Category Archives: Communication

PPE Basics

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People are scared by COVID-19. This is understandable. Some people have started wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), mainly masks and gloves, although some are going for bonus points PPE like protective overalls, because they think the PPE will help protect them from COVID-19. It may, but it may not. I thought I might present just a few basics points for people who don’t normally wear to consider about wearing PPE.

What do I know about PPE you may ask. I am engineer and scientist. I have worn PPE in the field when taking environmental and industrial hygiene samples including soil, groundwater, urine, blood, air samples, and more. To earn my Ph.D., I worked in a lab that handled both chemical and biological samples. That is, one day I might have been handling urine or blood and needed to protect myself from pathogens, and another day I might have been handling chemical samples (or more likely part of a biological sample that had been placed into a chemical for processing) and needed to protect myself from chemical hazards. I am also HAZWOPER certified, and as part of the training, you have to dress in Level A and Level B PPE.

The most basic thing you need to know about PPE is first that PPE is essentially anything you wear that protects you from a hazard. In some places, jeans and long sleeves are PPE because they cover your skin from minor hazards. Steel-toed, leather boots are PPE that I have worn on a frequent basis when in the field as they protect my feet from many physical hazards including in at least one location I was working, rattlesnakes. [Not a hazard I was expecting on that site inspection, but, well, Texas.]

The second most basic thing you need to know about PPE is that it is not magical. PPE has to be worn correctly, and the correct PPE must be worn. For example, not all gloves protect against all hazards. In most of my work, I have worn nitrile gloves. Nitrile tent to be preferred over latex. The minor reason is potential latex allergy. However the main reason is that nitrile protects against more chemicals than latex. For most of my work, it is chemicals for which I need to protect myself. Most gardening gloves will protect you against some physical hazards like prickly vines, but they will not in general protect you against chemicals like pesticides you might be applying.

On the subject of gloves, gloves do not kill bacteria or viruses. If you are worried about viruses getting on your hands because you are touching a grocery cart for example, and so you decide to wear nitrile gloves, if you dispose of the gloves after touching the grocery cart and don’t touch anything else, then gloves may have protected you. However, if after touching the grocery cart with the gloves, you then touch your phone or your face with the gloves, then the gloves have done you no good. You have just transferred any viruses from the grocery cart to your gloves to your phone or face, just as efficiently as if you had not worn gloves. A week ago, I went to Costco and went first to the bathroom. When I was washing my hands, I noticed a woman washing her hands while wearing latex gloves. I simply don’t want to know what else she touched with the gloves before doing this or after.

A final note about gloves, there is a definite technique to how to remove them. The goal is to remove them without touching the outside of them. There may possible be another way, but the best way I have found to do it, is place one gloved finger on the outside of the other hand’s glove, near the wrist and carefully pull that other hand’s glove off, sort of rolling it off. Then with the now glove free hand, place your ungloved thumb under the other glove near the wrist and pull that glove off. Easier to show than explain.

Masks and respirators are designed for different types of protection, and it is critical that they be worn properly and for the correct use. Surgical masks are really more to the protect the patient from the surgeon sneezing or coughing on them than to protect the surgeon from the patient. Surgical masks can protect the wearer from splashes or larger droplets or to a certain extent large particles, but that is about it. Surgical masks do not provide even a decent seal around the face, so they do not protect from airborne viruses, bacteria, chemicals, or even small particles. If you don’t believe me, believe the FDA.

The now popular N95 masks can protect against some particles, viruses, and some other things if worn correctly. First, it is important to consult the manufacture’s information as to what they are designed to do and not to do. Second, it is critical that the wearer has a good seal. What does that mean? It means the edges of the masks must fit snugly against the skin for the entire perimeter of the mask. Men, you have to be clean shaven. Even an evening stubble will prevent the seal. N95 masks have a piece of metal that goes over the nose. That metal needs to be adjusted to get a good seal over the nose. Both elastic bands for the mask must be used to increase the fitness of the seal. Finally, masks get saturated. They can only be worn for a certain period of time before whatever you are breathing in breakthrough the mask.

