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Tag Archives: cool jobs

Cool Jobs: Green Science

By Sharon Oosthoek / March 14, 2013

White spruce grow across northern North America, from Alaska to Labrador. As Arctic temperatures rise, spruce are spreading even farther north. Credit: Mark W. Skinner at USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Scientists get at the root (and stem, leaf, flower, fruit and seed) of the relationship between plants and their environment

Posted in Agriculture, Plants, STEM Careers | Tagged air pollution, air pollution control, albedo, allelopathy, arabidopsis, benzene, Bill Wolverton, birch, botany, climate change, contaminants, cool jobs, ecology, feature, forests, formaldehyde, global warming, greenhouse effect, greenhouse effectPlants, herbicide, houseplants, Joseph Jez, juglone, Labrador, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, plant chemistry, plants, Pollination, pollinator, Quebec, rice, seeds, Serge Payette, sorghum, spruce, topstories, transpiration, tree line, trees, trichloroethylene, tundra, Université Laval, Washington University, weed killers, X-ray crystallography

Cool Jobs: Museum science

By Sharon Oosthoek / February 27, 2013

Royal Ontario Museum scientist Oliver Haddrath must wear protective clothing when working with ancient DNA. This ensures his DNA doesn’t get mixed up with the genetic material he is analyzing. Credit: Royal Ontario Museum

Samples collected long ago may hold answers to important questions in science and medicine today

Posted in Ancient Times, Animals, STEM Careers | Tagged Adaptation, ancient DNA, anthropology, antibody, arenavirus, British Museum, Charles Fulhorst, collections, computed tomography, cool jobs, crime scene, CSI, CT scan, Daniel Antoine, deer mouse, Egypt, evolution, feature, flightless birds, forensics, hantavirus, holdings, moa, mummy, Museums, Oliver Haddrath, outbreaks, pack rat, Robert Baker, Robert Bradley, rodents, Royal Ontario Museum, Texas Tech, tinamou, topstories, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, viral RNA, virus, X-ray

Cool Jobs: Delving into dung

By Roberta Kwok / January 23, 2013

Wood’s colleague, Janet Wilmshurst, studies a piece of moa poop. Credit: Jamie Wood

Scientists uncover fascinating secrets through the study of animal feces

Posted in Animals, STEM Careers | Tagged animal navigation, animal reproduction, baboons, beetles, Brazil, Center for Conservation Biology, Cerrado, chemical markers, Chinook salmon, conservation biology, cool jobs, coprolite, Dactylanthus taylorii, diet, digestion, DNA, DNA fingerprint, droppings, dung, ecology, Emily Baird, endocrinology, excretions, feature, feces, fossils, glucocorticoid, Hades flower, hormones, kakapo, killer whale, Landcare Research, Lund University, manure, moa, New Zealand, oceanography, olfaction, orca, paleontology, pollen, Pollination, poo, poop, scat, stress, Tanzania, topstories, University of Washington, Wasser, whiskers

Cool Jobs: Math as entertainment

By Dana Mackenzie / December 19, 2012

When a band of zoo buddies tears through a Monte Carlo casino, the marble columns don’t have a chance. Nafees Bin Zafar used mathematics to power the visual effects behind this madcap scene in Madagascar 3. Credit: “Madagascar 3” © 2012 DreamWorks Animation LLC, used with permission of DreamWorks Animation LLC

Magic, movies and metal: How mathematics adds dazzle to the visual world

Posted in Mathematics, STEM Careers | Tagged 2012, 3D printing, abstract sculpture, animation, Arthur Benjamin, Bathsheba Grossman, CAD-CAM, collaborative, collision detection, computer graphics, computer-assisted design, cool jobs, DreamWorks, Erwin Hauer, Ethan Brown, feature, gyroid, Harvey Mudd College, imagination, interdisciplinary, James Randi, Madagascar 3, magic, magic square, mathemagic, mental mathematics, minimal surface, movies, Nafees Bin Zafar, octahedron, sculpture, symmetry, topstories, trigonometry, Tron: Legacy

Cool Jobs: Crime scene investigators

By Sid Perkins / December 5, 2012

The dead do tell tales — if experts care to listen. Forensic anthropologist William Bass arranges a display of how a person’s bones change year by year as we age. This information can help identify a crime victim when little else is known. Credit: University of Tennessee, Knoxville

These researchers don’t miss a clue

Posted in Chemistry, STEM Careers | Tagged blood, blowflies, bones, cadaver, cool jobs, crime scene, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, DNA, evidence, FBI, feature, fingerprints, Forensic Anthropology Center, forensics, genes, Kendall Stoner, maggots, polymerase chain reaction, Reanna Day, the Body Farm, William Bass

Cool Jobs: Explosive pursuits

By Sharon Oosthoek / November 14, 2012

Mining engineer Bibhu Mohanty sets off controlled explosions as part of his job designing blasts that break apart rock. Credit: Bibhu Mohanty

These researchers study things that go boom — or poof!

