You may have noticed that I was a bit quiet on the network last week. That is because I was at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) in Maine at a course on fluorescence microscopy. Quantitative Fluorescence Microscopy (QFM) is a week-long, intensive course on just that, all aspects of fluorescence microscopy from the basics to the most advanced techniques. Whether you are a novice interested in widefield epifluorescence or are interested in mastering techniques such as FRAP, TIRF or FRET, this course is an excellent opportunity to develop your microscopy skills.

But enough plugging the course (I can’t help it, I just enjoyed it so much), participating in a structured course on microscopy made me realize how beneficial formal training can be. For the last several years I have been learning techniques as I need them in the lab. In general, this seems to be the way that most scientists learn, a sort of apprenticeship model. But perhaps, for certain aspects of scientific training, a formal course is really the best way to learn. We all learn the basics in our required courses, but sometimes techniques require such attention to detail that an intensive course is needed. Plus, formal training such as this can reach beyond graduate students to both postdocs and industry scientists. In fact, primary investigators (PIs) were at the course to test out the various scopes available for purchase. One PI even returned to the course for a second time to learn how to use a scope she had just bought. There is really no comparison to learning how to use a complex piece of equipment (such as a confocal microscope) while having the trained specialty staff right there to answer all your questions. That kind of education is invaluable.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that one shouldn’t learn by doing. Learning techniques in your lab is a great way (probably the best) to learn how to design experiments, develop your critical thinking skills, learn how to troubleshoot an experiment when it goes wrong and become an independent scientist, but sometimes getting the basics down in a formal setting is critical to experimental success.

Perhaps the real skill is to recognize when formal training is necessary. Then one is able to maximize their scientific potential.

People often ask me why should one blog. Rather than answer that question based on only a few months of experience, I went to the source, Bora Zivkovic. By day, Bora is an online community manager at PLoS ONE, but his claim to fame is his uber successful blog, A Blog Around the Clock. Bora is also the series editor of the science blog anthology The Open Laboratory and a supporter of Open Access science.

Bora Zivkovic with an inflatable Brontosaurus!

What is your professional background?

Hi!

Even as a little kid I always loved animals and thought that whatever I do when I grow up would have something to do with animals: perhaps work at a zoo or in a circus! When I was in 6th grade or so, I read the entire series of books by James Herriot and decided to become a veterinarian. I went to vet school at the University of Belgrade, but did it pretty slowly, taking two years to finish each year of school (it is a HARD program there!). At the same time, I was heavily involved in the horse world and equestrian sports, working at a racecourse, training horses (including my own) for jumping, teaching kids to ride and taking care of all the horses’ health in a small region (a couple of small towns and surrounding villages) just north of Belgrade.

Then the specter of war enveloped Yugoslavia and I decided to leave, with vet school unfinished. Once I settled in the USA I realized that in this country the situation is different: there is a glut of equine veterinarians, but on the other hand, one can do basic biology – my old love – as there are great schools and funding for such stuff. So I started grad school in the Department of Zoology (now Biology) at NC State University where I got a Masters (but not a PhD – all but defense) studying circadian rhythms and photoperiodism in Japanese quail. My vet-school background prepared me well for the physiology research (my MS work), and my interest in evolution prompted me to expand to a more integrative approach (my PhD work) later on. I also took the opportunity, being at a big research university, to take extra classes in unrelated fields – from ecology and palaeontology through avian biotechnology, to history and philosophy of science, thus expanding my views. I was never someone who could just focus on a very narrow line of thinking and read only the papers directly relevant to my research.

What made you decide to become a science blogger?

I started out as a political blogger first. Frankly, I started blogging because I was depressed. After 10 years in grad school, I had a writer’s block with the dissertation (and not doing any experiments any more – we did not get our grant funded and decided not to resubmit at that point – not to mention an increasingly supressive and unhelpful IACUC hellbent on stopping, or at least maximally reducing, animal research on campus), I was suddenly tired of research, departmental politics, science… I did not like the postdoc place I was going to go to – one of those super-slave-driving big cancer labs where everyone is pale like Eloi for never seeing the sun. Three important and very close relatives died one after another within a 6-month period. We were living in a big but cold and drafty house in a depressing neighborhood in Cary, NC, in winter (when I get hit by SAD anyway). I was depressed about the way we as a country were inevitably hurling towards starting a war in Iraq. I wanted to scream.

