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Publisert 8 kommentarer til Upset and annoyed

 

Today I was part of the "panel of scientists" on Abels Tårn - the radio show that airs on Friday mornings at NRK P2 (this particular show will not air until December; probably December 4th). This time was sort of a "special edition", where the audience were all high school students (and their teachers), and all the questions were from these students.
So far, so good: GREAT FUN! (For the first time, I was on the show together with Anders - that didn't make it any less fun <3 )
After the show, one teacher came up to me (at least I think tha's what she was), and told me she had two questions. 
Great, I thought...
But  they weren't questions, they were more like "questions":
The first one was if a Molten Salt Reactor will release less radioactivity during normal operation than today's reactors, and the second one I'm not sure if she ever asked; except she was asking me about all these Germans that had written stuff in German, and I said (several times - at first I was polite) that I don't speak German, so, no, I have not read these things (but I should, according to her). She was laughing in my face when I said that there are no radioactive releases during normal operation of reactors even today (and of course not in the future), and just told me I was wrong (and said that if I just read these German things I would know that I was wrong...). Still I didn't just leave (that would be rude), I tried to talk about radiation doses and limits - it wasn't very successful.

This teacher pretended to have questions, but was not interested in listening to what I said, and just went on and on and on about new German titles that I should (have) read. It was annoying and rude, and I'm still kind of upset, actually :/

all photos: Yngve Vogt

Maybe the worst part is that this teacher (if that's what she was) was stealing time from the students that had several questions for me, and that I would really have wanted to talk to - not to tell them so much about nuclear physics, but about science, and research, and all the amazing possibilities...
BTW: Thank you so much to the student who just wanted to tell me that she really enjoyed my TEDxOslo talk <3 The talk from LeRosey, last year, is HERE, and the one from Bergen, a couple of weeks ago will come very soon (stay tuned).
PS: It's TOTALLY OK to disagree with my view on nuclear power, but please don't pretend to ask me questions when you have no intensions of listening to what I say, and not respect me as a scientist. I try very hard not to pretend to be an "expert" on stuff taht I'm not working on, so don't pretend that I know nothing about my own f*****g field of science. Thank you <3 
PPS: Besides the behavior of this teacher, it was a great day, and I had a lot of fun being part of Abels Tårn today!

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Abels tårn on Wednesday
New week. New possibilities!

I must admit I've suddenly gone into a "OMG, it's less than 11 months left until I'm finishing my thesis - OMG. OMG! OMG!!!" sort of state, and I guess every Monday blogpost could just be so this week I'm going to try to work on my article/thesis/analysis, but I'm still not there where I'm not doing anything else than my article/thesis/analysis, so there is a little bit more to say: In addition to working (my goal: A LOT) on my article and the rest of my analysis there are some other cool things going on the next days:
First and foremost I'm going to be on Abels Tårn on P2 on Wednesday (not the normal air time for Abels Tårn), where I might talk about fusion, and I might talk about Molten Salt Reactors - who knows? 😉
On Thursday I will give a talk about outreach "beyond the scientific conferences" for doctors and others on Radiologisk Høstmøte. It's not open to everyone, but I'm proud to be asked to talk at places like this, about my experiences with outreach and blogging and all that, so I just wanted to tell you anyway. (I think it should be ok to be proud, right?).

And don't forget "question of the month"! I will probably make this blogpost on Wednesday (no promises, though), and it's not too late to ask questions. The questions I get that I don't answer this time are just saved in a folder, and will be answered later <3

Ok, enough chit-chat - now it's time for some serious working on plots and tables of uranium-234, for my next article!
Talk to you later 🙂

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PS: I must admit that even though I think it's already starting to be too cold outside, there have been some very beautiful days lately, and fall isn't just all that bad. Like last week when we went to my mothers to pick the apples - Alexandra and Andrea and Arian are just so cute together <3