I can’t emphasize enough how critical seals are. When I was graduate school, for the field work I was doing, I needed to be able to use a half-face respirator. That required me to first get medical clearance to wear the respirator. Second, I had to be fit-tested for the specific respirator I was going to wear. Different manufacturers make different size masks, and they don’t generally agree with each other. Hence I was fit-tested to wear a specific manufacture’s specific sized mask, and that was the one I wore throughout my field work.

Finally with respirators and masks also, the manufacture will state what the respirator or mask is designed to protect you from. If you go to a hardware store and look at respirators, you will notice that some respirators are for lead, some for particulates, some VOCs, and some will do a combination. A mask to protect from VOCs and PM10 is common. If you are going to work with VOCs, and you get one that is only for PM10, you will not be protected at all. Cartridges for respirators have to be changed frequently. Every two weeks is a common changeout time.

Those are the basics. There is really a lot more to understand about PPE, but those of the initial basic critical points to understand if you are thinking about wearing PPE to protect you from a virus or other hazards.

Still Learning

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I spent the better part of my childhood in suburbia Houston. I think I learned about the Civil War in the second year of U.S. history, which I think I took in 8th grade. Thus, I learned about the Civil War in the mid 1980’s in the South. I very specifically remember being taught that the Civil War was fought over state’s rights. Slavery was a component, but it was really about state’s rights. Decades later, when I was in my 30s, I was having a conversation with a couple of friends. I think the conversation was about federal versus nationalist governments but am not sure, but I remember stating what I had learned in school that the Civil War was fought over state’s rights. One of my friend’s looked at me surprised and said “you really are a Southerner.” I remember being surprised that others (most? any non-Southerner?) thought that the war was fought for a reason other than state’s rights, i.e. fought over slavery. Ironically, the friend was also from the South. It never occurred to me before that moment to question what I had been taught. I have never wished the South had won or anything to that effect. In fact I make fun of the South and am often embarrassed by it. I just had never learned something different. I was and am still learning history.

Growing up in Texas with all my relatives from various states of the South, there were just things that seemed normal to me that I never realized were offensive to others, in particular to African-Americans. Confederate flags are everywhere. Streets, parks, statues, etc. are dedicated to people of the Confederacy. Confederate Heros’ Day is a state holiday in Texas and celebrates Robert E. Lee’s birthday. [Other Southern states have similar.] Because Lee’s birthday is January 19, Confederate Hero’s Day very often falls on the same week as the federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I still am not sure if that is just weird, offensive, or amazingly ironic. It wasn’t until the events in Charlottesville and the recent push to get rid of things honoring Confederate leaders that I learned that these statues were not erected right after the Civil War but rather decades later during the Jim Crow era. I am still learning.

Years ago, I remember watching an episode of Law and Order. I very well may have been watching it in reruns on cable. I don’t know. I just remember that at some point during the episode either as graffiti or something (I’m fairly sure the word was not spoken), a word was used that I had never heard before. The episode was written such that the audience was supposed to know and understand what that word meant and be offended. I had to look it up online. The word is a Jewish epithet. I guess it is a good thing that I had never heard of the word because why would I want to be exposed to offensive language, but in a weird way, you almost have to know what is offensive to know to be offended by it. Do I want to learn what to be offended by?

As I have grown older, there have been numerous times when I learned that a word or saying or something was offensive to a group of people. I am embarrassed that I didn’t know initially, but I am grateful for anyone who appreciates that I didn’t know and is willing to educate me on it. I am still learning.

Several years back, in a private conversation with just one other person present, an older relative of mine used an ethnic slur to describe some people. I know, or hope, my relative did not mean to use a slur, and as soon as the term was used, I tried to explain that was a slur and please don’t use it again. As I recall, we got into an argument, and I was accused of being disrespectful because my relative didn’t realize the term was as charged as it is. I can remember trying to explain that I was sure that person didn’t mean to use a slur, but it was one, and please learn not to use it. I accept that many people didn’t know that certain words are slurs. To a certain degree, the older you get, the harder it can be to change your ways. Or maybe we just become more stubborn as we get older. Or maybe we are all still learning sometimes against our will.

