Google's 2010 in review video

For the final Wednesday fun video of this year, we bring you Google's Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review. Happy new year!

Christmas light display & music

Happy Holidays! I'm sure you've all seen similar displays on youtube before, but in case you haven't here's a Wednesday fun video showing one town's large-scale christmas light display synched to music.

Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce and the pursuit of happiness

Today's Wednesday fun is a bit longer than usual, but I think this video of Malcolm Gladwell's TED talk in 2004 is worth a little extra time. You're probably wondering what spaghetti sauce has to do with science, let alone happiness, and he guides you through the food science, how that fits with our changing philosophies in other sciences, and how one man's quest to make people's tastebuds happy taught us a lot about people and figuring out what we really want.

Water Watch

CU-WISE Outreach Officer Natalie Linklater and faculty advisor Banu Örmeci were recently featured in Carleton University's Research Works:

Banu Örmeci is the Canada Research Chair in Wastewater and Public Health Engineering. Together with grad student Natalie Linklater, she’s developing an innovative new monitoring system for water supplies that uses real-time methods to assess change in quality, and achieve rapid screening of water for toxic substances and pathogens.

 Way to go ladies! Keep up the great work.

Science Cheerleaders

Happy Wednesday and gooo... science!

The Science Cheerleaders--current and former professional NBA and NFL cheerleaders who are also scientists and engineers--perform LIVE at the U.S.A. Science and Engineering Festival in Washington D.C., October 23-24, 2010. The Science Cheerleaders are now available for appearances! Visit http://www.sciencecheerleader.com for details and to learn more about each of the Science Cheerleaders!

National Conference on Women in Engineering

This past month I had the pleasure of attending the National Conference on Women in Engineering as a delegate representing Carleton University. This weekend long conference was hosted by the University of Ottawa and was inspired by the theme of ‘Expanding Horizons’. The aim of the weekend was to celebrate the accomplishments and achievements of women in the male dominated field of engineering, as well as to better understand and be prepared for the challenges that women face in the workforce. The conference was an inspiring way for a young female engineering student to spend the weekend and included keynote speakers, breakout sessions, a banquet, and networking opportunities.

I believe that most of the delegates will agree with me when I say that the highlight of the conference was listening to the experiences of the keynote speakers. Each speaker left a lasting impression through their personal story and words of wisdom. I would like to share some of the key takeaways from the speakers which helped them to become the successful women they are today:

- Recognize opportunities to demonstrate leadership
- Seek out people who think differently than you
- Set a goal – evaluate the tools you will need to attain it
- Be prepared – manage risk, commit, speak with credibility
- Don’t be afraid to change course based on your experiences
- Accept that you cannot control everything
- Be involved in your community

While at the conference, delegates had the opportunity to network with students from other universities from all across Canada (coast to coast!) This was a great way to talk about their respective engineering societies and to share ideas about how to increase the involvement and enrolment of women within engineering.

This conference made me feel very proud to be a woman in engineering. I can say with great certainty that NCWIE brought together future leaders of the engineering community and I am very hopeful for the opportunities which lie ahead for each and every one of these delegates.

Science party tricks!

Today's Wednesday fun is all about the party tricks. Prof Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire (UK) made this fun video of science tricks you can do at parties. I love how these are all very quick to do once they're set up, and I'll bet they'd make great outreach activities if you're stuck for a fun demo to do!



You might want to check out Prof Wiseman's blog too: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com