Physics, Cycling and a bit of Transportation Policy

Last weekend I went on a low carbon footprint vacation. A few friends and I took BART from Berkeley to San Francisco and then rode our bikes from the Embarcadero to Point Reyes National Seashore, a 70,000 acre park encompassing all the best of California coastal beauty. We stayed at a surprisingly nice hostel Friday and Saturday nights and then rode back on Sunday. We weren’t trying to do an eco-friendly vacation, but after the fact it was satisfying to know that we could find a ‘getaway’ without the aid of a car, especially since that part of the Bay Area, the Marin headlands, is overrun with cars on beautiful summer weekends.

Although cars can often be a nuisance and a danger to cyclists, they weren’t the largest source of frustration for us on the trip. Ironically enough, we were most annoyed by other cyclists. Riding in the middle of the road in traffic, blatantly violating reasonable traffic laws, and generally lacking an understanding of proper riding etiquette comprised the most frequent offenses. Why should these inconsiderate and moronic actions bother me? It's quite simple. They make drivers angry and, as the name implies, drivers drive cars. Cars are big and can kill people. Angry drivers are less careful drivers and therefore the roads are less safe for all cyclists. Of course, the errant cyclist who doesn’t move over to the shoulder because he’s listening to his iPod won’t cause every driver he delays to become a homicidal maniac. However, the drivers he comes in contact with loose respect for cyclists and are therefore less likely to be considerate or accommodating to the cyclist who is following the rules. It perpetuates an ‘us versus them’ mentality on both sides which ultimately makes riding a bike more dangerous. In a confrontation between a car and a bike, the car always wins.

So why don’t cyclists follow the rules of the road? These same people wouldn’t run a red light or drive their car in the middle of the road. They comply because those rules were made for cars, they make sense for cars and the driver understands them. While some of those rules, such as the ones listed above, make sense for cyclists, others do not, and in general the laws do not take into account the differences between a bicycle and a car. So cyclists feel that the laws don’t really apply to them because, in a sense, they don’t. They then end up violating laws that do make sense and endangering everyone.

How does this discussion tie into physics? Joel Fajans, Berkeley physics professor and avid cyclist, has turned some musings on the physics of bicycling into arguments for changes in road rules for cyclists. The primary focus is on stop signs, which even law abiding cyclists such as myself roll through on a regular basis. We know that stopping doesn’t make sense because it wastes a lot of effort and we can go through them at a slow enough speed to stop if we need to. Joel has quantified what we know intuitively in this article in the Access Transportation journal. In fact, Idaho figured this out in the early 80s and implemented what is now known as the “Idaho Stop” in which cyclists do not have to stop at stop signs or blinking red lights but must yield to pedestrians or traffic. This column in the Oregonian goes into more detail, but the important points are that bike accidents decreased by 14.5% after the law was implemented and a study by the Berkeley School of Public Policy found that the law made cycling safer and encouraged more people to commute by bike. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Apparently Oregon is contemplating enacting the same law this year and I hope other states will follow. After all, it’s common sense, which is really just physics in this case.

Volunteering: Part 1

This is the first of two posts on the outreach I've been doing. I replaced the name of the elementary school I was at with an X because I didn't feel right naming it.

The volunteer coordinator laughed when I put my name next to X elementary school. I gave him a questioning look and he brushed it off with a shrug and a “nevermind”. I was signing up to be a volunteer for Girls Inc, a nationwide organization providing after school and summer programs for young women and girls. I would be helping out every other Tuesday with the S.M.A.R.T (Science Math And Relevant Technology) program for third and fourth grade girls. After my first day at X as a Girls Inc. volunteer, I understood the origin of that laugh.

I spent a considerable amount of time over the past 10 years working on women in science programs at the undergraduate and graduate level. Most recently I was a coordinator of the Society For Women In the Physical Sciences (SWPS), a fantastic Berkeley student run program which provides support and mentoring for women in the physical sciences at Berkeley. Towards the end of my SWPS tenure I began shifting my focus towards younger students because, as I mentioned previously, girls loose interest in the physical sciences before they even get to college. So, when I received an email requesting volunteers for Girls Inc, I couldn’t wait to get started. I envisioned myself surrounded by eager young girls, doing experiments with them and gently guiding them on the path to becoming scientists. Unfortunately reality intervened.