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til Back in business
Happy Thursday, and may I ask: how did it become Thursday already, and where did the first part of this day go?
Whatever the answer is, I'm back from a FANTASTIC week at Fuerteventura (a blogpost about the vacation will come), and now I'm "back in business", at my office. 
Actually, we got home to Norway on Monday, then I had a mission in Trondheim on Tuesday - I was part of a fake PhD dissertation, as one of the opponents, yesterday was a day filled with starting to get back on track workwise, family obligations, and do you see anything new on me? Yes, it was also time to get glasses. So far, I think I like it - suddenly I can see stuff that was kind of blurry two days ago (and I do look kind of smart, don't I? 😛 ).
So today is my first, full day, at Blindern; the sun is shining, and even though it's starting to get cold here in Oslo, it feels good 🙂 Main goal of this day: get all figures and tables that I can possibly make into the draft of the article I'm working on (aka: the article that I haven't really worked on for some time...:/) - from this I will also know "where to go" tomorrow. I also need to be serious about the actual PhD thesis now, so writing on that will be quite high on my TO DO list in the next couple of weeks.
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BTW: There's something I've been thinking about. I often get questions in the commentary section either here on the blog, or on Facebook, on email, on Twitter etc, and many of these questions are too extensive for just a two sentences type of reply. Therefore I've been thinking about starting a "question of the month" thing - a dedicated blogpost for those extensive questions. I think if I'm going to do this, it should be on a fixed date every month, and I'm not sure exactly when that should be...but for now I think I'll start next week, and I'll just take it from there. What do you think, and do you have any questions? (I've been collecting questions from you for a long time, so I certainly have a lot to work on already 😉 )

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til My PhD ("dumbed down")
A couple of days ago I came across what I thought was a hilarious post on a web site: PhD theses dumbed down... My favourites are these:
  • Nanoparticles are weird and I accidentally made a bomb and electrocuted myself.
  • Inpatients with schizophrenia are happier and socialize more in the context of a music listening group. It was obvious before we began the project and we learned nothing.
  • Little things stick together. Here's a slightly easier way to calculate their stickiness. 
  • This protein looks like it might contribute to asthma. Oh, turns out it probably doesn't. 
  • Two proteins touch each other in a specific place in the developing heart. No idea if it's important for anything. 
  • People sometimes think about animals as if they're people. People like those animals a little more than regular animals. Except when they don't. I can't believe they gave me a PhD.  
  • Sand washes away, don't build important stuff on it.

Some of my friends, who have either finished their Phd's, or are in the middle of it, like I am, got inspired by this, and made their own "dumbed down" versions:

Jonathan: "All models are wrong, but at least now we can confirm they are wrong much faster"

Veronica: "Can electrons surf on an electric wave? Yes"

Kyrre: "How many sparks do we see when we push ridiculously strong micro waves through thin vacuum tubes? (And how do they work?)"

My thesis is, as many of you know, about issues with the thorium fuel cycle. Another day I think I will write a blog post about my thesis/project (so, a little bit more than just a one liner, but less than the entire thing - would you like that?), but it will have to be after I've finished my next paper, because after that I will hopefully know  a little more about how everything will be.
As of today, this is the best way I can "dumb down" my entire project, but I guess if it was just another day (when the weather was nicer, maybe, and it wasn't fall, and I wasn't feeling not like the best version of my self)I would probably write something different - maybe more positive :). Here goes:

Thorium is a nice thing for a nuclear fuel, but you get the f****** uranium-232 from it, and it makes everything s***. Now we kind of know a little bit more about it. Which is just sort of true.

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Here's yesterday's outfit - as I said I'm trying to be better at posting my outfits, and yesterday I was actually really satisfied with what i ended up wearing (after trying on, for example three different skirts and a pear of jeans) 🙂 My problem these days is, well, I actually don't really know what it is, but it's just hard :/  It takes forever to put together a simple outfit like the one from yesterday. Luckily I got "awarded" when I got to the University, and I bumped in to Anders, and he was like "wow, you look really great today" <3<3<3 

I'm very happy with my new, pink coat, that I ordered from Nelly.

top: Zara // ear rings: Snö of Sweden // coat: Nelly // scarf: HM // hair: I grow it my self // boobs: I grew them my self // eye lashes: au naturel (well, that's not exactly true; I do wear mascara, of course 😉 ) // skirt: 5 years old, don't remember where I bought it anymore // shoes: Bianco // lips: lipgloss from L'Oréal - otherwise they're like nature made them


Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Fuerteventura
Happy Tuesday everyone! Guess where I'll be in exactly two weeks. I'll be on a plane, on my way to one week of vacation with Alexandra and Anders <3
I din't have a real vacation this summer, since Anders was one month in Asia, and I had to spend a lot of time preparing for the Berkeley trip in August, so I promised Alexandra that we should go on a trip when it had become fall; and that is NOW! We will finally have a week of sun, salt, and sea. We're going on a real just relax and do nothing else than sleep, swim, eat ice cream and maybe have a glass of wine or a beer-trip; to Las Playitas - a small village at the Fuerteventura Island (one of the Canary Islands). The big plan for the week is RELAX, RELAX and RELAX (and SUN) 😉
(the pictures are from the Apollo website)
BUT! Before I can take my to loves and go away, there are some to dos... 
The one, really big thing before we're leaving is of course the TEDx conference in Bergen (saturday October 3rd, if anyone are thinking about going 😉 ). The theme is The (im)possible reinvented, and I think I finally know what I want to talk about this time; I've thought it through, and looked at several possibilities, and yesterday I made the decision that I will actually talk about thorium. I was first thinking about a more general "science is awesome" kind of talk, but then, when I was out walking and thinking, on my way to the University yesterday morning, it just came together - this will (probably) be my most "technical" TEDx talk, so far (who knows if there will be more talks like this in the future...the big dream is of course to give a real TED talk!). So, then I just actually have to make the talk - which will be one of the things I will spend a lot of my time on from now on and until the 3rd.
In addition to the TEDx conference, I have these TALYS calculations I'm doing. I should finish them before I go. If I manage to do that I think it'll be soooo much easier to relax - knowing that I more or less have the material ready for two papers, that "only" have to be written, when I get back to Oslo again 😛 And if I have made most of the tables and most of the figure for my uranium paper, I'll be so relaxed, I will probably be flying...
So, list of TO DOs that have to be done before Sunniva can go on vacation:
  • TEDx - thorium and weapons and stuff (and maybe Titanic...;) )
  • TALYS - finish it all (!)
  • My paper - make the tables and the figures, and place them where they are (probably) supposed to be

In addition I'm co authoring two papers that I have to give my comments on. I will definitely be doing some reading today;) And some writing on my talk. And maybe some TALYS work.

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Risks in perspective (#Selfie)

Today I've been busy all day - doing close to no actual research (#phdlife 😛 ).

A substantial part of this Monday was spent on radiation protection training (which, of course, is very important for us to be able to do the research we're doing - so it's not like the day was wasted...it just feels a little bit like I didn't do "anything"), and I just have to share this list where the risk of radiation exposure is sort of put in perspective. This list gives an estimate of basically how many days of your life you have to say bye to, when you do different things:

  • smoking 20 cigarettes a day: 2370 days (6.5 years)
  • being 20% overweight: 985 days (2.7 years)
  • alcohol consumption (US average): 1 year
  • mining and quarrying: 328 days
  • construction accidents: 227 days
  • car accidents: 207 days
  • home accidents: 74 days
  • receiving a dose of 10 milli Sievert per year, every year for 47 years: 51 days
  • natural hazards (earthquakes, floods): 7 days
The conclusion is that the risk of radiation (even quite "large" doses; 10 milli Sievert in one year is much more than I have EVER received working at the cyclotron laboratory in Oslo, or at any other nuclear lab) is smaller than most other activities you do in your life - just wanted to tell you <3



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My physicist office look of today was in the comfy style I've become so fond of lately; favourite jeans (HM), #Selfie top (HM), and white (or maybe more like grey now?) Converse.


Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Rosa
Hei alle fine ❤️
Denne uken er busy på så mange måter... I tillegg til at det er ca fullt fokus på fisjon av uran-233/234 med Jon (min fantastiske britisk/franske veileder), så er dette er den store boklanseringsuken: i dag bærer det rett fra kontoret til lansering av flinke Vibekes Fængsruds superkjappe mattebøker, og i morgen er det Kathrine Aspaas' Rosa er den nye pønken som skal feires - da skal jeg til og med holde et miniforedrag, om rosa forskning, selvsagt 😉 Blir såååå gøy, både i dag og i morgen! ❤️
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Fikk forresten litt "kritikk" forrige uke da jeg var på God Morgen Norge, om at bloggen min jo egentlig ikke er så veldig rosa, og at det jo er fyktelig lite dagens outfit...:/ Derfor slenger jeg på en selfie for å bøte litt på skade/inntrykket (jeg vil jo ikke være en dårlig rosablogger, liksom 🙁 ):
Jeg prøvde fire forskjellige antrekk (tror jeg - litt avhengig av hvordan "antrekk" defineres...) før jeg til slutt endte opp med en gammel favoritt, som jeg rett og slett hadde glemt; en sort topp fra Indiska, med litt sånn tidlig 1900-tallsfeeling, kombinert med favorittjeansene og orange, høye hæler. Lover at jeg skal prøve å bli bedre på outfits, altså - har bare rett og slett hatt mer inspirasjon på forskningen, i det siste; og dermed mer comfy outfits (Converse ❤️❤️❤️)
Nå blir det ca fire timer med fisjonsanalyse sammen med Jon, før jeg skal plukke med meg Anders, og vi skal bevege oss mot gamle Nobilis for å feire fineste Vibeke. Omg, jeg gleder meg!

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Publisert 2 kommentarer til 4 years!!! (oh. my. god.)

I can't believe it's been four years already!
Four. Years.
Since I started blogging, about nuclear physics and research and stuff.
Four years since September 8th, 2011, when I wrote my first blog post ever; about how I was a little bit hung over, and couldn't really concentrate about making the conference talk I was supposed to be making - so I made a blog instead. I do not regret that today <3 (I don't really say that I was hung over in that first blog post, but that was the real reason why I had trouble concentrating...;))
 
When I realized that it was my fourth anniversary today, I made a decision: One year from now, exactly, I will hand in my PhD thesis. It's perfect timing, since I have funding until the end of December 2016, and it takes about three months from the thesis is handed in, until you can defend it - meaning that if all goes according to my plan, I don't have to sell everything and move out on the streets as I'm waiting for my thesis defence 😛
I've celebrated my decision/goal, by working on the analysis of fission of uranium-233. It's been a very good day, and supervisor-Jon seems quite happy and excited about the results we are seeing now... I can't tell you exactly what it is yet, but hopefully there will be a new article in a couple of months (maybe earlier???), and then I'll give you all the details of this plot, and then some more - I PROMISE <3<3<3

A million thanks to all of you who read my blog - I hope you will continue to "follow" me as I try to finish this PhD project. *kisses* 

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Everyday life at the University (black holes)
This morning I went to a lecture (computational physics) for the first time in 2.5 years, and after that (not in the course, but during a break) I learned a new fun fact: the black holes in the center of galaxies are not like "normal" black holes... 
I actually sort of thought that a black hole is a black hole - that they are just what you get when a really big star dies and collapses. But then I learned that the black holes in the center of all galxies - that we call "supermassive" black holes - are much bigger than the "normal" ones, and they can't be created by the collapsing of a star. Actually, we don't even know how they are created, we just know they're different...!
We do know they are huge, though; their masses are more than 1 million suns together; and the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy (which is called Sagittarius A) has a mass equal to about 4 million suns - that's a lot 😉
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Publisert 2 kommentarer til No place like HOME
...or, the  University, as I also like to call it 😉 
Yes, it's actually true, the University really is like a home (or at least my second home) to me - and after one week in Berkeley, one week when Alexandra was sick with chickenpox and couldn't go to kindergarden, and one day in Stavanger, it feel fantastic to be back on track in Oslo! It's so awesome to see my (second) home full of new, and old, students again, and I feel so privileged to have a job that I can call home. Love it <3 <3 <3
So I'm just back in my (messy) office, and back with my beloved uranium (pep talk with supervisor tomorrow morning). I should really write more about what I'm working on right now - only problem is that it takes time...and I also want to share some of what I said in my speech at the University in Stavanger on Monday (very honored to be the mains speaker at the opening this year!) - maybe I have to do that tomorrow?
Anyway, it's soon bedtime here - I have to be much better at getting enough sleep, and to get up early in the mornings, which means going to bed early 😉
Here are some snap shots from the Stavanger trip 🙂
follow me on snapchat @ sunnivarose <3
Stavanger speech outfit 
 
leaving beautiful Stavanger