Category: Internship

Intern Introspection

Employment, Headline Makers, Internship, My Personal Life

The summer is rapidly coming to a close, and I’m already prepping to go back to Madison for the start of classes. Hurricane Irene has put a damper on my flight plans so I’m stuck in New Jersey for two extra days but it isn’t going to be much of a summer addition considering we might very well blow, or float, away. Before the summer is officially packed away, I wanted to do some reflecting on my summer internship experience writing for Geekosystem.

One of the best and worst things about writing for Geekosystem was that I worked as a real writer. I knew ahead of time that the internship was unpaid, but still when you are doing the work of a regular employee it gets a little frustrating to just watch your bank account drain despite how hard you work. Doing all the work and not getting paid was a pretty big bummer. For the summer it ended up costing me $819 for train tickets on NJ Transit, plus about $20 a week in Metrocards. I kept my job freelancing as a medical copywriter, so I worked nights doing that to keep up with the cost of New York City. I also had a lot of help from my parents, I was living at home and eating their food and getting other financial help which is really what made the internship possible.

Still, the experience also had value because I was working as a real writer. Working as a writer was rewarding and frustrating. I struggled a lot with pitching posts and getting them accepted. Geekosystem does science, tech, video games, and internet culture. Science is only a fraction of the content, so it makes it really difficult to get a science post accepted. It has to be a science post that is going to get a lot of traffic, and it can be hard to tell what is going to be big. I was surprised a lot by posts that didn’t get the traffic I thought they would (both too much and too little). There was a lot of reward from seeing a post get picked up by GoogleNews so when I did come up with a post that made it big (I had a few) it was a great feeling.

I can’t say my writing is all that much better for having done the internship, but I’d like to think I didn’t start off that bad. I think the internship helped me polish my style with things like comma usage, punctuation, and occasionally sentence structure. More than writing I think I learned some important lessons in working with an editor and the business side of being a writer. Internships in general have a lot of value if you go after the experience you really need. I wish I had been more adamant about learning the tech beat and doing more multimedia. You need to know what you are getting yourself into with an internship and really weigh the costs and benefits before deciding if it is right for you.

I’m happy to have had the experience of working for Geekosystem because it helped me narrow my focus as far as what I’d like to do professionally. I don’t think I want to be a blogger for profit, but I still love having a blog and being able to give my point of view in a space that is my own. I’m even more excited now to head back to Madison to finish up my degree so I can get out there and find a job.

If you don’t follow this blog regularly and you’d like to know more about my work with Geekosystem check out my science posts from Geek Roundups I, II, and III, and here are the posts from my last few days:

Researchers Create The First Living Nanowire From Bacteria
Researchers Announce Successful Clinical Trial Of Gene Therapy Treatment For Leukemia
Pregnant Fossil Is First Evidence That Plesiosaurs Gave Birth To Live Young
This Is What The Perseid Meteor Shower Sounds Like
Study: Benedict Arnold Bacteria Betray Their Brethren, Go On Killing Spree
Electronic Sensors Stick Like Temporary Tattoos, Present Endless Possibilities
Primitive Eel Species Described As “Living Fossil” Discovered
NASA Debunks Comet Elenin Rumors, No Armageddon Here
The Moon May Be Millions Of Years Younger Than Previously Thought
For The Love Of Bud, Marijuana Genome Sequenced

A Geek Roundup: The Best Science Posts From My Internship (Part III)

Employment, Headline Makers, Internship, New Research

My internship with Geekosystem is coming to its end, but its time for another link roundup of my favorite science posts. I’ve been writing a lot of folk art posts lately (somehow that is the beat I’ve gotten myself on) but there have been some really interesting science developments in the past few weeks, especially with regard to goings on in space. Also, for your viewing pleasure here is a video from one of my posts that a commenter called “pure win.” I think so, because on a scale of one to adorable, this is off the charts, and it doesn’t even have any puppies in it.

MIT Researchers Announce Broad Spectrum Treatment For Viral Infections – This research has the potential to make a profound impact on the treatment of viral infections (from colds to hemorrhagic fever) if it is able to be transfered from human cells in the lab, to real humans. It uses the way that viruses replicate by taking over a cell against it, to destroy cells infected with the virus.

Microbots Use Magnetic Forces To Swim And Do Some Heavy Lifting – The post was based on two videos of what really look like just a collection of particles swimming around and moving small objects. The particle bunches are actually microbots, that have some pretty impressive capabilities.

