Via good.is: Antarctic Glacier Has Five-Story Blood-Red Waterfall of Primoridial Ooze! I saw this and got immediately excited. Located in the McMurdo valleys, what basically happened is that a super bloom of microbes got trapped under the ice, and, unlike just about every living thing ever, it kept living. The lack of sunlight and oxygen has transformed them into something the Ninja Turtles could only dream of finding the secrets of, and every so often when the surface ice cracks and melts a tiny bit, it starts gooshing out. And yes, that’s a quite technical term. The best part? You can absolutely visit this oozefest, albeit only in Antarctic summer.

Via Salon.com: Deadly quakes are coincidence, scientists say. This one is something that I’ve been looking into a little bit, but honestly don’t know where to begin. A bunch of unnamed scientists say that the recent devastating earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey are completely unrelated. This also in, Pat Robertson is still an asshole.
One of the things I’ve been worried about is that the same day as the Chile earthquake, there was a smaller magnitude but still relatively severe earthquake in Salta, Argentina – a 6.4 on the Richter. We all know how much I love Argentina, and one of my friends from field camp lives in Salta. Unfortunately, nobody has any contact information for him – but luckily the USGS reported that there were no casualties. My fingers are crossed for you and your family, Nestor.

In entirely unrelated news, there have been two small earthquakes in my home county here in New Jersey: 2 Earthquakes Shake Somerset County; Second Time in Two Weeks (courtesy mycentraljersey.com). I am deeply saddened as I have not felt either of these, though they were at max 2.3 on the Richter scale. Is something afoot under central Jersey?

Via the HuffPo: World’s First Commercial Jetpack To Be Sold For $75,000. Some lucky bastards with lots of money will soon be able to purchase a really sweet jetpack produced by the Martin Aircraft Company. It carries a fairly hefty $75K price tag, but can travel up to 63mph, meets all FAA regulations, and can run for about half an hour. The best part? You won’t need a pilot’s license to fly one. Now this is something I can see wasting money on…providing I can find a nice supply of jet fuel.

What do you say, BLAGgers? Any more science you’d like me to know about? Leave a comment, or drop me a line via e-mail!

Side note…would you guys like to see a return of Random Sunday Night?

I was recently approached by the fine folks at ASPEX, a company that has started a pretty neat campaign. Dubbed “Send Us Your Sample,” the company is asking anyone and everyone to send in samples to be photographed under a Scanning Electron Microscope, or SEM for short.

An SEM is a pretty cool device. In essence, it takes a picture of a sample by scanning the surface with a high-energy electron beam and imaging it. For more info on how it works, check out the Wiki article.

What ASPEX is doing is allowing people to send in absolutely anything to have it imaged under the SEM. All you have to do is find an object, fill out the form, mail it in along with your sample, and in a few weeks they’ll post the SEM image up on their website.

The best part is that you can send in just about anything. Of course, stay away from things that you probably shouldn’t send through the mail (or illegal things, but that goes without saying), and know that you won’t be getting your item back. It’ll take about two weeks for the sample to be scanned and posted.

You can send your sample to the following address:

ASPEX Corporation
Free Sample Submissions
175 Sheffield Dr.
Delmont, PA 15626

This is a pretty cool opportunity, if you ask me. We have an SEM in our lab here at Montclair, but I haven’t been trained on the machine yet. I’ll definitely be sending a sample of my thesis granites in to see how it turns out, and I encourage you to send in something for yourself! Maybe it’s a toy, a weird leaf, or just something you’ve had lying around the house for years. I’d say it’s pretty cool to be able to see ANYTHING under that high magnification – 200 µm is a pretty tiny scale. That picture above? I bet you’ll never be able to guess what it actually is. (Answer behind the jump!)

Give up? It’s actually a toy rabbit.

If it weren’t for him and Beakman (of Beakman’s World fame), I might not be as into science as I am. What do you think?

Also, be prepared for a very cool post coming within the next couple days – I promise you’ll be just as excited as I am!!

9. Bea Arthur
The world lost at least 25% of its sass that day.

8. Patrick Swayze
His inclusion is more for Karyn, though his struggle with pancreatic cancer was quite admirable.

7. Soupy Sales
I’ll admit it – I’m a game show addict, and his appearances on the Match Game were some of the best. My parents remember his innovation in television comedy, and I’ll never look at a cream pie the same way ever again.

6. Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein
Let’s face it – the guy survives a near-fatal plane crash only to be killed by an overdose less than a year later. Admirable? Not so much, but his memory will live on.

