CSSC: Chicken Smoothie Science Club

[Toxi+Bbun]

Welcome loudrain!

[Erille]

What's everyone's favourite scientific discovery and why? And in a similar vein, who's your favourite scientist and why? I'd really like to know

The discovery of evolution. That brings me to how I also adore Darwin. I love the theory of evolution, (even though it's more then a theory to me) mostly because I just love zoology and finding out why animals are like that now is fascinating.
Unfortunately, I'm still in a lower grade, and my school district thinks plate tectonics is more important then evolution, so I don't think we're learning about it this year.

[Vivid]

What's everyone's favourite scientific discovery and why? And in a similar vein, who's your favourite scientist and why? I'd really like to know

The discovery of evolution. That brings me to how I also adore Darwin. I love the theory of evolution, (even though it's more then a theory to me) mostly because I just love zoology and finding out why animals are like that now is fascinating.
Unfortunately, I'm still in a lower grade, and my school district thinks plate tectonics is more important then evolution, so I don't think we're learning about it this year.

Evolution is an extremely interesting subject, as I believe that everything but humans evolved to be th4 way they are today. I am still making up my mind about what I believe, but I do believe in animal evolution.
Maybe God made us (Not poof, though. That's rediculous. He didn't poof us into existence), but you can see as we're evolving now.
I am not talking about obesity, but you can see how much longer we live (No matter that it's drugs, we've evolved in our knowledge) and how much taller we are than when we started. And if you study the self portraits from the Rensaissance, you can see how much more... different we look.

My favorite discover is Paleontology. For thousands and millions of years, animals have been walking the planet known as Earth. And what were they? Reptiles. Reptiles ruled the world. It's just fascinating how much work humans put in to conquering the wild, when all dinosaurs did was enjoy it and live with it, conquering it's terrain.
Sorry if I use the wrong words such as 'conquer.' I do not think that's the correct usage, no what I meant to achieve in saying that.

Also, thank you for welcoming me!

[Hyaenidae]

Oooh, science <3
Hello, I'm Skye. I'm a student in high school at the moment, but I am extremely interested in science, especially biology and if you count it, psychology. I'm definitely making a career out of science, but there's so much I like that I can't pick anything specific yet! XD
Hm, I don't really have a favourite scientist, to be honest.. But as for a favourite discovery, I've been reading a book on neuroplasticity and how the mind affects the brain.. It's so fun to wrap your head around what they're saying, but I have to read it in small sections at a time because it's hard for me to focus and understand it ^^;

[Toxi+Bbun]

Hi Skye! :] Welcome!

[Seraphwolf]

Hi and welcome Skye, (and MezzoPiano and Erille! /is ridiculously slow) I'll add people to the OP :D

Skye, I'm studying the physical mechanisms behind neuroplasticity at the moment, I agree that it's really cool albeit really complicated, and they're still doing loads of research. Omnomnom.

Something I read today that might be of interest to fellow space nerds : that Saturn's moon Titan might have a liquid ocean under an icy crust, a bit like Europa!

Oh and in light of Khisa's cross-post (thanks Max!) Plankton fossils tell tale of evolution and extinction.

[fallinglikeastar]

This is FANTASTIC!

-loves on the science people-
I'd love to be a part of it!!

I'm finishing my 4th University year, studying Wildlife Biology (B.Sc.). I love wildlife, conservation, ecology, and fuzzy little animals in general. Not sure what my focus might be, and with the limited school/biology funding, I'm in a rather crowded boat with my peers because we all need these classes that can only seat 20, so who knows when I'll get to graduate and start working off the student loans.. I've also taken some math/physics/chemistry, and I am utterly astounded by the universe and the diversity of life here on Earth. I do accept Evolution, and much prefer animals over plants.

[Seraphwolf]

Oh hell yeah, welcome! More Uni students for the crew, and high five for fourth year! Are you from North America (guessing with 'math' rather than 'maths')? If so how does that 'major'ing thing work? In the UK we work towards one thing for the duration of our degree (I'm doing an MSci in Physics with Theoretical Physics for example, and managed to do a bit of Biophysics this year but for the most part I'm doing various vanilla-physics topics) but I think our degrees are shorter as a result (3 years for BSc, +1 for MSc, 4 for MSci (undergraduate masters), although I think Scotland is 4 for BSc etc))? I miss biology and chemistry at times, they were fun.

[Khisa]

Thanks, Nociception, for steering me here. I read about the Science Club since it was linked in Seraphwolf's signature, but I am not sure if I should join or not. I just feel like a fraud since I had to drop out of university in my second year of studying veterinary science.