NASA Proves Building Blocks Of DNA Come From Space – I got myself in some trouble with a commenter on this one for the word “prove” in the title. It was a choice to use the word prove in a science post. I used it in the headline in a way that I think is fair, but I got told it sounded like a tabloid, what do you think?

More Dwarf Planets Found In Kuiper Belt, Pluto In Good Company But Still Not A Planet – When Pluto was demoted from planet to dwarf planet a lot of people started to question what makes something a planet in the first place. These newly discovered dwarf planets meet a few of the criteria, but like Pluto, fall short of planethood.

Study: Stem Cells Used To Make Sperm, Then Used To Make Mouse Babies For The First Time – Adding to the amazing list of what scientists have done with stem cells, for the first time they have created sperm cells that resulted in successful offspring that had the ability to reproduce. This could have big impacts for infertility treatments.

Small Shark Can Glow And Become Invisible, Is Not A Mutant – I love doing strange animal posts, this one highlighted a shark that can “cloak” itself and appear invisible based on the way it looks when you view it from below.

Researchers Discover Gene That Causes People To Have No Fingerprints -There are only a few people in the world who don’t have fingerprints. It is a rare condition, and now researchers understand the genetic mutation that causes this disorder.

Scientists Suggest Earth May Once Have Had Two Moons – An interesting theory about how the moon formed suggests that Earth once had two moons, and that one crashed into the other to make our current moon. Its just a theory but there is some compelling evidence in its favor.

NASA To Launch LEGO Figurines Into Space – I totally loved this idea, basically NASA teamed up with LEGO to make three figurines: Juno, Jupiter, and Galileo to celebrate the launch of the Juno Space Probe on its trip to study the planet Jupiter. The figurines are really detailed (and really expensive) but its like every nerd’s dream to have LEGOS in space, right?

Ancient Skulls Sheds Light On How Dogs Became Man’s Best Friend – I didn’t understand the commenter on this post. I only got one and it was about how scientists make sweeping assumptions. Making a hypothesis or suggesting a theory about something based on evidence isn’t the same thing as making assumptions. The research may not be definitive but its not like the researchers were just making stuff up either.

Researchers Find Elusive Oxygen Molecules In Space – We’ve always been taught that there is no oxygen in space, which is why astronauts need those fancy helmets. But, researchers have found oxygen molecules in space. Now its not the same as having an atmosphere like ours with oxygen you can breathe, but its still pretty cool that the molecules were there at all.

Survey Method Shows That A Throw Of The Dice Makes People More Honest – I got a great email from the researcher on this study saying that I’d done a good job capturing it, it totally made my day. This was a really interesting study that showed if people have some kind of an out or a fail safe they are more likely to tell the truth, and it can be useful for gathering data about things people would rather not talk about, like illegal poaching.

Gene For Proteus Syndrome, Cause Of The “Elephant Man,” Found – Proteus Syndrome is a poorly understood disorder that causes tissues to swell so that people appear completely disfigured. For the first time researchers have identified the rare genetic mutation that leads to this disorder.

New Treatment For Hereditary Blindness Is First Drug To Restore Vision – I loved the commenters on this post, it was probably the one post all summer that made me really happy when I read the comments. Both comments I got were from people who either have or know someone with the disease, thanking me for the post. That was really awesome.

Researchers Create Glowing Dog That Can Be Turned On And Off – Researchers genetically altered a dog so that it would glow in the dark. I didn’t really understand the point, since it was an incredibly expensive process it isn’t going to catch on for any kind of commercial purpose and its unlikely to have much of a role in research.

Federal Funding For Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Ruled Legal – In what is seemingly the final nail in the coffin for this legal challenge to federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, lawyers have exploited a hole in the law to allow funding to continue. A good thing for researchers, not so good for people with a religious opposition to this type of research.

First Earth Trojan Asteroid Discovered – A trojan is a certain type of asteroid, and for the first time it was found that there is one around Earth, and yes, it is named after the trojans from the Trojan War. A little bit of history in space.

Mountain Lion Makes Longest Journey Ever Recorded By A Land Mammal – Got myself in trouble with commenters for this title too. Someone had to point out that humans are land mammals as well. Well, indeed they are, but I think it is quite obvious that humans are exempted from setting a longest journey record against any other animals. I thought that went without saying. I guess not, because someone felt the need to say it.

Study: Interrupted Sleep Harms Memory Development  – This one is pretty self explanatory from the title. But basically researchers determined that people who have their sleep interrupted have a harder time forming memories, it shows a connection between these two brain functions that could be interesting for further study.

