“I would never call myself a chemist,” said Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 recipient Eric Betzig.
Betzig was the 2015 speaker at the annual Mark Gurevitch Memorial Lecture Series, hosted by the Physics Department at Portland State University. During his lecture at Hoffman Hall on May 14, Betzig spoke about his career and his prize-winning work. Read more about Betzig’s talk in this article by Joseph Thiebes, and in the video below.
In January 2015, Sustainable Water, Energy and Environmental Technologies Laboratory (SWEETLab) finished setting up nearly half a million filters and stoves in Rwanda, many of which contain new sensors that communicate their status over the Internet, according to SWEETLab Director and Portland State Mechanical & Materials Engineering Assistant Professor Evan Thomas. Learn more from Dr. Thomas, Kwasi Boateng, and Zdenek Zumr about SWEETLab in this article and video below by Joseph Thiebes.
Check out my latest story on landslides in the Pacific Northwest and the geologists that are working to make landslides more predictable. Here’s a video supplement to the story:
Don’t miss my interview and short article about the groundbreaking work of Dr. Ken Stedman, whose recent research has uncovered a similarity between HIV and a type of virus that finds its home in acidic, volcanic hot springs.
For science geeks, this list of locations, events, and shopping ideas in Portland, Oregon is a great place to start celebrating the season of axial tilt in heliocentric style. Check out the full article with links, video, and a map of locations!
Here’s my story on GMO labeling for the Portland State Vanguard. I wanted to use more from all my interviewees, but that’s the way it goes. I wish I could do a whole documentary! I had to keep the focus tight and I wanted to get people to see that it’s a complex and human issue. That wasn’t easy, but I think I gave people some food for thought if not an in-depth view. The video attached to the article is a big step up in my production quality.
No on 92 campaign Oregon 2014
Last week I produced a video along with a couple of photos and a short news story for the Portland State Vanguard, available at this link. In this multimedia piece, local officers Katherine Flenniken, Moira Gion, and Becky Russo speak about the benefits that the group offers to students and the goals of their current fundraising efforts.
My first video for the Portland State Vanguard is now available online at this link. In the video, Dr. Jason Podrabsky, chair of the biology department, speaks about the benefits that the new Collaborative Life Sciences Building (CLSB) benefits students in the biology department. One of the photos in the slideshow at the top of the article was also taken by myself. Below are a couple more photos, unpublished elsewhere, that I took while at the new CLSB. The first is one showing the nearly-complete Tilikum Crossing bridge, which will open in 2015. Its West end is right next to the CLSB. Below that is a photograph that I took in one of the new chemistry teaching labs in the North part of the CLSB.
Militarized law enforcement may provide a valuable form of entertainment
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk though the great city of New York, or travel to nearly any other city in this great nation, when they see the parks crowded with unemployed youth, veterans of combat, and aging drug users, granola crunchers, and brassiereless females, all in soiled, malodorous clothing and harassing every passerby (Roberts et al.). These people instead of working for their honest livelihood are content to employ all their time complaining about the accomplishments of others and beg for debt relief while they thieve and rape for want of work and love (Lomax), or they may indeed leave their dear native country, to fight as terrorists against civilized society (Vermillion).
Joseph Thiebes and Vermin Supreme after the debate
Three hours later than planned, after a 6-hour flight and a hurried drive through the suburbs of Boston, I finally arrived in Salem, Massachusetts to find the media team nearly ready for the event that had been anticipated jokingly as perhaps “the most important political event of the year,” (Bernstein) and would later be called “the best fake presidential debate Massachusetts has seen in a generation” (Carioli). I donned my newly fitted black tuxedo with a red bowtie and matching pocket square, and sat down at a table on stage next to a man in the process of fastening a boot to his head. It was Halloween weekend, but the boot was not exactly a costume. Hearing the excited cheers of audience and members of the media team, Vermin Supreme acknowledged that this trademark fashion accessory brings more media attention than any of his other antics.
