Ten Most Amazing Databases in the World

I'm not sure who got to decide, but the Sloan Digital Sky Survey made this list of the Ten Most Amazing Databases in the World. This is the database the whole of Galaxy Zoo and Galaxy Zoo 2 was based on, and which has formed the basis of quite a substantial amount of the astronomical research I've been involved in, so I have to say for me it's probably number 1! Visit the SDSS Website for more information.

Galaxy Zoo Bars are (partially) triggered by environment

Over on the Galaxy Zoo blog this morning I explain our work on how the chance of a disc galaxy hosting a bar or a bulge depends on the environment it lives in (direct link to blog post). A paper about the work, led by Ramin Skibba, has just been submitted to MNRAS and appears on astroph this morning.

What is a Galaxy (QI style)?

I'm a big fan of QI, so it was fun when Brian Cox was on it recently and the whole show was peppered with astronomy.

I was amused to find them mention the interesting paper by Duncan Forbes and Pavel Kroupa in which they consider what the definition of a galaxy is. Luckily someone posted the segment on You Tube:



Earlier this year when they posted the discussion on the arxiv, Duncan and Pavel opened it up for a vote - in good "citizen science" style. Of course this caught my "Galaxy Zoo" eye so I blogged about it last Feb (2011).

It's on my mind tonight as I prepare to talk about "What is a Galaxy?" tomorrow night as part of the Intech Science Centre Adult Only Evening.

Twitter Link Roundup for Oct 10-14th 2011

I don't like how Twitter forgets what I've said eventually. So I plan to try a semi-frequent round-up of my favourite Twitter links/Tweets from the week.

Here goes

Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity http://techre.vu/oAzeWr (via @TechReview)


Mathematician and mother - October 2011 - GetSET Women Blog - The UKRC: http://bit.ly/oz3odx


@telescoper: The Astronomy Career Problem - it starts with the PhDhttp://wp.me/pko9D-3i6

(and related to this check out the astrojc for this week - on the problems with Scientific Careers)

@NtlSTEMCentre: Talking to pupils about #STEM careers? Have you seen our collection of #TeachersTV videos which may help?http://ow.ly/6W3Wd

@cosmicpinot (which is Brian Schmidt): Adam Riess - on NPR playing a game after the Nobel Prize Announcement - http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=141167268&m=141167610http://twitter.com/#

What a great idea: http://www.speakers4schools.org/ (via@alomshaha andhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/10/star-speakers-schools)


And alarmingly: @NatureNews: Physicist languishes in French prison http://bit.ly/oHrBCM

Ada Lovelace Day Links from Twitter

A great idea by @alicebell and @allinthegutter to make lists of women scientists to follow (as part of Ada Lovelace Day). 

Alice Bell's Ada list

Emma's List

Other great Ada Lovelace Themed links from Twitter

Emmy Noether and Symmetry

Free iPad Application "Lovelace and Babbage"

Ada Lovelace Day - Martha Haynes

Today is Ada Lovelace Day - a day named after a women who is widely believed to have been the worlds first computer programmer. You can read more about it at  "Finding Ada" a website which is soliciting stories about inspirational women in science.

 Coincidentally (I think) my former PhD thesis advisor, Martha Haynes, posted the below picture on Facebook today in response to a post by another of her former students about how male dominated Physics colloquia (and the business lounge of Lufthansa Airlines) both are. This is a picture of ALL of the 1989 winners of ALL awards from the (US) National Academy of Sciences. This was the year that Martha and her collaborator (and husband) Riccardo Giovanelli won the Henry Draper Medal "For the first three-dimensional view of some of the remarkable large-scale filamentary structures of our visible universe."

The 1989 Winners of ALL Awards from the (US) National Academy of Sciences 

 Martha is easy to spot - the only winner not wearing a tie (2nd row, 2nd from the left). Riccardo is standing next to her on the extreme left. So in 1989 1/24 prize recipients were women.

 In fact in the 125 years the Henry Draper Medal has been awarded (although note it's not awarded every year), the only female recipients have been Annie Jump Cannon and Martha Haynes.

 Sadly I suspect the situation among such high profile award winners is not much different today, but it is trailblazers like Martha (the first women  astronomy professor at Cornell; and the only one for 20 years) who make life easier for us now.

 Martha's stories of "Haynes and his wife Giovanelli" (among many others) remind me of the pre-conceptions about male scientists, and also make me laugh!

 So today for Ada Lovelace Day Martha is the person I want to mention as an inspirational woman in science.

Milky Way Twin and the Violin Clef

I wanted to point out two new (ish) posts over on the Galaxy Zoo blog:

1. A Summer Spent Finding Our Galactic Twin, which is an account of looking for the Galaxy Zoo galaxy which looks most like what we think the Milky Way looks like, by my recent Nuffield Summer Student, Mr. Tim Buckman.

Milky Way's Twin?

2. The Violin Clef Merger, which is an account (by Kevin Schawinski) of a very interesting merger recently found by Galaxy Zoo volunteer and active forum member (Bruce) in the new SDSS images which were released this past January (and which haven't yet been used in Galaxy Zoo).

Violin Clef Merger

 I expect you'll be hearing a lot more about both of these objects as we do some follow up observations.