General Astronomy 🔭 (genastronomy.blogspot.com): Speaking of Science: ‘I gotta tell ya. This is just better than Christmas.’

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Speaking of Science: ‘I gotta tell ya. This is just better than Christmas.’

Talk nerdy to us

Bats congregate in the Bat Cave in Queen Elizabeth National Park on Aug. 24, 2018. CDC scientists Brian Amman and Jonathan Towner placed GPS devices on 20 bats from this cave as part of a research project to determine flight patterns and how they transmit Marburg virus to humans. Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

There are few people more delightfully expressive than a scientist in the midst of a research breakthrough. Like CDC zoologist Brian Amman, who my colleague Lena Sun followed into a cave in Uganda in an effort to understand a potentially deadly bat-borne disease called Marbug virus.

Here's a scene from Lena's story, in which Amman is attempting to glue a GPS tracker onto one of his research subjects.

"Hello, big fella," Amman says to the bat. "You have been selected to take part in the GPS Price is Right sweepstakes."

He squeezes a thin line of glue on its back, another line of glue on the tracker and presses down gently but firmly.

For several long seconds, no one utters a word.

When it becomes clear that the tracker is sticking, Amman throws his hands into the air in a touchdown gesture.

"WOO-HOO!" Amman shouts, relief washing over his face. "I'm so happy. I gotta tell ya. This is just better than Christmas."

There's a stereotype of scientists as awkward and inarticulate, incapable of explaining their work in anything other than incomprehensible jargon. But the more I report on science, the more I have found this to be far from the truth. So many of the scientists I've spoken to this year have said things that delighted, surprised, and awed me. They've also given quotes so amazingly nerdy I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

So, for the last Speaking of Science newsletter of 2018, I wanted to share with you some of the best things scientists have told me and my colleagues this year — and the stories that inspired them.

"Is it engorged or is it … like that?"

-- A member of the exploration vessel Nautilus crew, upon witnessing the contortions of a deep sea gulper eel

"I liken it to playing that claw game at a fairground, but with a very, very valuable prize ... and you're doing it blindfolded and remotely from 300 million miles away."

-- Science system engineer Elizabeth Barrett, describing what it will be like for NASA's InSight lander to place scientific instruments on the surface of Mars

"Look, you're an astrophysicist. Your mind is out there. I'm a dinosaur hunter. My mind is down here."

-- Self-taught fossil hunter Ray Stanford, explaining how employees at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center failed to spot the "spectacular" array of dinosaur footprints he found on a slab of rock by their parking lot

"I promised myself with this new baby I would put the most important things first. But now here I am doing this phone interview with the baby in my arm."

-- Urgency bias researcher Meng Zhu, explaining how even experts struggle to set priorities and follow through

"I'm just really proud of our species."

-- Metrologist Jon Pratt, when nations voted to redefine the kilogram according to a universal constant

"To me it's just this fountain of the unknown elements of the world. I mean, we're talking about a whole group of animals whose habitat is the body of another animal. Just think about that. ... I think they have figured out answers to questions we don't even know are questions yet."

-- University of Connecticut scientist Janine Caira, talking about her all-time favorite organisms: parasites

"I reckon I discovered pulsars in large part because I was a minority person [at Cambridge]. And I have a strong suspicion that other minority people might have similar feelings and work equally hard and discover things."

- Astronomer and pulsar-discoverer Jocelyn Bell Burnell, explaining why she would put her entire $3 million Breakthrough Prize toward establishing scholarships for women, underrepresented minorities, and refugees who want to study physics

"These are particles that seldom interact with anything. That has to be the unluckiest neutrino ever."

-- Astroparticle physicist Chad Finley, contemplating how difficult it was to capture a tiny subatomic particle called a galactic neutrino

"It was just like, 'We found a seal with an eel stuck in its nose. Do we have a protocol?'"

-- Scientist Charles Littnan, describing one of the rarer phenomena he's dealt with as lead scientist for NOAA's Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program

"I don't think anyone has ever seen such a modification of the landscape at such a huge scale by such tiny little creatures."

-- Biologist Roy Funch, referring to an underground network of termite mounds covering an area larger than Minnesota

"They don't plan things out. They don't say, 'If I climb this building, I will be stuck.' They just do the thing and regret it later. If I were to caption it, it'd be like: 'Oh my God, I've made a terrible decision. I deeply regret this now. I shouldn't have gone up.'"

-- Psychologist Suzanne McDonald, explaining what might have been going on in the mind of a bold raccoon who scaled a 25-story building in St. Paul, Minn.

"It's a really spicy, long-lasting, sharp taste on the tip of your tongue."

- Entomologist Paul Marek, after licking a millipede

"He was a pioneering spirit. Was he a brave pioneer or a foolish pioneer? I would think of him as a brave pioneer, because it isn't easy to live on the edge like that. He's a hero! He gave it all for the species. He tried."

-- Stephen Kress, vice president of bird conservation at the National Audubon Society, eulogizing Nigel, the lonely gannet who died next to a concrete decoy

"I want to know. Don't you? I want to know what's there. I want to know how big an accident we are."

-- NASA geologist Matt Golombek, discussing a mission to retrieve rock samples from Mars and scan them for signs of life beyond Earth

Happy New Year to all of our wonderful readers. We can't wait to share more fascinating science stories -- and amazing scientist quotes -- with you in 2019.

-- Sarah Kaplan

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