So I screamed online. I tried to psychoanalyze Bush-voters in order to explain them to myself. I found a community on the campaign blogs, and am still in touch with some of them to this day. Through links, I discovered DailyKos, Pandagon, Shakesville, Majikthise and many more blogs, started linking and getting incoming links. I got completely embroiled in the progressive blogosphere to the detriment of everything else in life. That was my therapy. I spent the first year and a half trying to get a Democrat elected, blogging on campaign blogs at first, then starting my own blog (Science And Politics) in August 2004.

Then Kerry lost the election. I got sick of politics. I discovered other science bloggers, starting with Chris Mooney on the original intersection and then went through his blogroll. I decided to try blogging about my own field of science in the hope that would lift my writer’s block and help me finish the dissertation. That goal did not work (I am mainly mad at myself for disappointing my PI whom I admire and adore), but my science blogging instantly got much more recognition than Bush-bashing – my very first science post on Circadiana got an instant avalanche of traffic from BoingBoing, Andrew Sullivan and others. Oh – so there is an interest for this kind of thing?! People seek authoritative voices from people with actual expertise in the topic they are writing about! I can do that!

When Scienceblogs.com started in January 2006, after looking at it for about 10 seconds I realized that was the place to be. I asked some of the original 14 SciBlings what the way to get on was, applied, and a couple of months later got the invitation from Christopher Mims who was the Overlord at the time. A Blog Around A Clock – the fusion of my three old blogs (Science And Politics, Circadiana and The Magic School Bus) – went live in June 2006.

My blogging style instantly changed: much less politics, much more science. Much more enjoying the community (now that my depression was over). Much greater care put into each post, making sure I do not spout nonsense – I was at too visible a spot now for such carelessness!

Then I got the job with PLoS in the comments of a blog post on my blog. That changed my blogging again. More community building, less substantive posts about science. More about the publishing business, especially Open Access. Almost no politics (except for a couple of months just prior the 2008 election). More recently I have been paying a lot of attention to the way the entire media business is changing – the “death of newspapers”, the causes of such sweeping changes, and the potential future systems for journalism.

So, my blogging goals changed several times, as did my blogging style. As I write about cool science so rarely these days (1-2 posts per month at best) I cannot really seriously say any more that I blog (except by spreading link-love to others) in order to spread the science to the lay audience, to explain my field to people, to counter pseudoscience, or to break the stereotypes about scientists – the things I used to blog for. I am not sure, exactly, what my goals are right now, but it appears I cannot stop. I have been thinking lately: what my “next phase” in blogging will be? I invite suggestions.

How has science blogging influenced the development of your career?

When I started blogging on scienceblogs.com I also started enjoying the perks: free books, invitations to panels, interviews, etc. Organizing the 3 conferences and seeing 3 anthologies into print widened the circle even more. More perks came my way after I got the job with PLoS – travel to conferences in US and Europe, media interviews, press passes to big events, etc….

The term for this is “amplified serendipity” – if you are active online, seen as a trusted and useful member of an online community, something good is bound to happen to you, eventually. You can’t predict exactly what and when, but it will happen. You may even get to meet and befriend Henry Gee! And the community will support you when you are down, as much as they cheer when you are up.

Interestingly, while my career went in the direction away from research into areas of the publishing business, my blogging is also prompting some people to try and get me back into research. For example, I posted a hypothesis a few years back on my blog and recently was contacted about setting out to test that hypothesis in a collaborative effort. The first manuscript coming from this effort, covering preliminary data, has already been submitted and more is still to come. I also intend to prepare manuscripts covering my unpublished and undefended PhD work and submit them as well.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!

How did blogging prepare you for your current position at PLoS ONE?

Apart from being a participant in the online world, I have also, all along, been a student and observer of the Web and the people’s behavior online. I have been reading stuff – ranging from peer-reviewed papers to blogs – about these topics for quite a while now. I have been observing online communities like Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as the blogosphere, for quite a while now. Thus I think I have developed a decent understanding of the online world as well as decent instincts about the best ways to behave online. This definitely helps.