Located just south of the Coliseum in Oakland, X is a world apart from my nice, clean North Berkeley filled with the ‘hippeois’, my parents' favorite term for the combination hippy-bourgeois which can afford to live there. The school is surrounded by a 8 foot tall metal gate which separates the depressed buildings from the rough neighborhood around it. I never felt unsafe but the poverty was obvious. The group I worked with consisted of 16 girls, about half of whom were black, the other half of whom were hispanic. None of the hispanic girls spoke English as a first language, although they all spoke it very well and only used Spanish when talking to each other during free time. The only other white people I saw were teachers. Those differences in skin tone further emphasized the separateness of this place from what I was used to. Minorities in science are hard to find; they make women look numerous. The normal school day ended at 2:30 for the girls, but they went straight from the classroom to a supervised homework class, then at 4:00 they went to SMART and stayed until 5:30. SMART run by Jackie, a young black woman employed by Girls Inc, and held in a windowless classroom where they were not allowed to touch any of the classroom equipment. Jackie taught at X and another Oakland school four days a week. At the other school she taught in an art room where the girls were free to make a mess and use audio visual equipment. At X all she recieved were coloring pencils.

The girls loved Jackie. She was a firm disciplinarian but they respected her most likely because she listened to them. Most weeks SMART started on Mondays but a few weeks during the year they didn’t start until Tuesdays so I was able to listen to “check in”, time set aside for the girls to tell Jackie about their weekends. Mostly they told of sleepovers and bbqs with their extended family but occasionally we would hear about grandparents in the hospital or other more serious events. Each girl would light up when it was her turn and I could see how much they enjoyed sharing with us adults.

Most of the daily activities were in some way related to science although sometimes the association was loose. When I began they were learning about the solar system and Jackie asked them to imagine and draw their own planets. The planets ranged from rather Earth-like to cookie and candy filled lands with milk fed water parks. They then joined in groups of four and created a board game set in their solar system. Another time they watched a DVD about women scientists. All sixteen crowded around Jackie’s personal laptop and watched a biologist, engineer and astronaut talk about what their jobs. The astronaut, a black woman, was by far the most exciting. The video showed her floating weightless at the space station which elicited cries of “oh cool!”. Then one of them asked, “Is this a movie? Is she real?”. The point of the video was to show them what they could achieve but they didn’t believe that it was anything other than fiction. When we assured them that she was quite real they looked interested but skeptical.

I wasn’t turning anyone into scientists at school X but I realized that early on and it didn’t disappoint me. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable of being scientists, they were as creative and smart as any other elementary school kids. The problem was that the odds of learning anything at this school were stacked against them and those immediate problems were more relevant. The times I felt most useful was when I helped them with their homework or the days we helped them practice for their spelling bee. Much of the homework was opaque and pointless. I couldn’t understand the questions so I don’t know how they were supposed to divine the answers! The teachers, although I had limited contact, did not seem particularly invested in the girls' development.

I could go on and on about the experiences I had at X. These girls were handicapped by inadequate infrastructure and too many bitter or unmotivated teachers, but they were full of energy and loved SMART. At the end of the school year they had a little party for me and each made me good-bye cards. I was touched by their sincerity and sad to stop my bimonthly visits. I’ll probably be returning in the fall.

I don’t want to leave the impression that all inner city schools are as neglected as X. SMART was not my only experience with the Oakland public schools this year. I had a delightful time with some great teachers and students at their “Dinner with a Scientist” program, which I’ll blog about soon.

Summer Squash Are Here!

The farmer's market was overflowing with summer squash today so I thought I'd share one of my favorite summer squash recipes, an easy and delicious pasta dish modeled after I ate at one of the best Italian restaurants I've been to, Trattoria la Siciliana. Situated at the southern end of the College and Ashby shopping strip, the Trattoria is small and loud with long lines and a cash only policy, but the food is so good you don't mind. Besides, it's par for the course in Berkeley. They serve an amazing dipping oil which makes it worth a visit just to munch on crusty bread drenched in the garlicy, fresh-herb packed oil. I've been there twice; the first time Kyle treated me for my birthday, the second time my dad treated us. The dish I'm about to share presented itself on the second trip and it was a revelation. Breadcrumbs on pasta?? Who knew the result could be so delicious? Apparently it's common in Italy but hasn't made it across the Atlantic.



Pasta with Summer Squash, Fresh Herbs and Bread Crumbs.

The following quantities are all relative and extremely approximate. Let X be the number of people you are going to serve.