Next Mars Rover Will Climb Sediment Mountain – The space shuttle program might be over, but NASA still has plenty of other active projects that could help us learn more about space. One of these projects is the Mars Rover, which is still out there searching for life on the red planet. The next Mars Rover will explore a sediment mountain that has promising environments for evidence of life.

Atlantis Returns To Earth, Space Shuttle Program Now Over – This post marked the landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis at the completion of its restocking mission to the International Space Station. This final mission was the last trip of the Space Shuttle program, because NASA wants to focus on other things in the future.

New Wave Shape Observed For The First Time – This was a weird (but interesting) little study about the conditions under which waves form, and the different shapes that they take. I was surprised that there was a wave shape that researchers hadn’t yet observed, but it just goes to show you how many secrets the Earth still has to yield.

Potential Water Discovered On Mars, Still Not A Sign Of Alien Life – NASA researchers have announced that there is liquid water on the surface, or right below the surface of Mars. The water is most likely a brine (salty) and it is unknown how/if this water could impact the search for evidence of life on Mars.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Will Host Sequel To Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Produced By Seth MacFarlane – The reboot of Sagan’s famous TV series will be run on Fox in primetime. The opinion about this seems to be mostly positive, with everyone just hoping that the project does justice to the original series. The choice of MacFarlane makes some people nervous but here’s to hoping it works out well.

Bonus Non-Science Post: 

Woman Buys Non-Visible Art For $10,000 – So this isn’t a science post, but it needs a little commentary. The source that I used for my post had the woman in question’s name spelled wrong, it was off by one letter. Now, I’m all for accuracy, if I make a spelling mistake please do tell me so I can fix it. But, I still found it pretty amusing that Ms. Davison felt the need not only to comment on the post about wanting her name fixed, but also followed me (then proceeded to unfollow) on twitter so that she and a friend could tweet at me about the error. I have no idea why someone would try so hard to make sure their name was spelled right in a post that openly mocks them and the absolutely ridiculous way they wasted ten grand, but it was pretty important to her. So, I made the change and now I and the commenters on the post can mock her openly with the correct spelling.
***
When I first started this internship I said that I was afraid of the commenters and they made me feel really bad about myself. They still do, if I’m in a bad mood/frame of mind when I start reading comments that rip on every aspect or even just the smallest aspects of a post it makes me sad. I’m still learning which comments to take to heart and which to just write off. I wish I had time to go into all of the detail some of these topics deserve but most of these write ups are under 500 words and some of the context is going to get lost.

It is not an excuse for mistakes, but some of the nitpickers need to keep in mind that Geekosystem is a blog, not a peer reviewed journal. I am not a peer reviewer, I don’t have a science degree and I can’t always call bullshit on a study I don’t know a lot about or don’t have access to the paper through the pay wall system. Sometimes I can call bullshit right off the bat, and when I can, I do. It is just frustrating sometimes to feel like I don’t really get high traffic posts that are well received. We’ll see what this last week at Geekosystem has in store.

A Geek Roundup: The Best Science Posts From My Internship (Part II)

Internship, Past Articles

I am blogging over at Geekosystem for the summer, and while I’ve been writing about some pretty different things than what I would post about here (like the official religious hat of the Pastafarian movement) I’ve also written a few posts about some interesting science topics. So, here is another link round-up of the interesting science stuff I’ve been covering for Geekosystem, and as a bonus here’s a cute video of corgi’s (yes, this was a post too).

New Monkey Adenovirus Jumps Into Humans: This post is about a virus discovered in Titi Monkeys at California’s National Primate Research Center during a recent outbreak that killed several monkeys and infected a few humans. This is the first example of an adenovirus jumping into humans, and could have important impacts on viral gene therapy.

Parrot Parents Name Their Babies: Did you know that in the wild, parrots have “names” which are specific calls that their parents and other birds use to address them? I didn’t, but this shows a pretty sophisticated social life among these birds, in addition to having a potential impact on future language studies.

Rainbow Toad Rediscovered After 87 Years Missing: The title of this post pretty much says it all, but click the link, I promise you won’t be disappointed by how totally awesome this animal looks.

Stem Cells Grow Functional Mouse Teeth: This is the first time that researchers have grown the bone and enamel of a tooth strictly from stem cells and successfully implanted it into a mouse’s mouth. Kind of gross, but also a very cool application of stem cell technology.

Quantum Dots Make Self-Assembling Nanoantenna: This was a really cool technology development that combined knowledge of nanomaterials and DNA to make a super-powered antenna that is more efficient and can assemble itself.