Posted in STEM Careers, Technology & Engineering | Tagged airport security, Bibhu Mohanty, blast, bomb, bomb sniffer, bunchberry dogwood, carbon, catapult, chemical reaction, cool jobs, explosions, explosive, feature, geology, gold, Guinness Book of World Records, high speed photography, iron, Joan Edwards, land mine, minerals, mining, molecular sieve, nickel, oxidizer, pollen, reaction, rocks, TNT, topstories, University of Delaware, University of Toronto, Williams College, Yushan Yan, zeolite

Cool Jobs: The science of secrets

By Susan Gaidos / October 31, 2012

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee. The chickadee gets its name from its distinctive call. The greater the danger, the more “dees” a chickadee adds to the call’s end. Credit: Christopher N. Templeton

Researchers harness science to encode — and decode — hidden messages

Posted in STEM Careers, Technology & Engineering | Tagged acoustics, Adaptation, Aequorea Victoria, agar, animal behavior, Antibiotics, bacteria, bird of prey, bird song, birdsong, chickadee, Chris Templeton, codes, colors, cool jobs, crime, criminal, cryptography, David Walt, decode, decryption, detective, digital, electronics, encryption, FBI, feature, Federal Bureau of Investigation, fluorescence, fluorescent protein, forensic, global positioning system, GPS, Heather Mahalik, investigator, invisible ink, jellyfish, key, merlin, microbiology, patterns, predator, pygmy owl, raptor, sonogram, topstories, Tufts University, University of Montana, University of St. Andrews, warning calls

Cool Jobs: Scents of science

By Pippa Wysong / September 12, 2012

Humpback whales sometimes breach, or leap into the air. Some scientists believe the behavior allows the marine mammals to smell scents wafting over the water.
Credit: NOAA

Better understanding of the sense of smell inspires research into everything from whales to electronic ‘noses’

Posted in Animals, Brain & Behavior, STEM Careers | Tagged acetone, Alzheimer’s, blood sugar, brain scan, breach, cool jobs, diabetes, electronic nose, electronic sniffer, feature, humpback, Institute of Arctic Biology, insulin, insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, Jan Straley, Julie Hagelin, odors, olfaction, olfactory bulb, Parkinson’s disease, Perena Gouma, Richard Doty, Rush University Medical Center, smell, Stony Brook, SUNY, the State University of New York, topstories, toxic chemicals, type 1, University of Alaska, University of Pennsylvania Smell and Taste Center, University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test, UPSIT, whale, World Trade Center collapse

Cool Jobs: Wild science

By Sharon Oosthoek / August 16, 2012

Arctic researcher Kathy Young (rear) walks back to her remote research cabin on Canada’s Bathurst Island with her student Valen Steer. Credit: Tarmo Remmel

Collecting data can be dangerous for scientists who work in the field

Posted in Science Education, STEM Careers | Tagged Arctic, atrazine, Bathurst Island, cool jobs, feature, field research, fieldwork, frog, fungus-farming ants, hippo, hydrology, Inuit, Jeffrey Sosa-Calvo, Kathy Young, permafrost, polar bear, topstories, Tyrone Hayes, wetlands

Cool Jobs: Studying what you love

By Roberta Kwok / July 11, 2012

Researchers study the same animals that fascinated them as kids

Posted in Dinosaurs & Fossils, STEM Careers | Tagged Alberta, biology, boa constrictor, Borneo, Burmese python, cool jobs, Deinonychus antirrhopus, Deinosuchus riograndensis, dinosaurs, Ecuador, Edmontosaurus, Everglades National Park, feature, Florida, Greg Erickson, herpetology, invasive species, JASON Project, jumping spiders, Lapsias lorax, Malaysia, Michael Dorcas, paleobiology, Paul Gignac, snake, topstories, Tyrannosaurus rex, Wayne Maddison

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