiously adorable.

Happy holidays everyone!

Near the end of the semester, the Chemistry Club and Physics club duel to determine who studies the better science. The allies vary, but these clubs are the leaders of the feud. And every year a declaration of war is sent out by each team.

I thought I’d let you read what they wrote. The messages are in the order they were sent out.

To Chemistry Club and Undergraduate Astrophysics Society:
By order of SPS Executive Board -(STOP)- SPS declares war against Chemistry and Astronomy Clubs -(STOP)- After failure to admit defeat last semester -(STOP)- SPS challenges you to a Final Paintball Showdown -(STOP)- at First Strike Paintball -(STOP)- 12/04/10 at 1200 -(STOP)- to determine best and purest science -(STOP)- Failure to attend constitutes defeat -(STOP)-
P. Nguyen
SPS President

Dear all Mr. Nucleophiles and Ms. Lewis Acids,
As you can see in the forwarded message, a war is being synthesized from the most disgusting, vile creatures that barely qualify themselves as humans. Yes, it is that time of year again as the physics club is trying to declare dominancy in the realm of paintballing against the astrophysical blah-blah-we-have-a-fancy-name society and we, the Chemistry Club, aka Students Affiliates of the American Chemical Society, or as I like to affectionately call us, the Friends (w/benefits) to the Central Science Alliance.

So yes, I know your valence electrons have just gotten overly excited, your bonds just homolytically cleaved to form some rather rambunctious radicals, your catalysts are pushing you over the that last really high transition state, and your molecular orbitals are overlapping more than they ever have before–so before you release those last quanta of energy all over the place in a colorful display, attack everything in site in your excited energy state, release all that energy as you form your product, or cause your nuclei to get too close for electrostatic comfort, here are the details:
-Date: Dec. 4th
-Time: Noon
Mike H.
Secretary of UF Chem Club

Personally, I find the telegraph parody amusing, but calling the Undergraduate Astrophysics Society the “astrophysical blah-blah-we-have-a-fancy-name society” is hilarious, too. I’ll post the winner of the fight as soon as one side surrenders.

Last semester, I did a print and video story about the paintball fight. The video is pretty much them bashing eachother while I show B-roll of the carnage.

Enjoy!

On a cloudless night, Earthlings gathered to get a closer look at the universe.

More than 900 people attended Starry Night, an annual public stargazing event, on Friday to gaze through telescopes, attend a talk on planets outside our solar system and see exhibits set up inside the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“There’s something about the grandeur of the sky that gets people excited,” said Vicki Sarajedini, an associate professor of astronomy who helped plan the event.

It’s tough to get kids interested sometimes, she said, so Sarajedini broke out the glitter glue.

For the older crowd, there were telescopes that could focus on Jupiter so well that you could see the four Galilean moons as pinpoints of light next to the planet.

A meteorite owned by Santa Fe College that weighed over 70 pounds sat in a bed of sand inside the museum, surprising visitors with its weight.

A portable planetarium inflated to give a show on constellations. The show was so popular that free, seat-saving tickets ran out about an hour before some shows.

Children learned about black holes by building them. They used black plastic cups, CDs, pipe cleaners and glitter glue to illustrate the dark giant.

Scarlett Wanzo, 13, and her friends coated their black holes in sequins and glitter glue. The only place there was more glitter was wherever Edward Cullen worked, she joked, mocking the Twilight series.

Scarlett said she’s interested in astronomy, geology and chemistry.

“[I like] the creativity of it,” she said, “How you can find out new things abut the world around you.”

Sarajedini said that the public wants to know about astronomy, and she gets interesting questions every year.

Don Loftus, member of the Alachua Astronomy Club and a retired NASA employee, built his telescope with his son. It was made out of cyprus, a milk-chocolate-colored wood, and was polished so it gleamed.

“My wife didn’t want something that looks like a scientific instrument sitting in her living room,” he said.

Matthew Pasciucco, a freshman University of Florida student, said he’d never seen Jupiter before.

“Honestly, it’s pretty fun,” he said of the event.

Alison Klesman, an astronomy Ph.D. student, said astronomy is a field that a lot of people like because it has pictures. She said people identify with pictures more than concepts.

Also, she said the public doesn’t always get a chance to see space through high-powered telescopes.

“People don’t get a lot of access to do things like this,” she said.

A black hole made out of a plastic cup. The pipe cleaners represent the jets that are thought to stream out of the gravitational monster.