5. James Owen “The Rev” Sullivan
Drummer for Avenged Sevenfold, The Rev passed away in late December – one of the last to make the cut. He was 28 years old…too young to die. (But then again, who isn’t?)

4. Edward Kennedy
The Liberal Lion. Without his efforts, perhaps the health care debate wouldn’t have reached the point it has. (I’m still keeping my fingers crossed.)

3. John Hughes
In my senior year of high school, I did a presentation about The Breakfast Club. The movie has become one of my ultimate favorites, and I’ll never forget what Hughes did for the genre – he made it slightly more realistic.

2. Les Paul
Music as we know it would not be the same without the innovations of Les Paul.

1. Billy Mays
Okay, I’m going to try and elaborate a little bit on this one, since Mr. Mays is a strange choice. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been fascinated by infomercials. I’ll stay up late or wake up early to catch a bit of the Showtime Rotisserie Grill, the Magic Bullet, hell, anything presented in long-form informercial form is something that will catch my attention. And then the world gave us Billy Mays, and everything was changed. He was able to compress the energy and urgency of a regular infomercial into a few sweet minutes. He got your attention, and he kept it. He wouldn’t advertise anything that didn’t work, which is why to this day my family still uses Oxi-Clean and Kaboom. He was taken from us far too early in life – June 28, 2009 – and the world will never be the same.

So to you, Mr. Mays, I raise a toast. It’s hot chocolate, but it’s heartfelt nonetheless. May you be pitching wherever you are now, and I hope that whoever you’re with has a lifetime supply of Mighty Putty and Hercules Hooks, because they’ll absolutely need them.

Wait. I mean, sure, it’s time for holidays, but more importantly, it’s time for cookies! Now, since this is Bitch Like A Geologist, this means only one thing – SCIENCE COOKIES.

Now, the fantastic Professor George W. Hart has had a wonderful recipe for trilobite cookies lurking around the web for quite some time now, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. This seemed a bit dry and I’m not a fan of jam cookies, so I tried to amend the process a bit.

The recipe calls for a cookie gun, and the shape is obtained based on one key piece – the bar attachment. So I started looking around for a nicer recipe to use with a cookie gun, and came across a really nice one…in the box, of all places.

Classic Spritz Cookies
Note: this is English measurement, but I can translate to metric if requested!

You will need:
for the cookies
1 1/2 cups butter (three sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Don’t forget, you need a cookie gun with a bar attachment!

for the coating
1/2 lb. white chocolate merckens (I buy them from a local candy making supply store, but they can be purchased online here. Any color can be used, I just prefer white chocolate!)
an assortment of nonpareils

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375°. Thoroughly cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla, and almond extract and beat well. Stir together flour and baking powder and gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing to make a smooth dough. Do not chill. Place dough into cookie gun and press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12* minutes or until lightly browned around edges. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on rack.

Makes 7-8 dozen cookies. (…or less if you can’t stop eating the dough!)

A few things: The dough really didn’t want to stick, so I found that if I moved quickly, they stuck better. I used parchment paper on the bottom of my baking sheets, and that seems to have really cut down the mess. This also cut down the cooking time, and ours stayed in the oven for only about 8 minutes. Now to the fun part…the icing!

I took a handful of the merckens and melted them in the microwave, checking and stirring every 30 seconds for about two minutes. This got them nice and melty. I then dipped the head of my trilobuddy into the chocolate, then the bottom, and set them to rest on some wax paper. Using a toothpick, I dipped the end into a little bit of chocolate, adhered a little nonpareil, and stuck that into the cookie chocolate for its eyes. I set them out to cool overnight, and in the morning…

SUCCESS!

I only made 12 with the icing, but based on the response they got, I’ll definitely be making more in the future.

Happy holidays to you and yours!

On top of that, this is supposed to be my final year of grad school…and it’s not looking that way. I still have to even start my thesis. But enough excuses – this post isn’t about excuses. This post is about being thankful.

Yes, Thanksgiving was last month, and I don’t tend to agree with it (see: National Day of Mourning), however, it can’t help but serve as a reflection of sorts. This year, though mostly tragic and terrible, has had some wonderful moments.

+ I went to Disney World. Seriously, check back to posts in March or just look through my Flickr – Disney World was easily one of the best trips I’ve ever been on, especially in the company I was with. Being there with three of my best friends really got my mind off of things (and let me warm up in the sun, too!)

+ Argentina. I don’t think I mentioned that enough. The trip was an incredible experience, one I’ll never be able to forget. I’ve been missing the food there something fierce, and finally found a local restaurant that serves chicken milanesa and chimichurri with skirt steak. Sign me the fuck up.