2-3 * X medium summer squash
1/3-1/2 * X cups of fresh bread crumbs*
1-1.5 * X cloves of garlic
a little less than 1/4 cup*X of chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp * X chopped fresh herbs of your choice (in the photo I used marjoram)

your typical pasta serving size * X

Olive Oil
Parmesean

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cut squash into 1/4-1/2 in slices, put in a glass baking dish so large enough so that they sit in 1-2 layers. Chop, slice or mince the garlic and add to the dish. Splash with olive oil, salt and pepper, toss. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs and toss again. Put in the oven for 20ish minutes, or until the squash is cooked through and the bread crumbs are nice and golden.

While its baking, boil water, salt it and cook the pasta of your choice.

When the squash is finished you can either add the pasta and a little olive oil to the baking dish directly, or you can put the pasta onto plates and serve the squash-breadcrumb mixture over it. Sprinkle with Parmesan if you like and drizzle with some nice olive oil. Enjoy!

*You can make bread crumbs by putting some day old bread in a food processor and whirling it into crumbs. They freeze well so you make a bunch and keep some in the freezer. Some people like to toast their bread crumbs first, I generally don't.

Astronomers on Pretty Pictures

NPR has a nice audio slide show featuring astronomers explaining their favorite Hubble images. The images are beautiful and its fun to hear the personal reasons each astronomer picked his or her image.

The LHC May Not Be Working But I'm Still Doing Experiments

Today I performed an experiment. The hypothesis: "I can make cabbage taste good". It was considered a high risk, high payoff experiment. High risk because I have only had success making cabbage based salads in the past, and high pay off because this difficult vegetable has dominated our CSA box in recent weeks. Success would save us from culinary frustration and boredom. Reading through the literature I found that potentially tasty cabbage had been obtained in a stuffed and rolled state. So off to the kitchen I went with two different fillings in mind. I decided that creating two fillings rather than just one was prudent because a) I had a big cabbage and b) in the event of failure of one stuffing the other could still potentially succeed. I'm happy to say after two hours of work our hypothesis was validated for both stuffing states and a pleasing cabbage based meal was produced. What follows is not so much a recipe as a general description of the method followed by a vague description of the stuffings.

Stuffed Cabbage:

Not the most beautiful looking, but certainly yummy!

1 head of cabbage

Bring a large pot of water big enough to submerge the cabbage to boil. Remove any outer leaves that are discolored or wilted. Cut around the core in square with deep incisions but don't actually try to remove it.

Submerge the cabbage in the boiling water for 4-5 minutes and then carefully remove. Peel off the 3 or so layers which now are supple and then repeat the submerging process until you've removed as many leaves as you want. You can use the rest of the cabbage in a salad or in your stuffing.

Lay the removed leaves on the counter and let cool. Cut out the tough triangular region at the bottom of the leaf, but don't cut off too much because you need room for the filling.

When you are ready to make the rolls, preheat the oven to 375 F and get a glass baking dish ready. Open a cabbage leaf, put a small french-sized ice cream scoop size of filling in the middle and then roll the leave up tightly up as you would a burrito or egg roll or other wrapped food of your choice. Put the rolled cabbages in the baking dish, add a 1/4 cup of liquid of your choice and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 30 min and serve either plane or with a sauce of some sort.

Filling #1
This concoction was a middle eastern side of the Mediterranean inspired stuffing. I cooked bulgur and french lentils in vegetable stock then added olive oil and grated carrot. I also sauteed onions and then added chopped mushrooms which i'd pulsed in a food processor until they were minced. These were cooked until the liquid mostly evaporated and then added to the bulgur mixture. It was topped off with a generous sprinkling of Ras-al-Hanout(one of my favorite spice blends), some chopped preserved lemon, and a handful of chopped dried apricots.

Filling #2
The second filling was inspired by the greek side of the Mediterranean and what was available in my fridge. I cooked brown rice, then added chopped fresh parsley and marjoram, a handful of chopped marinated artichoke hearts, some more preserved lemon and a spoonful or two of Trader Joe's sundried tomato bruschetta. Some small chunks of feta and mozzarella were enough to make the filling substantial. And delicious.

When I baked both I added the juice of 1 lemon to the water since almost everything I cook these days has to contain some part of a fresh lemon.

The stuffed cabbages were a fun and different meal for us to have, but it was definitely a weekend production. It could get a lot easier if you had some pre-cooked rice or other filling and just went with simple stuffing ingredients like nuts and raisins or cheese. I froze half of the batch and am curious to see how they survive the freezer stay.