The other aspect of blogging for a while was the ability to build a large community of readers and online friends. That is a community that moved with me to PLoS – they are interested in what I am doing there, what PLoS does, the Open Access movement, the works. In other words, I did not have to build a PLoS community from scratch. In a way, my community became a part of the PLoS community and is constantly helping me in doing my job in various ways: tipping me off if “someone on the Internet is wrong” about PLoS, spreading the word if I ask them to, etc. A win-win situation for everyone: PLoS, me and everyone in that community.

Please describe the duties of an online community manager at PLoS ONE.

I thought this was top sikrit! If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you! LOL.

I have a number of “jobs”, really. Building the community, increasing awareness of what PLoS stands for and does, correcting the myths and errors that sometimes pop up about PLoS (and Open Access) online, watching how the online world talks about us, promoting Open Access both online and offline, trying to get people to comment on our articles (and studying why they don’t if they don’t and why they do if they do, monitoring media/blog coverage of our papers, encouraging bloggers to write about our articles, promoting some of our most interesting articles every week, blogging on everyONE blog, and in general working with our communications team in making sure our message gets spread online.

I am also trying, whenever I am in a position to do so, to persuade online and offline friends to submit manuscripts to us and, especially lately, to help us build new Collections on PLoS ONE – let me know if you are interested in this!

Do you have any advice for a blogger interested in a career in science publishing?

This is a tough question – you made me think about this for a long time and I am not sure my answer will be totally satisfactory, but let me try:

Both the publishing world and the blogging world are rapidly changing and nobody has a crystal ball to know the answers to the ’life’s peristent questions’: how are those going to look like in the near and far future (though I tried to speculate here).

A career in science publishing means having a job with a scientific publisher. But there are many different kinds of jobs there: editorial side, production side, marketing side, etc. Each has different requirements and a different “culture”.

For the editorial side, offline reputation is still the most important. You need to be known as a good scientist in a couple of different meanings of the word “good”. As an author, you should have a reputation for sound experimental design, good data analysis, logical conclusions from the data and clear writing. People who edited or reviewed your manuscrupts in the past should remember you for these traits: manuscripts that are easy to deal with because they are pretty good to begin with. The word about this spreads through the offline, secretive channels, is a well-known fact about you, and will get to the ears of people who are doing the hiring.

As a reviewer, you will also be a known quantity – are you a careful reader of the manuscript, are your suggestions fair and constructive? If you have built a good reputation as an author and a reviewer in the science circles, that is much more important for getting an editorial job than anything you may do online. Of course, this may change in the future, but not yet. Thus, at this point in history, your mad online skillz are not really relevant for getting this kind of job. Of course, a good understanding of how people read and use scientific literature online is a definite plus, so study it!

On the production side of the business, tomorrow is even harder to predict. While printing articles on paper will be done by journals for some time in the future, until it becomes completely financially impossible to do, more and more scientific publishing is moving to the Web. This poses its own unique problems. Publishing a scientific paper online is not as easy as copying and pasting some text and images online, as if on a blog. While the need for skills with preparation of manuscripts for ink-on-paper printing may vanish in the near future, the skills for shaping the papers to be both person-readable and machine-readable are becoming necessary – get your computer skills polished.

Again, your online presence and behavior may not be important for getting you the job, but your understanding and experience of how people read stuff on the Web will be useful. After all, as long as journals publish papers both online and on paper, the two versions have to be identical. Once the papers are published only online, they can be optimized entirely for online use, perhaps producing something that looks very different from what a traditional paper looks today. This is similar to the problem facing newspapers – putting articles designed for print online does not make them optimally adapted for the online ecosystem: from formatting, to the lack of links, the copy+paste of print articles online results in an unsatisfactory product. Online articles have to be thought, built and produced with the Web in mind from the beginning.

It is on the marketing/communications side that online experience is most important. The traditional PR language is counterproductive. In this age of radical transparency, the PR language reeks of dishonesty – people start wondering what you are trying to sell or what you are trying to hide. It is also a one-to-many mode of communication which people these days actively dislike.

The rapidly changing world of online communication brings forth the importance of language. The traditional language of science is very formal. The new language of online communication is very informal. When the two meet, online, the result if often a clash of cultures. In a communications job with a science publisher, one needs to be able to nimbly navigate both cultures and use the appropriate style for appropriate audiences. The job is to promote and defend a brand – it is essential to know how to be firm but polite, completely transparent and timely, and to be able to make many, many one-to-one relationships with the users of the brand, thus building trust.