Well, I always was interested in sciences, and though my parents kept me from anything about education and psychology etc. they always emphasised biology, physics and chemistry as important for life (they wanted to study sciences but were forced to drop out of school by their mothers, both being born before WW II). So my father placed me in front of the TV at the age of three to watch some German 'open university' (more like an open college) experiments in physics, showing how 'light and light made darkness'. I still remember and found it awesome (it was a variation of the double-slit experiment). My father made me watch courses in English and maths, too. At that time I taught myself how to read. Unfortunately. I was a weird kid with no friends so I buried myself in books even more than I already did to escape my parents and their... strictness. At the age of five I decided I wanted to become a vet and when I was attending school at 7 I planned what I needed to do to achieve that, like attending grammar school and gaining a degree in Latin etc. I read everything in my reach, even if I did not understand it back then. Without the permission to use the library I had to stick with the books in our household and the encyclopedias I got for Christmas and birthdays.
When I got my microscope for Christmas in my first year at grammar school I just studied everything. Body fluids (even sperm from my always masturbating male budgie, but psssht), water, bacteria from self-bred biofilms and the like. Just everything. I did well in sciences at school, especially biology and was lucky to have biology teachers trying to sustain my curiousity, my first one provided me with a lot of microscopy supplies since I never had pocket money. When I was 13 I started breeding mice and observed the genetic outcome, especially after one of my first mice had asthma and got treated with cortison that I should put into the drinking water. She got better for as long as the treatment went. Unfortunately all her and the other females' later offspring had problems with the eyes - no eyes, underdeveloped eyes, slower than usual developing eyes etc. (guess why I so harshly refused to take cortison when I developed asthma myself years later).
It was impressive to just observe genetics so closely. When I had to change school due to problems with my parents I got another great biology (and chemistry) teacher. She was a friend of Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, and she herself was rather interested in genetics, too, helping me to deepen my interest in biology further. I turned into the sciences nerd to the extend my teacher mostly refused to let me answer any questions. With her help I managed to always grade top of my class in biology and everybody thought I'd be having a bright future. But personal problems caused a lot of turmoil and I did not graduate top of my school, though my teachers thought I could have done it (I don't, I don't even understand where they got the idea from in the first place) and postponed my studies.
First I went to a German college and got a degree in graphic arts, unaware that I lost my financial aid for university by that. Only a change in the German law years later made it possible for me to study veterinary sciences at the age of 28. I gave up my job therefore. But money was not enough and at my age there are already responsibilities I had to take care of. I dropped out of university and managed to study animal psychology for a semester at a private academy, so I could work as a pet psychologist. Did not work out either, so I'm bound to keep sciences and my interest in studying and learning a 'hobby', hence the being-a-fraud-feeling, as I'm not the scientist I always wanted to be. Sometimes I inofficially translate studies for friends of mine or their acquaintances (I don't have a certificate or degree in English or German) and (semi)-ghostwrote some term papers for graduating grammar school pupils. *coughcough*

(I really wish we had spoiler-buttons in these forums)

I don't have a favourite scientist, my second grammar school was named after Marie Curie, and I like Jane Goodall and Konrad Lorenz rather a lot, and admire Semmelweis for his work and devotion. But generally I don't think science is that kind of competition, every bit counts towards the 'great picture'.

When I was at university we had more females in my year (150 students at the beginning and not even 20 of them had been male), so vets, biologists and chemists were mostly female (just the directors of the different vet clinics were nearly entirely male...), but whenever we had to leave the faculty and head over to physics it was just the other way round. The course before ours only had a single girl (was a theoretical physics course).

Edit: something I forgot to link to - Works of Charles Darwin at the Project Gutenberg

[aihal]

Oh! I love this idea.

Hello, my lovely fellow science nerds. I'm Liz, a third-year neuroscience & behavioral biology student. I'm studying to be a doctor--not sure which sort yet, but what with my being in love with brains and all I'll probably be in for neurology.

My favorite scientist? Galileo, not only for being the father of science as we know it but for having the strength of his convictions. Santiago Ramon y Cajal, for discovering the neuron, becoming sure that it was immutable, and then daring to hope that we'd one day figure out that was not the case. (“As long as our brain is a mystery, the universe, the reflection of the structure of the brain will also be a mystery.”) My favorite living scientists include Antonio Damasio and Richard Davidson, as well as Paul Ekman and Alan Wallace. Amazing stuff.

Edit: omggggg I nearly forgot Donald Hebb! D: