"To Fly A Rocketship, You Need To Be An Optimist. No Astronaut Launches Into Space With Their Fingers

What we call a “shooting star” is actually a meteor burning rapidly in our atmosphere. Here’s a picture taken by astronaut Ron Garan of a “shooting star” … from space. 

Exercising in space – Quick video about my favorite fitness machine

#Fitness is critical in space! Watch this #SpeedyTime video as I transform the multi-modal ARED machine during my workout. The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED), simulates free-weight exercises in normal gravity. In space we exercise 2 hours every day in order to maintain our muscle and bone mass. Our favorite part about exercising in space is of course, the view!

To learn more about the ARED, please visit https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1001.html

another lab day!

today I extracted some DNA from our fli1a:eGFP background and1/2 mutants so that we can genotype them. I ran an RT-PCR and I’ll do the gel tomorrow to determine their genotype (all with the help of the amazing MSc. student i’m working under).

the fish are all currently really small so it was harder to cut their fins, but I think it went well for my first time! hopefully my PCR is successful too...

the fins regenerate in about a week, so these fish will be good as new soon!

I have a dream

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!”

- Martin Luther King Jr., delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

Happy MLK Day America and the whole world!

”Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble”

- Song of the Witches, Macbeth

using the semester break to pick up a new skill (much to the joy of my flatmates). also practicing loads for my intermediate examination next year 

Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky, 1875

Have You Ever Seen An Eclipse From Space? Check It Out

On June 21, 2020 an annular solar eclipse passed over parts of Asia and Africa. Eclipses happen when the Moon lines up just right between the Sun and Earth, allowing it to block out part or all of the Sun’s bright face and cast a shadow on Earth. 

On that day, the International Space Station was orbiting over Kazakhstan and into China when this picture of the solar eclipse shadowing a portion of the Asian continent was captured by an external high definition camera. In the left foreground, is the H-II Transfer Vehicle-9 from Japan.

Here is another angle as seen from the orbital lab. In the left foreground, is the Progress 74 resupply ship from Russia.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

a lonely Starman in another world artist : Peter DeLuce (https://www.instagram.com/deluceart/)

Classic Books List

“Why read the classics? A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” These are a few recommendations, books everyone should read. Don’t let yourself be convinced they are good: read and decide for yourself!

(no particular order intended)

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell

Hard Times - Charles Dickens

The Karamazov Brothers - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

The Waves - Virginia Woolf

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Hamlet - William Shakespeare

Richard II - William Shakespeare

Little Women - Louisa Alcott

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Emma - Jane Austen

Anna Karenina - Liev Tolstói

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton 

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Lord of The Flies - William Golding

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

Persuasion - Jane Austen

War and Peace - Liev Tolstói

Macbeth - William Shakespeare

The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe

Dracula - Bram Stoker

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - Edgar Allan Poe

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka 

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

King Lear - William Shakespeare

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

Jean Barois - Roger Martin du Gard

Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky