science scout

After having had most of them saved to my computer for months, I’m finally getting around to posting the Science Scout badges for which I qualify:

the ‘talking science’ badge: It’s a big part of my life, so I tend to talk about it.  Just not here, so much.

arts and crafts: This one should be obvious.

the ‘confident around an open flame’ badge: Bunsen burners in lab, campfires and fireplaces outside of lab.

 

the ‘sexing up science’ badge: I used to maintain recombinant-inbred lines of flour beetles.

 

the ‘has handled human organs’ badge: My first neuroscience class got to hold [thick] slices of [preserved] human brain.

 

the ‘has done research with no conceivable practical applications’ badge: I like basic science.

 

the ‘I know what a tadpole looks like’ badge: I should hope so, seeing as I’ve dissected eyes out of them.  And I helped take care of some Xenopus (adults and tadpoles) in college.

 

the ‘cloner’ badge: Not much, but probably enough for the badge.

 

the ‘experienced with electric shock’ badges, levels 1-3: nonhuman organism, nonself human, self

I’m probably stretching the Level I definition, since the nonhuman stuff I’ve shocked is dissociated cells, but the other two are from neuroscience classes in which we gave each other [very] mild shocks as part of our somatosensory perception unit.  (If you space the two electrodes in a certain way, and time the shocks right, it’ll feel like the shock is moving continuously between them.)

 

the ‘I have used a standard telescope’ badge: Lunar eclipses are fun to watch.

 

the ‘doing science under the influence’ badge: What, you think I actually leave work after drinking champagne at post-defense parties or beer at departmental happy hours?  (Well, yes, of course, just not immediately.)  I also had one advisor who suggested beer as a potential aid to dissection when one’s hands are slightly shaky.

 

 

How about the rest of you?