About the only group of people I feel I have standing to have a “vote” as to what is and is not offensive is women. The use of the word girl can be used in an offensive or benign way depending on setting. [In my opinion, always offensive professionally but benign when discussing something among friends, like “going out with the girls”.] I would guess that there are things I would disagree with other women about as what is and is not offensive. There is a word that in my opinion is about the nastiest slur that can be used for a woman that on a few occasions I have heard someone say. I literally cringe when I hear it. This word does not start with a b. On the few occasions I have heard it, I try to have patience and calmly tell the man (on rare occasion a woman) never to use that word. If nothing else, it gives me empathy for other groups when slurs are used against them. For other groups of people, be it ethnic, religious, skin tone, gender identity, whatever, I let the members of that group decide what is and is not offensive. When I know something is offensive, I respect that and don’t use it. The more people I know, the more I learn. I can think of times in the past few years where I have learned the respectful way to call a person or group of people. I did not use an offensive term before, but I have learned how they want to be called. That is important to me and how I am still learning.

What is my point? We are all still learning. Before anyone gets onto their high horse and say someone should have known something, especially when discussing something decades into the past, they need to stop to consider when everyone else learned that thing. If a child is taught something one way, then the child will just assume that is the truth or the right way, until the child (or perhaps now adult) learns something different. Our environment shapes who we become, and sometimes we have to leave that initial environment to become something different or learn a different perspective. When one person learns “the truth” of some matter may be years or even decades after another person learns that same truth. We need to have patience with each other. We need to teach each other and learn from each other. An initial ignorance is forgivable. That’s why and how we learn. It is a refusal to learn where forgiveness can be difficult. So keep learning.

More on Kilograms Are Not Weight

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I just finished reading Randall Munroe’s book “What If?” It is a fantastic book. The book is mainly (completely?) a collection of posts from his website xkcd.com, which is a great comic strip. The book is funny and rather educational as it contains scientific answers to absurd questions.

However I have bone to pick with Mr. Munroe, or perhaps I would simply like him to explain just what the heck he is talking about in the chapter and post “Expanding Earth.” The question regards weight gain people would notice if the Earth started to expand. He explains how gravity would increase, so your weight would increase. No arguments from me. I agree. However the part where he completely loses me is that not only does he not distinguish between mass and weight, but he refers to a person gaining mass, not gaining weight, and using units of kilograms. I don’t know what this means. To quote one part of the post, “After five years, gravity would be 25% stronger. If you weighed 70 kg when the expansion started, you’d weigh 88 kg now.” No, Mr. Munroe, I hate to contradict you, but you most certainly would not. You could certainly gain mass, in which case you would weigh more. The increased gravity would cause you to weigh more independent of if you had or had not gained mass. However the simple increase in gravity would not cause you to gain mass, but it would cause you to gain weight.

I blogged before about my annoyance with people who use kilograms and refer to it representing body weight. Kilograms is a unit of mass, not force. A weight is a specific type of force due to the acceleration of gravity being applied to a mass. If you are comparing or discussing some mass on Earth, then you can refer to them in kilograms and ignore the weight because gravity is constant. [Gravity is not in fact constant across the planet. It varies a little due a couple of factors, mainly latitude and altitude, but I am trying not to get too technical.] For example, you could say the average American has a body mass of 80 kg, but person X has a body mass of 65 kg. People will commonly say the average American has a body weight of 80 kg. They are wrong, but at least all of this is being said with a constant gravity.

In the “Expanding Earth” post, he continues to use the units of kilograms, even though he is clearly referring to weight increasing due to the acceleration of gravity increasing. If he had used Newtons for units of weight, the post would make sense. Quite frankly, in the post I don’t know why he didn’t discuss this to begin with. However, I can’t understand what 88 kg means in the situation he describes. Is he increasing the force of gravity to the weight but then removing the standard gravity to relate it back to a mass? Why would you do that? Is he using a ratio of acceleration due to gravity to apply to the mass instead of properly applying it to the weight? How is this less confusing? I am confident he knows the difference between mass and weight. Did he really not think people would understand his answer if he used proper units? Does he actually mean that your mass would increase? Would the mass increase because you can’t move around due to the increased gravity?

I know I sound really nit picky, but what hope do the scientific literate have of getting people who don’t understand the difference to understand the difference, if a physicist doesn’t use proper units?

Communicating with Peers and the Public

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I’m at a scientific conference currently. All day yesterday, I was in the same room listening to presentations on the same topic, mainly from people doing pure research, with some people doing research with more application objectives. At the end of the day, they brought several of the presenters together for a panel discussion. I had listened all day to many of the presentations, and I was growing somewhat concerned about the implications of some of the research. I support their research. I respect their research. I want to see more of their research. However I do not work in research, and where I work, communicating with the public can be very important. So I asked members of this panel a question. How are they going to explain to the public what they are doing. There is nothing unethical about what they are doing. They are doing good work that could lead to important information being revealed, but they are doing research in the real world, that quite frankly is not at this point meant for the real world. So I wanted to know, had they thought about how to explain the results of their research to the public? A member of the public who saw some of their data could become seriously confused and scared because they wouldn’t understand what the results mean.

I generally am not all that good at communicating. I am fine with public speaking if I have a script. However in public or even one on one, when speaking impromptu I many times stumble over my words. I sometimes have trouble getting all the thoughts in my brain to come out my mouth in a linear manner. I know it is a fault. I work on it. I have also been told by people that I sometimes talk at too high a technical level. I work on it.

So there I was at a scientific conference trying to ask people, many of whom I had known for a day or two, a question. I respect these people and their work. I am trying to ask a question and explain that members of the public might not understand their results. The irony is beyond rich. I, who have trouble communicating at times, who have trouble communicating at a level that others understands technical information, am trying to explain to my peers that they are doing work in a situation that members of the public can see their work, and members of the public will not understand their work.

Of course I stumble on my words. Of course I can’t explain myself clearly. And of course, these scientists I respect start getting defensive. They explain I don’t understand what they are doing. They try to explain what they are doing as if I have not already seen several presentations explaining what they are doing. One interrupts me before I can fully try to explain what I am saying. I explain I completely understand what they are doing, but members of the public won’t. I only want to know how they will explain their results to the public. I don’t want to argue with these people. I hate arguing. I just want them to understand my point of view. I stumble trying to explain. My heart starts racing so badly that I am shaking. I try to calm myself and explain differently what I am saying. A couple of people finally start to understand what I am asking. One responds “oh well, we will explain [jibberish].” I thought I had trouble communicating. No one would understand that.

A woman I have started to have a professional relationship with and have started to become friends with also was sitting next to me. Afterwards, she assured me she completely understood and had the same concern. Then several other people, who are not doing this research, came up to me and said they understood and shared my concerns. I thanked them for that. They have no idea how much I needed that. I hate arguing with people. I don’t want these researchers to think I don’t support their work. I want these people to like me, and I know we share a common goal.

I live and work by a couple of rules. I will not lie to people, and I will not put people in danger. Those are at the top of my list of rules. Telling people the truth is easier said than done when the truth involves highly complex information. It is difficult to explain what the results mean to the public when you don’t understand what the results mean. I work with some awesome people, some of whom take what I write and translate it so a normal person can understand it. I make sure it is technically accurate, and they make sure people can understand it. I understand the importance of communication. You have to tell people the truth, but you have to tell people the truth in way they can understand it. When you don’t understand what your truth means, you also have to tell people that truth.

It’s Not Rocket Science

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I subscribe to my county’s weekly police report just in case there might be crime in my area I want to know about. I don’t live in a high crime area, so normally the police report is a bunch of car break-ins and drunks in the bar area of town. Today though I found this interesting report.

“MISSILE INTO AN OCCUPIED DWELLING, [location of incident]. On January 18 at approximately 6:51 p.m., a resident reported a known suspect threw a brick and rock into her residence, shattering two windows. [Suspect name] was arrested and charged with missile into an occupied dwelling, destruction of property, drunk in public and violation of protection order.”

What I found interesting is that legally speaking, a brick and/or a rock is considered a missile. To me this is another reason why rocket science should not be the go to science and engineering field for things that are hard. I hate the phrase “it’s not rocket science” with a passion. Rocket science is not that hard. It involves controlled combustion and trajectory. Missiles, a term which is generally used to mean a rocket that will cause destruction, is quite frankly easy. Science fields that are hard involve things that can’t be controlled near as easy as rockets, like biological systems, like fields trying to predict what stupid humans will do, like basic science where we are still trying to understand all the forces involved. You try doing an environmental and human health risk assessment on a hazardous waste site where toxicologists are unsure what level of exposure to a contaminant is acceptable, where you can’t be completely sure what humans will really be doing and for how long at a site, where people want to know they will be not be subject to undue risk for the next 70 years, and where you can’t be absolutely, completely positive just how much of each contaminant is there, but the polluters don’t want to clean up more than necessary. Then come talk to me about how hard rocket science is.

In summary, as evidenced by this police report, missiles are easy. Rockets are easy. Stop comparing things you think are hard to rocket science.

No, I won’t #HackAHairDryer

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Evidently, IBM wants to encourage women to enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by telling them to hack a hair dryer. My first thought is that while I appreciate any technology company encouraging women into STEM, did they really have to pick a hair dryer? I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt that it’s a cheap piece of electronics, but let’s be real. By picking a hair dryer, they are reinforcing stereotypes about women and how we care about our looks. I initially thought I don’t even own a hair dryer, then I realized I may own two. I know there is one in my guest bathroom, left by a relative, and it sits there in case any guest wants to use it. I may have one of my own in my bathroom, bought over a decade, possibly two decades ago. I am not even sure if I still have it because it has been a decade at least since I have used it.

My second thought about #HackAHairDryer is, YOU’RE A FREAKING COMPUTER COMPANY! ENCOURAGE WOMEN TO WRITE CODE OR HACK A COMPUTER IN SOME WAY! Computer science is one of the most underrepresented fields, even among STEM fields, it is one of the worst. For goodness sakes IBM, you are a computer company, encourage women into computers. That is a field you should know rather well. Surely you can think of things women can hack in your own field, things that will not play into stereotypes.

My third thought is what age is this campaign aimed at? Hair dryers use electricity, and they produce heat. They are not exactly the safest things to hack. In IBM’s video, there are a few scenarios for “hacked” hair dryers that quite frankly worry me a bit. If a girl or women wants to hack a hair dryer, great, but I hope there is someone (man or women) around who would know when they are getting into dangerous territory.

I can MacGyver with the best of them. In truth, a whole lot of my hacking knowledge did not come from school. It came from playing with things, looking things up on the Internet, and talking with other people with experience. I don’t “hack” that much. I do have a propensity to take things apart just to look inside and see how they work, which is easy. The difficult part is getting them back together again and having the thing still work as intended.

A final thought I have is aimed at any inspiring engineer. If you don’t like to hack, if you have never hacked anything, my personal opinion is that this means nothing to your aspirations to be an engineer or scientist. Don’t let anyone tell you, you can’t be an engineer or scientist because X. I can’t remember hacking a single thing before college. I can’t remember hacking a single thing as part of my undergraduate or graduate school experience. My education did involve some hands on stuff and science labs, but it did not involve hacking. Most of engineering education is theory and reality of design. That is, first you are taught the theory as to how something should work. Then you are taught how it doesn’t always work like the theory, so here are some empirical equations with fudge factors that do work. Now throw in some safety factors. Ta la, you have your design.

So young women, hack if you want to, whatever it is you want to hack. Explore the world. Stay curious. Learn how things work. Learn ALL subjects and find the ones that interest you the most, no matter what they are.

IBM, back off the hashtags. Do something actually meaningful that will encourage women into STEM like sponsoring science fairs or building competitions or sponsoring college scholarships.

Preparing to Brief Top Boss

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I’ve been working on this project at work for over a year now that seems to keep getting more and more important because of the effects of it. Recently I learned that Top Boss wants a briefing on it, and my presence is requested at the briefing. Top Boss would be the head person where I work. I work at a large place with somewhere on the order of 15,000 employees. I have become the subject matter expert on this project. Thus I need to be there because if Top Boss asks any technical questions, I will probably be the one who needs to know the answer. When I first learned that I would need to be at Top Boss’s briefing, I wasn’t nervous about it. If no technical questions are asked, I will happily sit quietly in the back as management talks. If technical questions are asked, I know my stuff. I’ll have my notes, and I feel confident I can sufficiently answer whatever might be asked. I don’t know if I should feel excited to brief Top Boss because I never thought I would end up in a meeting with Top Boss. Honestly thought it just feels like another management briefing. I am hopeful that this briefing will at least allow us to get some documents out that we have been trying to get out for a while now.

No, my first thought when learning I would need to be there was, crap, I hope I am not supposed to wear a suit for this because I don’t own a suit. I immediately looked around for a coworker who might know the dress code to brief Top Boss. The first coworker I see happens to be a straight male soil scientist, whom I called Dave. This may seem like an absurd choice, but I put Dave at the middle to high end of straight male scientist and engineer dress spectrum. Unlike some I have worked with, his clothes fit him properly and are appropriate business casual, and I have never seen him in a tie that makes you wonder if he lost a bet. However, I don’t remember ever seeing him in a tie. Dave however is kind of an appropriate choice in that Dave and I constantly seem to show up to work in similar outfits. There are two other scientists who also seems to constantly dress similar to both of us. We all show up to work in khaki pants and and a green top, or black pants and a blue top. You get the idea. We are not adventurous dressers. I wear more jewelry and other accessories than any of them though. Dave and I also shop for clothes similarly. I go to Costco, find a pair of colored denim pants, and once I determine they fit me well, I go back and buy them in several more colors. Same for tops, but those normally come from Kohl’s. I have the same short sleeve top in six colors and similar for long sleeve version and my sweaters also. My few unique pieces generally come from a thrift store or flea market. I will admit to having too many scarves and pashminas, but they are all unique, sometimes come from my travels, and keep my warm in the always cold office building.

I don’t know enough soil scientists to know if Dave is a typically dresser for a soil scientist. Geologists seem to have an unnatural obsession with Hawaiian shirts. Male engineers tend to wear neural suit pants and a white top. They then have two or three ties hanging on a hook in their office. If there is a third tie, there is a good chance it will involve Snoopy or some other cartoon. In any event, Dave assures me that office casual should be fine. However he also said he has never been in a meeting with Top Boss. I may seek a second opinion just to be sure. I will probably ask my boss. He is a good dresser. He has a science background, but he is also Italian. More importantly, I think he used to work as an advisor to upper management before, so he probably knows what is normal dress.

I’ve heard that you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I have the job I want. I suppose if I was really to dress for the job I want I would wear a hard hat, gloves, jeans, and a t-shirt that I don’t mind getting covered in dirt, or I might wear a lab coat, goggles, gloves, and have a pipetter on my hip. I am fairly sure these outfits will not work to brief Top Boss.

Science, the Media, Graphics, and Communication

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Recently, I had my annual performance review at work, and one of the things my boss said I needed to work on was communication with upper management in the form of not realizing they don’t know what I think everyone knows. I fully admit that there are some things so engrained in me that it would never dawn on me that other people do not actually know those things. Perhaps it is a reaction to the fact that I HATE being talked down to. I hate when people attempt to explain something to me I already know. The more basic the fact the more I hate it. It feels insulting. I hope those people where I have to go back and explain at a lower level, take it as a compliment, as it kind of is. I sometimes assume they already know things, and while I will correct it when necessary, it really is a compliment that I assume someone knows something they don’t. However, I do understand what my boss was saying, and science communication is something a lot of scientists talk about a lot. How can scientists improve science communication so that non-scientists can understand science, especially since science concepts sometimes are complicated?