Essentially, you need to know how to listen, not just talk. You need to engage with the members of the community on a daily basis. You need to take the suggestions from the community seriously and, when possible, incorporate them into the way your brand works. This increases the feeling of ownership in (and thus loyalty to) the brand by the community.

This is not a job for the faint of heart – you are constantly balancing on the edge of a potential PR disaster. You are supposed to act like a human, but getting into online fights is one of the very human traits – one to be avoided as much as possible. So, pick your fights carefully. And rarely. And when you do, keep your composure (and, for yourself only, keep your own sense of humor and perspective). This is the time when one is most tempted to use informal and snarky language but, if you are representing your employer, this is exactly the time to switch to a polite, formal use of language and let your “opponent” destroy himself in the plain view of your community. Don’t try to do the destroying yourself, as tempting as that may be. Let the community do the job for you. Bite your tongue, sleep overnight, and then proceed cautiously. So, if you are a blogger, your blog should demonstrate that you are capable of doing the above: tempering your emotions when it is really important. Bloggers are always fighting – show that you can fight with style. Or being capable of avoiding fights altogether. This will be especially attractive for hiring agents who are themselves not Web-savvy and belong entirely to the formal/polite world (and are thus horrified at the usual and normal tone of the blogosphere).

This brings me to the way the blogosphere itself is changing. The original blogs, ten or so years ago, were essentialy places for links (with perhaps a few words attached). This function of the blogs has now mainly moved to other services, e.g., Twitter. The blogs remain now the places for longer, more detailed, thoughtful pieces. This new “workflow” of modern communication, termed ‘mindcasting’ by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has been described here and here.

I have described the way we at PLoS are adapting to this new flow of communication, i.e., how we use Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and blogs for two-way communication between PLoS staff and the community. Getting experience in the use of all these services (and others, e.g., Flickr, YouTube, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, Digg, Redditt, etc.) is a useful toolset to have before applying for a communications job with a scientific publisher.

As for your own blogging, it can help and hinder, depending on how you use it. Getting in needless fights and insulting someone everyday (even if the person you are insulting is a truly despicable public figure) may not work so well for you. On the other hand, having a nice feel for the community in your comment sections, and at least occasionally writing nice posts about science that are worth aggregating on ResearchBlogging.org is surely a plus for getting that job.

Who says you need to leave the city and go on expensive vacation to see wildlife this summer? With a metro card and an iPod you can take a tour of the flora and fauna along the number 7 subway line. Safari 7 (presented by UrbanOmnibus – a project of the Architectural League of New York) is a fun-filled tour of New York’s urban ecosystem. This project is collaborative effort between Janette Kim & Kate Orff, of

Columbia University’s Urban Landscape Lab, and graphic designer and teacher, Glen Cummings.

The tour begins in Manhattan’s Times Square, goes under the East River, through various residential areas and parklands, ending in Flushing, Queens. Using podcasts (created by students in a seminar on urban ecology at the Barnard and Columbia Colleges architecture program), the tour examines nature and wildlife along many stops on the train. Currently, there are twelve episodes (stops) available for download, with more to be added throughout the summer. Episodes can be downloaded in mp3 or mp4 (iTunes slideshow) formats.

Episodes available:

Germs / 42 St – Times Square

U Thant Island / Grand Central – 42 St

Oysters / Vernon Blvd – Jackson Av

Dope Fish / Hunters Point Av

Squirrels / Queensboro Plaza

Dogs / 40 St – Lowery St

Ecology of Death / 52 St

Courtyards / 82 St – Jackson Hts

Reef Condos / 90 St – Elmhurst Av

Pigeons / Junction Blvd

Chickens / 103 St – Corona Plaza

Flushing Meadows / Willets Point – Shea Stadium

So what are you waiting for? Hop on the train and have a listen.

