Helen Fields » reporting

get your meteorites right here

Helen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:33:18 +0000

For something I’m writing, I needed to double-check that you can buy meteorites (or pieces of meteorites) on eBay. Of course, I turned to Google. Look at the shopping results:

–> Note that they’re all used meteorites. What do you think the listing says? “Condition: Lightly melted on entry”?

Ok, I checked, and the actual eBay listings don’t seem to describe them as used. But still, it made me laugh.

fossils of all sorts

Helen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:59:28 +0000

Today I went on a reporting trip to chat with a scientist who likes to collect fossils. (I’ll tell you more when the story comes out.) I saw tons of shark teeth, bits of seals and whales, some coral and barnacles, and also…other stuff from the beach.

Spiderman. Heh.

science is not all fast-paced action

Helen — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:12:13 +0000

Today I spent two hours watching a scientist do incredibly tedious work. The time actually went really fast – she does this incredibly tedious work all the time, but to me it was all new and I had a lot to figure out:

What are you pipetting?

(Sodium hydroxide solution.)

What’s that machine called?

(A rotator.)

What are those pretty liquids?

(Buffers.)

What’s in those tanks?

(Argon.)

Actually, she thought the time went fast, too. So not only did I pick up a scene for a story I’m writing, I served a purpose: entertaining the postdoc.