So in one of those striking coincidences, the same day I have my performance review, the World Health Organization (WHO) comes out with a report that says that processed meat is carcinogenic to humans. The blog post is not meant to go into a discussion of how badly this report was blown out of proportion by much of the media. I will just say there is a difference between relative risk and absolute risk. This Forbes article I think does a pretty good job of explaining what the WHO said and also what it means, and this post by Cancer Research UK is really good and has wonderful graphics explaining risk. I will also say I am not a vegetarian, and although I really don’t eat that much red meat or processed meat, I don’t have a thing about bacon, but I spent a good part of childhood in Texas, and God bless Texas barbecue, meaning brisket so tender no knife is needed, and now I am hungry. I’m sorry where was I? Oh right, WHO and processed meat. So what I did want to say a few words about was a graphic I saw on NBC Nightly News, mainly the image below (which in case it is not obvious, I literally took a photo of my television screen).

Screen shot of NBC Nightly New with Lestor Holt on 10/26/2015

Screen shot of NBC Nightly New with Lestor Holt on 10/26/2015

I am not an expert on asbestos, but I can say with confidence that a smokestack is NOT where asbestos originates. Asbestos is a naturally formed mineral, and in some locations, you can be exposed to asbestos from the natural soil and rock near you. Where people generally get asbestos exposure is old house insulation, old pipe insulation, car brake pads, and a whole lot of old building material. I posted this photo on Facebook yesterday because I was just kind of flabbergasted. It leads me to questions like does NBC News seriously not know where asbestos comes from? Are they just too lazy to find a better graphic? One Facebook friend said that maybe they used a smokestack to designate a generic industrial process. I replied that by that analogy cigarettes should also have a smokestack because they also come an industrial process. Asbestos does not originate from an industrial process. It originates from the earth, but it was then used by industry into various products. The other two graphics imply where your exposure to the named carcinogen would be. Your exposure to asbestos is not from a smokestack. It is from old building material like insulation. They could have had a graphic of fibrous pipe insulation. They could have also just had a graphic of fibers to show what asbestos looks like under a microscope. I feel confident that with a short period of time and a graphic designer, we could have come up with a factually correct and simple asbestos graphic. One may very well already exist. This reply led to a bit of a discussion between my friend and I that was partially about science communication. In short he said that because my reply was so long explaining the problems with the graphic, that he stood by his opinion that the graphic was fine. I acknowledge that my reply was long, but I was not wrong on any points. Also the NBC graphic was just plain bad. A smokestack does not in any way represent asbestos. Worse than that it provides incorrect information to an uninformed viewer who might think that a smokestack is in fact where asbestos exposure comes from.

I very much respect the points my friend made, and he did state something that gets at the heart of a problem I often have, which is brevity. [How long is this blog post now?] I have a tendency to give long answers, which I understand can be annoying to management or anyone else, who wants a short answer. The reason I sometimes give long answers is that the answer is not simple, or I need the question defined better in order to give a simple answer. I just can’t bear the idea to give an incorrect answer. I can’t bear to give a short answer to management then have someone come back and say well what about “this”, and management to come back at me and say well what about “this.” I work in complicated subjects. Very often the problems, the solutions, the questions, and the answers are all complicated. The problem with the media sometimes is they try to make a complicated subject simple and sometimes fail miserably. Sometimes they just have no clue what they are talking about and seem to refuse to want expert advice. I respect journalists who can take complicated science subjects and explain them simply. There is a difference between explaining something simply and accurately and explaining something simply and wrong. Asbestos coming out of a smokestack is simple. It is also wrong.

Greek Financial Crisis Media

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Yesterday, my tour group came back to Athens before heading out again today. While in Athens, I walked over to Parliament and Syntagma Square, which is directly in front of Parliament. I saw zero protestors, but maybe they came later. I did however see lots of media, or more descriptively, lots of bored looking media. Here are a few photos of the media gathered around reporting or looking bored.

