All posts by erin

Book Review: War

Book Review, My Personal Life,

Last week I read Sebastian Junger’s War. I think that because of my close proximity to September 11th, I feel pretty strongly about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet reading this book made me feel like I don’t actually know a damn thing about them. Even from Junger’s point of view as an embedded journalist, I feel like I learned a lot about the war.

warWhen I was at Lehigh I met a veteran named Matt that I though was amazing for his willingness to talk candidly about his tours in Iraq. He was from New York and joined after September 11th, he told me he joined because you can’t let something like that happen in your backyard, you have to stand up and fight back. Talking to him was my first real glimpse of what war is like.

We talked about what it was like to go from being in a war zone to suddenly being transplanted onto a college campus, especially one like Lehigh. In the land of polo shirts and flip flops all of his tattoos and his combat boots certainly didn’t fit in. He got called back to Iraq in 2009, and I graduated and left Lehigh so I’ve lost track of him since, but I still really appreciate everything he was willing to share with me about his experience.

My memories of talking to Matt definitely shaped the way I viewed Junger’s reporting. From what I already knew about what Matt said being in the Army was like, I have to say I think that Junger did a great job of accurately relaying what he saw and experienced. I don’t doubt what Junger says happened during his visits to Afghanistan, he was able to paint scenes in a way that conveyed not only the action, but the emotion (or lack there of) of each situation.

War is a good read, and I recommend it for anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what Afghanistan is actually like. But, I also recommend talking to veterans themselves, no one else can tell their stories the way they can, not even Sebastian Junger.

Also for anyone interested, Junger did make a documentary about the unit that he embedded with (the same one in the book) called Restrepo. It won the 2010 Grand Jury prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

Blood Drops Determine Age

New Research

Most science writers are well aware of the CSI effect, the idea that television shows that show “forensic science” are actually pretty misleading, and cause the public to believe certain things about forensics that are simply not true. Because of this I think that articles about developments in forensic science are very important because they help shed light on the actual capabilities of tools like blood tests, and DNA analysis.

An article published in Current Biology this week describes a recently developed way to use blood drops to determine age. This capability will most certainly be useful in developing a profile of victims or criminals in cases where blood is a part of the evidence but identity is unknown. The BBC article: test tells age from blood drops.

The technique utilizes a specific type of immune cell, called a T cell. This is a significant development because to date the information contained in a blood sample can only be used to confirm the identity of a known person. With this new technique, researchers can describe characteristics of an unknown person to help identify them.

What’s the Matter with Antimatter?

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Now I’m not really a physics person, considering my less than stellar attempt at high school chemistry, I have never attempted a physics class, though I know enough to get by with my writing. The holy grail of physics these days in the large hadron collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland. This week researchers from CERN are reporting that they have successfully captured the first antimatter atom (of antihydrogen.)

This is important because antimatter is a largely unexplored field in physics. The idea is that each atom has a counter particle made of antimatter (sort of like having an evil twin) but these antimatter particles have been difficult to study because they are typically destroyed by coming into contact with their real matter counterpart. Researchers don’t know why the universe is largely made of matter instead of antimatter, but with the ability to trap and study these particles, they may be able to find out.

Encouragement From Jim VandeHei

Grad School, Guest Lecture,

Today for J800 my class attended a lecture and question and answer session with Jim VandeHei, the co-founder of Politico. Politico is a web and print based media outlet for national political news, that has been pretty successful in the last few years when other media outlets have been struggling (by that I mean they are actually making money instead of bleeding it, hiring young reporters instead of closing ranks on not letting anyone new in).

It was really encouraging to hear someone say that Journalism isn’t dead, and that if you are bright and driven you’ll be OK. The main thing that I took away from his talk was that if you know what you want to do and what you want to report on, you should  just be out there doing it. Don’t take any job that doesn’t have to do with your field, don’t settle. Make yourself known, and just keep calling until someone gives you a chance.

Even though I’m still leaning more towards a public information officer position than a full blown journalist position, it was nice to hear that it can be done. Not finding a job after going through all the effort of moving to Wisconsin to get my Master’s degree is definitely something that scares me. Listening to VandeHei made me inspired to start looking for an internship for next summer (which is my Thanksgiving break goal).

Stem Cells On The Brain

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Human Embryonic Stem Cells. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

An interesting clinical trial just began in Russia, where doctors intend to inject stem cells into the brains of stroke patients to see if the cells can serve as a potential cure for the negative effects of a stroke. The BBC article: Stem Cells Used in Stroke Trial

So far only one patient has been injected with the stem cells (which are embryonic pluripotent cells) but it is notable because he is the first patient to ever have stem cells injected into the brain as a potential cure. It is also controversial to use humans for this type of study considering how much still remains to be learned about the brain and about stem cells.