AAAS Boston

Notepad on a string and 2 gigabyte flash drive from the European Union
The blue square wrapper at the bottom is all that is left of Belgian chocolate.  Bliss 

This morning I scurried out the door at 4:50 am enroute to the AAAS conference in Boston.  The drive was not much fun with snow pummeling my windshield most of the way.  At times, my speed dropped to 40 mph.  I thought the subway stop "Hynes Convention Center" would take me right into the building.  Wrong!   I also had a bit of an issue registering because my confirmation was deleted when I canceled my hotel reservation.  It didn't help that my license was in the glove compartment of the car, a 45-minute trip by subway.  Oops.  Thankfully, a business card saved the day.

In this press hall, I met science writer Kathryn Hulick. 

  Press had access to a room filled with computers, an interview room, and another room filled with research papers and press releases.  Research papers were organized by session date, time, and then alphabetical by scientist's last name.

I was in my glory in this room

Stories hot off the press

Most of my day I was holed up listening to scientists talk about their work.  Some of it was really captivating stuff that I plan to write about. 

In the exhibit hall, various science organizations and universities had booths (PNAS, NSF, AAAS....).   Grad students were passionate about their research.  If you stopped to read their poster, it was a lot like opening a musical card at the gift shop.  They immediately started up with an explanation of their work. 

Grad students stood lined up by their posters.

I listened at length to one researcher.  Maybe I'll write about her work.   I stayed too long looking at posters and got to my session late.  The scientist I was interested in hearing was listed last, so I thought she was speaking last.  Wrong!   I walked in and she was at the podium.  Oops. 

I went to the AAAS conference to soak up science and that is exactly what I did.  I was intent on maximizing my time there.  A couple of times I regretted my decisions about being one place over another.  Aside from that, I thought the conference was an exciting intellectual experience.  It gave me new story ideas (not that I needed any!).  I left fired up to get to work.  I would definitely go again if it was nearby.

I'm sure that periodic table tee is selling like hot cakes

        

Dinosaur State Park - Rocky Hill, Connecticut

The big news this week is that two people nominated me for a membership in the American Chemical Society.  I am quite flattered, considering I do not have a chemistry degree like most members.  I will pursue this because it's an opportunity.  It looks good on the resume and the publications/resources will likely be helpful.        

One night this past week, I dreamed that I came to the realization that breaking into "The Club" was simply not possible.  My subconscious had thrown in the towel.  Terrific.  Perhaps deep down, my recent efforts to diversify were interpreted as moving away from the goal.  This reminded me of some lunchtime SCBWI chatter.  Someone brought up the definition of success.  Each of us had our own interpretation.  Someone said if you aren't meeting your goal, make a new goal.  I thought about those words.

What is my goal?  Is it to publish a book, educate children (and adults!) about climate change, break into new markets or something else?  It's all of those.  I have many, many goals, perhaps too many.     

How cool is that!

About a week ago, I brought a bucket filled with supplies to the casting area at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill.   I made a cast using an actual 200-million-year-old dilophosaurus print.  It took a while for my cast to set, but I was delighted when I lifted it off the rock.  Once it was dry, I lugged all that stuff back to the car.  It was pretty heavy.  Next time, I'll post some photos of a couple of interesting plants in the arboretum.

With about 25% of this article written, I'm trying very hard to stay on track. If there is one thing I've learned (the hard way) it is to write about the specific topic the editor wants me to write about and zero in on that. I'm still trying to make this a story by zeroing in on one scientist.

Here are photographs of two very different left hands. The top is an orangutan hand taken through a filthy window (at the National Zoo). The bottom is my hand holding a green tobacco hornworm at the National Museum of Natural History. This website details the difference between the tomato and the tobacco horn worm.

This rather boring looking boxy device is a mass spectrometer/gas chromatograph. I couldn't help but take a picture of the thing because it's such a useful tool in chemical analysis. One way a mass spectrometer is used is to compute a radiocarbon date by counting carbon-12 and carbon-14. A gas chromatograph can separate out and analyze the components of a compound. One way scientists use it is to analyze the atmosphere of the past.

Since today is the email date for my crit group and I'm not anywhere near done with my article, I took some time and revised some vintage material from 2008. Oh, what an improvement! I changed the whole thing from past tense to present tense and that made it more immediate. I also grouped the action into two sections and didn't disrupt it with explanation. I've learned a lot in two years. Now, I'm interested to hear what they have to say.