I’m starting to run out of places I’ve visited (just a few left!) but don’t worry – I will continue posting science travel stories on here. They will just be places I have *not* been to.
But first, an interlude in the form of a book review. You see, this is not the only place you can find science travel tips. There is an entire book out there, called The Geek Atlas
In 1958, Brussels was host to Expo ’58, the World’s Fair. The most famous structure left from the fair’s site is the Atomium, a 335-feet high model of the molecular structure of iron. To be precise, it’s a model that includes a unit of 9 iron atoms that forms the smallest repeating unit of a body-centered cubic lattice.
Like the image above, but balancing on one of its corners. Continue reading “Atomium”
Last week I went to Edinburgh for the first time. I gave a talk on Friday and another in Newcastle on Monday. So, I stayed in Edinburgh for the weekend.
On my weekend off I explored Edinburgh. I saw the castle, the National Museum of Scotland, and a bagpipe player. I even caught a movie that was set in Edinburgh. It was all very cultural. But Edinburgh is also a hotbed of science, and I inevitably came across some of it. Continue reading “Hello Dolly”
Everything about this post is very small: it’s very short because I only have a few minutes, and it’s about little penguins. That’s what they’re called: Little Penguins.
Little penguins live along the coast of New Zealand and the south of Australia, and are, as advertised, not very big. They’re about the size of a chicken or duck, if not smaller.
I’ve seen them both at Melbourne Zoo and at Phillip Island, an island close to Melbourne. At Phillip Island, you can even watch the penguins on their “penguin parade“, when they return to the island at night. You’re not allowed to photograph them, so it’s hard to find pictures of it online, but someone uploaded an old video to YouTube:
Adorableness starts about a minute in, and then gets increasingly cuter as the penguins get closer.
I was at a workshop last week, about article level metrics. It was in San Francisco, and I was hoping I might have some time to check out the new location of the Exploratorium, but my schedule was too packed, and it wasn’t worth paying the entrance fee for just an hour or so of museum time.
Luckily, the workshop itself was at a nice location, at Fort Mason – an area of warehouses converted to art studios and the like. The walk from the hotel to the venue went past Ghirardelli square and had a nice view of Alcatraz. There were people walking dogs along the water, there were little boats moored at the docks, and there was a strange little house called “House of Days”. I know an art project when I see one, so I walked up to the pee-scented doorway to take a closer look.
It was an Exploratorium exhibit!
House of Days shows pictures taken of the San Francisco coast at different times of day over the past weeks to illustrate how the view changes over time. I had no idea there were any Exploratorium things outside the Exploratorium itself, so this was really exciting, and I took several pictures.
As I got closer to the workshop venue, I found another Exploratorium exhibit.
Continue reading “Exploratorium at Fort Mason”
The Finch and Pea 