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ScIUConversations in Science at Indiana University

Jennifer Sieben is a current graduate student at Indiana University pursuing a PhD in Astronomy. Her current interests are large scale structure, cosmology, star formation rate over cosmic time, and gravitational waves. She wishes there were more hours in a day to allow her to study all of these topics. When not been buried under homework or research work, she can be found writing novels and short stories, editing videos for youtube, or curled up with a cup of earl grey and a good book.​

Entries by Jennifer Sieben

Finding the Right Question

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[Portrait of Dr. Songhu Wang.]

Imagining life on other planets is usually the work of science-fiction authors, but increasingly it is becoming the work of current astronomers. Although it had been theorized that there existed other planets outside of our solar system, exoplanets were only confirmed in the late 1980s. The field exploded when the Kepler space telescope started finding hundreds of exoplanets. A rich field of study was born…

Science with Nemo: Ethics of Care in Animal Research

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[animated GIF of seven tropical fish of various kinds, who are all in plastic bags, floating in the ocean. The image captions one fish, speaking, who asks the group, “Now what?”]

We are all familiar with the plot of Finding Nemo: a scuba-diving dentist takes a small clownfish, Nemo, from a reef, keeps him in a fish tank in his office, and Marlin (Nemo’s father) goes on a whirlwind adventure to rescue his son. Obviously, Disney’s creative fiction is just that — fiction. However, many millions of fish are kept in tanks in the real world, for both recreation and research. Although we cannot know the fate of home-kept fish, for fish used in scientific research, there are specific rules for ethical treatment and proper care for fish of all kinds. How and why do scientists use fish in research anyways? 

The science behind meteor showers in Animal Crossing

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[Animal Crossing player character bowing their head with eyes closed as they

Animal Crossing has proven again and again to be an exquisitely well-designed game and has surprised many with its excellent representation of scientific concepts. Many players have written about the punnet squares of flower breeding, and others have made videos about all the animals in Blathers’s museum (even the bugs!). However, I’d like to turn your attention skyward. Let’s take a look at the meteor showers that happen above your island…

30 Years of Hubble: Images and Discoveries that Shaped Astronomy

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[A bright spiral galaxy with two prominent arms of red with a blue glow of stars. The center is bright white.]

Yesterday, April 24th, was the 30th anniversary of the launch of perhaps the most famous telescope: the Hubble Space Telescope. Orbiting the earth, this telescope has changed the way astronomers and the public alike view the universe. With over 1.4 million observations, providing data for more than 16,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers, Hubble has exceeded expectations…

Science without a Degree: What is Citizen Science and How to Get Involved

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repeating illustrations of a laptop showing a bar graph, a microscope, and a magnifying glass.

[repeating illustrations of a laptop showing a bar graph, a microscope, and a magnifying glass.]

Louis Pasteur once said, “Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.” The act of doing science should not, and cannot, be confined to people in lab coats with multiple degrees squinting at computer screens and scribbling on whiteboards. Exploring the natural world around us should be something everyone can take part in, and that’s what citizen science is…

Why Are There No Sunspots?

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The surface of the sun is shown with two large, black splotches. Connecting these two splotches is an arc of yellow light drawn coming out of the sun and extending into space.

It’s easy to think of the sun as a simple bright sphere in the sky, constant and unchanging; but, that is far from reality. The sun is dynamic, with many solar flares, cells of convection, and even storms. One of the easiest changes to see are sunspots, which are located on the surface of the… Read more »

Global collaboration in science

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Map of the world showing 2 centers in the United States, 2 in Europe, 1 in India, and 1 in Japan.

Looking back into the archives of scientific papers published in the past few decades, the majority have one, or at most four, authors. Most projects were conducted by a single individual (or a man and multiple uncredited women, but that’s a whole different topic than what I’d like to discuss here): one person started with… Read more »

Graduating ScIU Writers 2019

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Our blog would be nothing without our writers. Unfortunately they can’t stay here forever; they must go on to their next great adventures in life. So we wanted to take a moment to recognize a few of our authors who have recently left or are preparing to leave soon. We wish you all the very… Read more »

The Quest for Alien Swimming Pools

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A small section of a darkly lit moon with bright jets of water shooting out from the surface against the blackness of space.

Water is essential to life on Earth. So, if we are searching for life off-world, it would make sense to look for signs of water. Astronomers have been doing exactly that: employing different methods to find the first signs of life outside of our own world. Until recently, it wasn’t known whether there is water… Read more »

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