As scientists, the placebo effect is something we learn about early on, even those of us that don’t do clinical research. Today I had the opportunity to attend a seminar discussing placebos in the context of clinical trials, presented by Mark W. Green, MD of Columbia University. Green offered a full review of placebo research, covering virtually all of the last century. However, amidst the placebo discussion, he mentioned something that I had never heard of before, the nocebo. According to the Medline Plus medical dictionary, a nocebo is a harmless substance that when taken by a patient is associated with harmful effects due to negative expectations or the psychological condition of the patient. It is sort of the antimatter of the placebo effect. If you condition someone to believe a treatment will have an adverse effect, it is likely the patient or subject will have an adverse response, independent of treatment.

In reading about the nocebo effect, I came across an article that suggests certain phrases commonly used in medical practice can generate negative feelings in a patient, conditioning them to a negative response. According to the article, words such as just and normally tend to elicit negative and somewhat paradoxical responses from the patient.

Just breathe normally.

I am breathing heavy just reading that.

Though this discussion may not have direct implications for us as bench scientists, Green’s presentation and my subsequent reading made me aware of the ultimate uncontrolled variable in clinical research, the subject. Thus, no matter how we control a study, single-, double- or triple-blind, the psychological effects of treatment, both placebo and nocebo, will always play into your findings.

Today I am thankful that yeast¹ don’t have a brain.

¹ The model system we use in my lab.

Angels & Demons is now in theaters, but I think the excitement about the movie pales in comparison to the actual experiment on which the movie is based. I am talking about the A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS experiment, otherwise known as the ATLAS experiment. This experiment, which will be carried out at CERN, seeks to answer some of the fundamental questions about the forces which shaped our universe. The experiment uses a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to speed two protons to nearly the speed of light. When the protons collide the ATLAS detector will collect enormous amounts of information about the collision. Scientists hope to learn about the hypothetical Higgs boson (referred to as the “God particle” in Angels & Demons), which would explain the way particles acquire mass. Additionally, scientists hope to gather information on possible extra dimensions of space, microscopic black holes, and evidence for dark matter candidates in the Universe.

But enough background. Last night at Columbia University’s Café Science experimental particle physicist Mike Tuts, discussed if the antimatter bomb, the weapon in Angels & Demons, could actually be produced and used present day. In the film¹, a ½ gram of antimatter is stolen from CERN in a vacuum-sealed container. A battery-powered magnetic field, lasting only 24 hours, supports the drop of antimatter within the canister. The villains, seemingly the Illuminati, hope to blow up Vatican City once the battery dies, by letting the antimatter drop, collide with the bottom of the canister (matter) and annihilate.

Theoretically, an antimatter bomb could be produced. However, if all the antimatter from the ATLAS experiment were gathered, it would only produce enough energy to raise the temperature of a cup of coffee by 1°C. According to Tuts, it would take scientists approximately 10 millions years to obtain the ½ gram of antimatter used in the movie.

Lucky for us. Now we can just sit back and enjoy the movie.

¹ If you are unfamiliar with the plot and want to know more, see this link, which discusses the ATLAS experiment as seen in Angels & Demons.

I may have missed the boat on informing the New York Nature Network community about this, since most people are probably already out enjoying the lovely weather, but I still need to try. You have the chance of appearing on Google maps, as the Google camera car has been spotted driving throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn over the past several days taking streetscapes for the site.

According to a recent New York Times article , this “near-mythic” vehicle has been spotted by many New Yorkers over the past several days. The camera car, which is a grey sedan adorned with Google logos and camera device on top, is used for taking the street view pictures seen on Google maps. Supposedly, the car is updating the street views of New York, which tend to change quickly.

A different version of the Google camera car (seen in San Francisco) can be seen here:

So, what are you waiting for? Go outside and increase your chances of seeing yourself eternally (or at least until the next update), on the Google maps.

This past week the new Extreme Mammals exhibit opened at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). According to the AMNH site, this exhibit features animals that “depart significantly from the normal, average, or ancestral condition.” Divided into nine sections, the exhibit examines mammals that have unusual body features and those that exist in geographic isolation or extreme climates by featuring fossils, reconstructions, computer interactives¹ and hands-on activities. The types of animals on display are both alive and extinct, but extreme in one way or another.

The exhibit even features a live colony of sugar gliders, a tiny marsupial native to Australia, which has a particularly fascinating way of trapping food. Gliders have membranes called patagium, which connect the forelimbs and hind limbs of the animal. When in flight, the glider is able to trap small insects in the membranes, which they use as a food source.