Battle of the Bugs: California To Launch Moth Killing Wasp Campaign: This was a really fun post to write because it deals with the controversial issue of using one insect species to attack another. There were some good comments on this one, including one from a representative of the California agency in charge of the wasp killers, who worked with me to find a more accurate picture for the post. It was cool to have that kind of interaction come out of the comments.

New Printable Solar Cells Are Easy But Not Efficient: Imagine solar panels that you could completely bend and twist while still having them work. You could make a solar dress or solar wallpaper! If only they were actually efficient…

First Photos Of Fish Using Tools, But Do They Really? Doing this post all I could think about was how much my first grade science buddies over at Lincoln-Hubbard School would have loved to see the pictures of this fish using a rock to help it eat. I did a series of posts for them about how animals use tools, and this would have been a great addition.

Diamonds Are A Quantum Computer’s Best Friend: You should read this post just because it took me all day to teach myself the basics of quantum computing to put together a post that made sense. I bit off a little more than I could chew with this one, but with the help of Max (one of my editors) it came together.

Urine Recycling Experiment Will Be Conducted On Last Shuttle Mission: The title pretty much says it all, but if the idea of drinking pee doesn’t completely gross you out, there is some really interesting technology at work in this experiment.

NASA Takes Huge Hit In Proposed Congressional Budget: I try hard not to weigh in on politics, but how funding gets allotted for government agencies is something that I find very interesting and have written about before. Right now NASA stands to lose about $2 billion in funding and lose the James Webb Space Telescope, which is a pretty devastating blow.

Forget Arsenic Life, Now We Have Chlorine Life: Arsenic life was a huge controversy in the science community last year. In this post I give a run down of the problems with that study, and how a new chlorine life study shows much more promise.

Fossil Of Largest Wombat Ever Discovered: One of Australia’s great ancient mammals is the diprotodon a huge rhino-like animal. Researchers recently unearthed the fossil of the largest diprotodon ever found, and its the size of a small vehicle!

Massive Dust Storm Descends On Phoenix: I promise, you need to see this video. The footage of this dust storm is amazing, plus it is called a haboob and I will never get tired of saying that.

Dresden Laboratory Creates World Record Magnetic Field: World Records are world records and they are interesting just because, but this is actually important because the stronger magnetic field could be useful for a variety of scientific experiments.

Emotion Reading Technology May Soon Become Big Business: Say goodbye to awkward social encounters. Researchers are developing technology that can help you pick up on social cues and let you know when a conversation is going well, and when its time to abandon ship.

NASA Sues Astronaut For Selling Camera From Apollo 14: One of the astronauts that went to space with the Apollo 14 mission has tried to sell what he says is personal memorabilia, but NASA has intervened saying he never had the right to take the camera. This is becoming a pattern for NASA and it would seem like they either have a record keeping problem, or a theft problem.

The Fuel of the Future? Researchers Look To Aneutronic Fusion: I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you probably don’t know what aneutronic fusion is. Don’t worry, I didn’t either but it seems like it could be a highly effective fuel to power longer/faster space flights.

Water Wrinkles On Fingers May Actually Have A Purpose: You are now dying to know why your fingers get so pruney when they get wet. Check out the post to find out why, its actually a pretty interesting evolutionary adaptation.

Tasmanian Devil Genome Sequenced: The Tasmanian Devil population has been ravaged by a cancer that can be spread by fighting/biting and it is nearing dangerously low population rates. The genome sequence could help researchers come up with a better plan to preserve the species by ensuring a higher rate of genetic diversity.

Whew, thats a lot of science, happy reading!

Blogging Is A Battle And We Are The Soldiers

Internship
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Geekosystem. Yes, these are my co-workers at Geekosystem, one of the writers for our sister site The Mary Sue, and the Abrams Media COO showing you what the world of badass blogging is really about. Clearly, we take our jobs very, very seriously around these parts.
The video was made after Intel solicited mid-level blogs to submit videos describing themselves as part of some sort of contest. No idea if we won, or what exactly the prize would be but it was a lot of fun just watching them film, let alone having the video to remind me of the joy of being an Abrams Intern. 

A Geek Roundup: The Best Science Posts From My Internship

Employment, Headline Makers, Internship, My Personal Life

I know I haven’t been posting on here as often as I used to, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve been slacking. My summer internship is working as a blogger for Geekosystem, one of the Abrams Media Network websites. I’ve been writing posts about a lot of interesting science over at Geekosystem, and I wanted to highlight some of my favorites from the past month.

Exposure to puppy pictures are just one perk of being a Geekosystem Intern
Mind Control Hat Uses Light To Guide Mouse Behavior: This post is about research out of MIT that developed a wireless control mechanism for optogenetics applications. The researchers used optogenetics (the use of light to stimulate neurons to fire at specific times) to control the motions and behavior of the mice.
Hand Hacking Device May Give Users Musical Ability: I have no musical ability to speak of, and though I do own a guitar that collects more dust than it makes music. Perhaps if I had a PossessedHand device I would get more use out of my guitar. This is a device that sends electrical impulses to your muscles instructing them to move your fingers in a specific pattern, like plucking guitar strings. 
Neil deGrasse Tyson Thinks The Onion Deserves A Pulitzer: A video post that pretty much speaks for itself, I love how fun and clever Tyson (who is a famous astrophysicist, in case you aren’t familiar) is in this video. 
The Secret To Youth, In Yeast At Least: This post is about the discovery of a gene in yeast that is responsible for taking old cells and keeping them young. This gene can be turned on or off to control the aging process. 
Japanese Researchers Create Swimming Endoscope: File this one under things that make me shudder. Called the “Mermaid” researchers in Japan have developed a remotely controlled endoscope that swims through the digestive system relaying images of the various structures. 
Flies Sense Magnetic Fields Using Human Protein: We know that birds and other animals have the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic fields which enables them to visually guide their movements. New research shows that humans have the protein responsible for this ability, but not the actual power. But in flies, the protein works its magic. 
New Virotherapy Cures Prostate Cancer In Mice: Writing this post took a lot of science writing skillz, if I do say so myself. I saw many overblown headlines about a “vaccine for cancer” that were just totally inaccurate for what this story really is. This is a technique that uses viruses as a means of introducing a treatment for cancer into the body. While successful in mice, it hasn’t been tried in humans, and certainly has nothing to do with vaccines. 
Eavesdropping Rodents Listen To Each Other: New research shows that chipmunks and woodchucks will heed the alarm calls of the other species, even though they do not communicate directly with each other. 
Neural Prosthesis Restores Long Term Memory: This was a very cool post (if I say so myself) about the development of a device that can manipulate the formation of memory by electrically controlling different areas of the brain. This could have important implications for memory-loss disorders. However, this too has only been proven in mice. 
Insect Makes World’s Loudest Mating Call In A Surprising Way: Well, this one you’ll just have to read to find out about. But let me put in the caveat that its not the most appropriate piece I’ve ever written.
Less Sunspot Activity Is Not A Climate Change Fix: Doing a bit of debunking and clarifying on this one, addressing some overblown claims about the effect that a reduction in sunspot activity on the sun would have on Earth. 
Russia To Build Floating Nuclear Power Plants: The title pretty much says it all. But, the main idea is that Russia intends to build nuclear power plants in the arctic to provide power for their oil exploration activities. The number of things that could go wrong which spring to mind is astounding. 
A Cool Brain Offers Relief To Insomniacs: This was a very cool study that showed that one of the most effective and easily applicable methods to treat insomnia, may be a cap that cools the brain. This could have a big impact on the way insomnia is treated, moving the industry away from sleeping pills which can be highly addictive. 
Disappointment At Tevatron: No New Particle: When particle physics becomes a let down. 
Aquatic Spider Uses Web As A Gill To Breathe Underwater: Things that completely creep me out while still being very cool. This spider uses its web as an air sack that it breathes out of while it is underwater to keep it from having to come up to the surface (and thus exposing itself) more than it really has to.

Just a small sampling of the very cool science that has been going on in the last month. There are so many interesting things that I’ve gotten to cover for Geekosystem (though I tend to pitch all science stories and must settle on about half, they still let me cover a lot of great stuff). I’ve been learning a lot about how to tell if something you see on the internet is legitimate, what sources to go to for post ideas, and how to write for a varied audience that doesn’t always know they’re going to be interested in a science topic.

One thing I’ve been struggling with while writing for Geekosystem are the comments I get on my posts. Some of them are nice and either point out a typo or minor error or just provide an opinion about the post, but the majority I either don’t understand what the criticism is or I’m being accused of making mistakes that I don’t think I have. I’m being encouraged to interact more with people in the comments, but I’m not sure how to handle it really. Although knowing the internet, I know that comments could be much much worse, and are for many people. I just need to get a thicker skin I suppose.

I’ll try to do more roundups of the science posts I write for Geekosystem, but never fear I have no plans to abandon my own little corner of the internet here, where I can say what I want and the commenters are people I know!