Positive News on the Gender Front

The National Academies has recently released a report, Gender Difference at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty, which has found no evidence for bias against women in hiring or promotion at the faculty level in academia. In fact, in certain disciplines, women are more likely to be offered faculty positions than their male competitors.

Unfortunately the news wasn't all rosy. The study found that women are applying for positions at a lower rate than men, i.e. scientifically trained women were more likely to leave academia after grad school or post docs. However, they observed that women are more likely to apply for a position if there is a woman on the search committee. They also found that women spend longer as assistant professors and leave academia before obtaining tenure more frequently than male counterparts. But they also found that there were no significant differences in the success of male and female professors by looking at measures such as salary, grants awarded, publications and honors or national appointments. The one area where men slightly outdid women was rate of publication; in chemistry and math men published several percent more papers, in physics, civil engineering and biology there was no difference and in electrical engineering women published more than men. Another nice finding was that 'stopping the tenure clock', a choice to delay your tenure decision for a year for family care, did not degrade either men or women's chances of obtaining tenure.

Because of my own observations of academia I am not very surprised by the committees' findings. In general I haven't seen overt bias or discrimination but tensions between scientific and family life seem to draw women out of the field. Luckily work-life balance is getting more attention these days. I've skimmed the summary of the report and read an article about it in Science, where I poached the graph below. It might be worth a full read since it seems to be be somewhat contradictory to the conclusions of other reports, but in line with some others.

Oh Larry Summers: Gender Again

Oh Larry Summers, you poor man who was so brutally tossed out of Harvard by women who did not want to accept the fact that they were just not capable of top tier math and science, what do you have to say about this study? It's beautifully written up here so I'm not going to say more on the subject other than that for background Summer's speech is worth a read to understand how frustrated he made women in science and our supporters.

Warm and Salty Things

Last weekend I threw Kyle a birthday party and somehow I got it in my head that making many small appetizers, salads and bread rather than one main dish and a few sides dishes was a great idea. That is probably not a choice I will make again since it had me in the kitchen the entire day, from 9 am until the party started! However, in the process I discovered some delicious recipes which I'd like to share with you. I found a wonderful cupcake recipe on one of my favorite food blogs, but I'm going to go salty instead of sweet on this post and share with you some very tasty appetizers. Dangerously tasty appetizers. I'm warning you that these are I-could-eat-them-all-day-every-day tasty.

Baked Olives from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Bakes olives sounds unassuming, right? Well, there is nothing unassuming about their flavor once this recipe is through with them!

2 cups Kalamata Olives
1/2 cup dry red or white wine
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, 1 sliced, 2 coarsely chopped
1 bay leaf
2 Tbsp marjoram or 1 tsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp chopped parsley
freshly ground pepper
several pinches of red pepper flakes

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Rinse olives if salty and put them in a baking dish large enough to hold them in one layer. Add the wine, half the oil, the sliced garlic and the bay leaf. Cover tightly with foil and bike until they are fragrant and swollen, about 45 min.

2. Pound the chopped garlic in a mortar with the marjoram, parsley and a few grinds of pepper. When the olives come out of the oven, poke each one with a fork or tip of a knife then stir in the garlic-herb paste, remaining oil and the red pepper flakes. Its best to let them sit a few hours to let the flavors meld and them warm them back up before serving.

I don't have a mortar so I just chopped the garlic finely into the marjoram. I also didn't use any parsley and it was great. I'd imagine that this tastes good with any assortment of herbs, and preserved lemons would make a really great addition in the step 2.

Sesame Lemon Feta Spread

(sorry, no picture for this one...I ate it too fast)

This is an adaptation from another recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, one that came about by necessity when the original recipe failed miserably. The original instructions were to cut up feta into little rectangles then fry them for a few minutes before removing them and sprinkling with sesame seeds. I'm addicted to a corsican feta which the cheese shop down the street sells at a really good price but I think it's softer than the average feta. As soon as the cheese hit the oil it began to melt and loose its form and so to save the beautiful feta, this dish was born. Enjoy!

8 oz feta (the softer the better)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 bay leaves
freshly milled pepper
juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp of chopped marjoram **again any herb will work
1 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet over med-high heat. Mix in a bowl with the marjoram and set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat with the bay leaf until you can smell it. Crumble the feta into small pieces and add to the pan. It should bubble and begin to melt. Stir until it becomes somewhat smooth, remove from the heat and add the juice of the lemon. Stir until incorporated and then stir in the pepper and sesame-marjoram mixture. Serve warm or at room temperature.