A sugar glider at rest. Image taken from here with permission.

So go check it out. I know I will. Stayed tuned for a post on all the fascinating creatures at the exhibit. All in all, I think it will likely make for an extremely good time (pun intended).

¹ Why wait? Start playing right away…

As I opened up this week’s edition of the Science Times I saw several articles covering interesting and relevant topics, such as the swine flu and the Mars rover, even Komodo dragons. But as I glanced to the side of page two, I noticed something I had largely ignored previously, the Q&A section. This week’s question, “Do refrigerators use more energy when filled with food?” was something that had crossed my mind before. Turns out that once the food becomes cold, it doesn’t. But did you know it is better to fill you freezer to capacity, as this minimizes the amount of hot air that creeps in when you open the door? Seems like common sense to me, but I never really thought about it before. I guess I have a supermarket trip to make…

When I went to the Q&A site to track down past questions, I found a whole array of interesting tidbits that I always wondered but was too shy to ask:

Why don’t you sneeze when you are asleep?

Does extra mental effort burn more calories?

Is there a name and an explanation for the nails on a chalkboard reaction?

Why do the smells of some foods, like garlic, and the heat of others, like chili pepper, linger on the skin even after washing?

The author, C. Claiborne Ray, answers questions from the readers of the New York Times Science section every week. In fact, many of the questions are answered by New Yorkers that specialize in the field of interest. If you have a question, you can email her at question@nytimes.com.

I should mention that some of the questions could be answered with a general knowledge of science, which Nature Network readers are likely to have, but they are still worth a read. So, what would you ask?

I read an interesting article in this week’s edition of The Economist, which discusses reforms on the use of animals for scientific research (see the complete Economist article describing the details of the European Parliament vote here). While the article goes into great detail about the changes, I was particularly drawn to a paragraph that describes ways of reducing the amount of animals used for laboratory research. In a nutshell, the article suggests that scientists should share negative data in addition to positive data, with the idea that this will prevent other scientists from repeating failed experiments and ultimately use fewer animals. In theory this idea makes sense. In practice, however, this is quite a difficult task.

Let’s simplify things.

Proof of the theory: Here is my estimate of how many animals we can save by sharing negative data. In any given year, let’s say a scientist will generate at least 50% negative data (total experiments defined as e). Most scientists have at least one competitor carrying out similar experiments, and let’s estimate that roughly 10% of their experiments will be similar. So… (negative data)e x (similar experiments) = 0.5e x 0.1 = 0.05e. 5% of a scientist’s total experiments will be repeats.

It never leaves the lab: While it is clear that sharing negative data can help curb animal use, there aren’t many platforms for negative data sharing. Negative data rarely makes it beyond the realms of lab meeting, ending up in the same place as those mysterious missing socks. Only in a question/answer session may you have the chance of hearing about a failed experiment. But there is hope. Movements such as open notebook science are a great way for scientists to communicate both positive and negative data. A caveat to this, of course, is you have to be willing to freely share your primary data prior to publication. There are also sites like Nature Precedings, which allow scientists to make their negative data available to the public without showing all of their primary work (and it’s citable). As described here on the Nature Precedings FAQ page, “Submissions detailing negative results are welcome providing that they are likely to be of interest to other scientists.” Thus, scientists are able to share their negative data without risking getting scooped (on the positive data, that is), while limiting the number of duplicated experiments among competitors.

So, perhaps this is the right path to reducing numbers in animal research. Hopefully, as sites like Nature Proceedings and other data consortiums grow and their audience begins to read and cite negative data, they will aid in more directed and less wasteful science.

As the weather gets nicer, I just wanted to point out a few interesting events popping up around the city over the summer.

Cafe Science will continue to run programming over the summer. You can view events this week by checking out this NY forum post. Summer Cafe Science events include topics such as urban sustainability, black holes, greening the urban university, and ways of reducing risk of infection.

The Secret Science Club is currently running programs. For more information see this NY forum post.

Additionally, the Imagine Science Film Festival will show screenings of BLAST in mid-June. This film follows Mark Devlin, Ph.D. and his team as they launch a revolutionary new telescope under a NASA high-altitude balloon, in attempts to figure out how galaxies are formed.

And of course, the World Science Festival is set to take place in June (see preview blog post here).