+ My new office. My old office was a fun little box – no windows, but six people that just generally got along pretty damn well and then half of them graduated. This year, I was evicted from my little box and moved into a bigger, larger office! With computers! And windows! (Not to mention some of the best people I’ve ever met.)

+ Teacup, my trilobite tattoo. I think we’ve discussed here that I’m very pro body modification, and back in September I got my latest – the beginning to my 3/4 sleeve, Teacup. Teacup is a trilobite and he lives on my forearm. I love him forever, and offer major props to Chuck, my artist at Revolver Tattoo.

+ Meteor showers. My friends Carl and Melissa and I went out to the middle of nowhere, New Jersey, to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower early last month. There was a lot of ambient light, but we still got a lovely view of the shower, not to mention the amazing view of the Milky Way I had when I was in Argentina.

+ Red velvet cupcakes. No explanation is necessary.

So, BLAGgers, what have you been thankful for this year? It doesn’t matter how small it is. Some good has to come out of 2009.

You know, random commenter that told me to “suck it up” because I was making “real” geologists look bad? I don’t like your attitude. I may still be a student, and I may have a lot to learn, but I’d like to think that being worried is something that’s common amongst all people, not just “whiny little girls from the ‘burbs.”

Regardless of that, I’m back from Argentina. I have been for quite some time now – August 1, to be exact. Almost a month, and not a day goes by where I don’t miss being there. The work was challenging but provided me with the knowledge to keep going on. The professors I worked with were amongst the top in their field and really knew what they were doing, and possibly as a result of that I felt capable and able. Most of the time.

I won’t lie to you and tell you it wasn’t hard – it was. However, it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who was serious about geology. Also, where else are you going to be able to have a snowball fight in front of the largest mountain outside of the Himalayas?

Haters to the left.

Part of it is because this summer, I’ll be doing a field camp. When I was an undergrad, this wasn’t required, but they changed it recently. I technically don’t *have* to go, but I feel like it’ll be an incredible experience. The course I’ll be on is run in conjunction with Cornell University and my home campus, Montclair State University. The field camp is being held in the Andes Mountains of Argentina. We will be doing geologic mapping nearly the entire time we’re there, from July 4 to July 31 of this year.

What has me the most nervous, though, is that I’ve never done any geologic work of this caliber before. The most I’ve ever mapped is a tiny square on campus, not anywhere near this large. Also, the fact that I’ll be away for nearly a month and don’t know much about how I’ll be able to be in touch with my family and friends is a big worry. What if something happens at home? A dear friend recently took a European vacation, and the day she landed she found out that her father passed away. Third biggest worry? I’m one of three girls going. There are thirteen guys. That’s more than a little unbalanced…I just hope I get along with them.

Am I scared? You bet. Will I survive? Hopefully. Anyone have any words of wisdom? Anything that’ll keep me a bit more sane? I don’t speak a lick of Spanish so that doesn’t take away from my panic any.

Consider this my warning sign?

The latter bird, as I would later google, is a male Superb Bird of Paradise.

AND IT SCARES THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME.

The great thing about nature, ladies and gentlemen, is that it is so truly unbelievable. And that, in and of itself, makes it believable.

The semester’s almost over, and hopefully – HOPEFULLY – regular science posting will pick back up. Thanks for your patience!

With the recent release of Pokémon Platinum, I started playing Diamond again. Yes, I have Platinum…but I have so much left to do in Diamond! One of my favorite parts of playing has been the Underground – simply because it’s Pokémon geology!

When you get your Explorer Kit in Eterna City, you can dig down into the ground and explore the Underground – a series of mines. By pinging the walls, you can choose to “dig” into bulging walls, and uncover different rocks and fossils. These fossils can be brought up to the surface and reanimated into Pokémon, which you can use in your party. I’ve been playing around with an Aerodactyl…but I really want a Kabuto.

Kabuto are the Pokémon equivalent of my favorite little prehistoric sea creatures, trilobites! Unlike the real thing, these can be reanimated and can be your little in game pixel friends.

The cool thing about games is that reality is suspended. You want to bring a fossil back to life? We can do that! Imagine if we could do that in real life, Jurassic Park style – would we have dinosaur parks, or a national threat? I know I’d bring back a ton of trilobites.

Given the option, would you reanimate any fossil friends? Or would you avoid the chaos all together?

(And if you’re curious, my Friend Code is 2749 7797 8904, name ELYSE – let’s battle!)