{"id":1738,"date":"2009-07-17T03:09:26","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T03:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2009\/07\/17\/astronomum\/"},"modified":"2009-07-17T03:09:26","modified_gmt":"2009-07-17T03:09:26","slug":"astronomum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2009\/07\/17\/astronomum\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomum"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s 1995 in North Yorkshire, and an 18 year-old mega-geek is applying to university. Her parents – languages teachers both – are supplying a steady stream of advice, food, and general support. Oh, and lots of their teacher friends to interrogate their elder daughter about her higher education plans, and to repeat the same conversation ad nauseum<\/em> in a seemingly never-ending cycle of predictability.
\nFriend of Parents: “So what do you want to study?”
\nMega-geek: “Genetics.”
\nFOP: “Really??!! With your parents I thought you’d be studying French, or German, or Spanish.”
\nMG: “No, I’m doing biology, chemistry and maths A levels, and I want to do genetics at uni.”
\nFOP: “Ha ha ha ha ha! That’s so funny! Because your parents are linguists! Can you explain the genetics of that?!<\/em>”
\nMG: “Heh. Good one.”
\nRepeat approximately once a month until graduation four years later. “I’m doing a PhD in molecular cell biology” did not elicit the same levels of hilarity, for some reason.
\n——————
\nI am the first and only scientist in my family. My younger sister went on to study French and Italian, and when we were all together, the three of them would sometimes converse in French (their one common foreign language) without even realising they were doing it. My level of French extends to ordering food and finding hotels, so this caused the occasional problem for me.
\nHaving said that, it was my parents (mostly my Mum) who first exposed me to biology, in the form of battered but beloved copies of James Herriot’s books, museum visits, and a regular diet of David Attenborough documentaries. Those influences proved to be the start of a slippery slope for me, but no-one else chose to delve much further into the wonders of science. (Unless they were accidentally talking about science in French and wondering why I wasn’t joining in).
\nHowever, an interesting thing happened once my sister and I moved out for good and my Mum had more time to follow her own interests. Her latent interest in space evolved from a working mother’s habit of having Star Trek<\/em> on in the background while calmly and efficiently multitasking away, to a more serious study of space exploration and astronomy. After she went part-time at work, she started taking evening classes, reading astronomy books, and even bought a telescope. For the first time, we were able to discuss a popular science book<\/a> that we’d both read (E=mc 2<\/sup> – highly recommended. I bought it for her as I knew she’d love the last section, on the formation of stars and planets).
\nSo, for my Mum’s 60th birthday yesterday, I bought her a super-cool mega-geek gizmo called the Sky Scout:
\n\"\"
\nPoint the Sky Scout personal planetarium at a heavenly body and it will identify any of 7,500 stars in all 88 constellations using its in-built celestial database and GPS technology.<\/code>
\nSky Scout will recommend the twenty best celestial objects to spot on any given day, time and location, and help you locate thousands of stars, with comprehensive text and audio descriptions for the most popular objects.<\/code>
\n(Text and image from the Science Museum’s website<\/a>)
\nI think it’s important to encourage and nourish a parent’s interests and natural curiosity.
\nShe loved it. She’s going to bring it over when they visit next summer, so we can stargaze together.
\nI’m 32 years old, and I finally have another scientist in my family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s 1995 in North Yorkshire, and an 18 year-old mega-geek is applying to university. Her parents – languages teachers both – are supplying a steady stream of advice, food, and general support. Oh, and lots of their teacher friends to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}