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According to my camera’s GPS, this was taken outside the Greek Ministry of Economy and Finance

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Seems to be the vantage point for many media outlets

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Zoomed photo of balcony of Athens Plaza

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Zoomed photo of balcony of Athens Plaza

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Being #DistractinglySexy

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So here is the summary that you have probably have already heard, Tim Hunt, a Nobel laureate scientist made some very sexist remarks to of all people, a group of female scientists and engineers. He stated men and women shouldn’t work together in the same lab because when they do, you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and they cry when you criticize them. I think the man thinks a bit too highly of himself that any women he works with would fall in love with him.

The reaction mocking him, especially on Twitter, has kept my faith in humanity. Women have been tweeting photos of themselves working in the field and lab. Showing how distractingly sexy they are. I tweeted two photos of myself from HAZWOPER training, once in Level A PPE and one in Level B PPE.


Those tweets have proved quite popular with the Level A photo thus far getting over 1100 retweets, and the Level B getting over 360 retweets. The tweets have been featured in articles in Buzzfeed, Washington Post, Salon, and Huffington Post UK. The whole thing has been rather surreal honestly. I have been contacted my media outlets to comment. I haven’t, partially because of timing and such.

I don’t even have any photos of me really working in the lab or field that would demonstrate how real work is the complete opposite of distractingly sexy. Well, I guess everyone find different things sexy, but get real. In the first part of my career I worked as a consultant. Typical field work included environmental site assessments where I was directing drillers to get soil and groundwater samples. Gloves, steel-toed boots, jeans, and a t-shirt that was likely going to get dirt on it were my “sexy” look. Then there was the time I was helping to sample a malfunctioning aeration chamber at a wastewater treatment plant in 95°F heat. [The aeration chamber is generally the start of secondary treatment, and thus there should be little to no smell. As this was malfunctioning, try to imagine the smell of raw sewage cooking in the heat.] If you find that situation sexy, well, I don’t think I want to meet you. Then there was the time I was checking on a pilot water treatment plant. Mainly it was a whole lot of sitting around, taking notes, checking valves, and taking some samples by myself. Normally field work involves a lot of sweating really. However, there was one time I was working in the field, again getting soil samples, in New Jersey in the dead of winter. There was no sweating or falling in love. There was just me freezing my butt off and making sure the security guards were in sight. That was a fun job; it was the only time I’ve ever been in a location where safety from crime was an actual issue. Normally the safety issues are the more mundane moving parts, heat, sun, fire ants, and then the one rattlesnake. God bless Texas.

When I was a Ph.D. student, we did our field work at auto body shops measuring the exposure the painters received to a chemical in the clear coat. Basically the shops were loud and smelly with really fun chemicals, and we sat around all day collecting personal air samples, tape strips from their skin after painting, all the urine we could get, and blood at the end of the day. In the hot months, there was sweating. In the cold months, there was shivering. At what point would we be distracting each other with our sexiness? Would the latex gloves and respirators, be the cause? No doubt the painters were falling in love with me because I kept trying to get them to drink more water and begging them for more urine. After the field work was done, I spent the better part of two years or possibly more in the lab analyzing all the urine samples. I analyzed over 400 urine samples, and the analysis was a three day procedure. The first part of the analysis involved adding concentrated sulfuric acid to the urine and then heating it for four hours to 100°C. Yes, nothing says distractingly sexy like urine cooked with acid. Luckily, the lab has hoods and other ventilation methods. Oh, and I shouldn’t leave out the part of asking my lab mates for their urine at times because I used that as unexposed urine from which to make my standards. How I did not fall in love with them while they handed me cups of their own urine, is anyone’s guess.

Now, I mainly work in an office. I get into the field every once in a great while. The photos I tweeted are from training, and I have never actually worn that level of PPE for real work. However a couple of weeks ago, I got into the field, and got to help sample fish, then watch a biologist sample them. I did not in fact fall in love with the biologist when he was filleting the fish.