We were fortunate enough to make it to TAM this year.  We had such a good time at TAM6 that we greatly looked forward to being able to go again.  It took us a couple years, but we finally made it to TAM9.

We got into Vegas on Thursday afternoon so we had a bit of chill time before things really got going.  At the welcome reception Thursday night, we found there were over 1600 registrants this year.  I think TAM6 was around 1000 or so.  On Friday, we were told that of the 1600+ registrations, 40% of them were women and 50% were first TAMers!  Very exciting indeed!

The speaker lineup was nothing short of Amaz!ng and my husband and I had a wonderful time.  One thing I didn’t do this year was take pictures.  We sat at the front of the second section of seating all weekend and the lenses I currently have for my camera don’t do very well at that distance and I didn’t want to walk to the front at the beginning of every talk so I just hung out and listened.  I did get pictures of me with George Hrab, The Amaz!ng Randi and Phil Plait.  I always feel awkward asking for pictures with people…I’m not entirely sure why, but I do.  But I managed those 3 anyway.

I’ve been sitting here this morning, in my quiet hotel room, trying to decide which pieces of TAM to talk about.  All the speakers were fantastic and the panels as well.  I don’t think I could talk about all of them and do any of them justice.

Of everyone, my two favorite speakers were Pamela Gay and Richard Wiseman.  I never did get to thank Richard for getting that “Obama’s Elf” song stuck in my head.  He’s my kind of evil.

Anyway, Pamela Gay talked about how she was inspired to become an astronomer and how science is nothing short of an inspiration.  Funding for space exploration and research is threatened and she urged everyone to talk to their congress people and get their voices heard and save science funding.  I was nearly moved to tears by the end of her presentation, she was so good.  And she’s right – if we make our voices heard, we can make a difference.

Richard Wiseman, being the evil evil person he is, not only showed some photo illusions that he’s featured on his blog, but he also showed a video of an animated elf on Obama’s shoulder singing “All By Myself”, except displaying the words “Obama’s Elf”…and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head!  Thanks Richard.  He did another song – O Fortuna – as well, that I’ll never be able to listen to the same way again.   His presentation was hysterically funny and it’s great that there was so much laughter.

Another super awesome thing about TAM this year, was the vaccination drive.  305 people, including my husband and me, got tDAP shots.  I really think they could have given a lot more (they only had 305).  Many much deserved kudos to the Women Thinking Free Foundation for putting this together — it was awesome.

There were so many great speakers at TAM, there is no way I could do them justice.  Where do you start with speakers like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, or Richard Dawkins?  Not to mention the gazillion other really amazing people?  I look forward to the TAM 9 DVD’s because I’d love to relive all of it.

Hopefully, we’ll get to go to TAM 10.  I can’t imagine what they’ll come up with to top TAM 9, but the JREF has such an amazing group of people, I have no doubt they will top it.

**Edit** I don’t know for sure if this is the O Fortuna video he showed, but I recognized some of the lyrics and either way, it is damn funny!

The new Symphony of Science video is up — and it has many of my favorite skeptics & scientists in it! Carl Sagan, James Randi, Richard Dawkins and the Bad Astronomer himself! I think this is my favorite one yet.

I never got to meet him, never got to thank him for everything he did for his fellow humans.  Everything he did for me.

If you’ve never read any of his books, I recommend them all, but particularly The Demon Haunted World.  If you’ve never seen Cosmos, it’s on Hulu, you should check it out.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

~~ Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark

I’d been racking my brain and going through the closets for things to sell to go to London TAM, but it just wasn’t happening.  With it being sold out, at least I don’t have to fret over it.

Damn.  I’m severely jealous of everone that gets to go.  But, I look forward to reading all about it.  Plus, I will make it to a future one.  Damn it.

Even 30 years after it was made, Cosmos is relevant and brilliant and inspiring. Carl Sagan takes us all on journey to know ourselves, where we came from and, hopefully, where we’re going.

Carl Sagan introduced me to skepticism and critical thinking and I am ever thankful for that. He inspired me to learn. Far from taking the beauty out of the universe, science teaches us just how magnificent it really is. And that we can even comprehend any of it is truly awesome.

If you haven’t seen Cosmos it’s available on Hulu. Check it out!

I was in my early- mid 20′s when I finally started to look at the world with a skeptical eye. It was quite accidental. I had been reading everything I could find on UFO’s and alien abductions and one night I had a rather interesting experience. I woke up and there was a strange glow in my bedroom. I tried to move and couldn’t. I tried to say something and couldn’t. Then I got panicky. Then I saw 4 aliens – typical looking greys – surrounding my bed; my husband was sleeping soundly. I felt myself floating upwards in a beam of light. Then I woke up for real. I was relieved because it had seemed so real. I went back to sleep and it started again. I saw the same things and felt the same panic as before. I cycled through this about four or five times until I was afraid to go back to sleep. It really freaked me out.

The good news is that was not the first time I have been struck with sleep paralysis or with hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations. Far from it, actually. I’ve had them off and on starting when I was about 4 or 5 and every time they were accompanied with very vivid and often frightening hallucinations.

This particular experience, though, really got me to thinking about the whole alien abduction thing and I started reading up an sleep paralysis and it really seems like the most reasonable explanation for what I experienced. From there I started reading Carl Sagan books and the world started to make a whole lot more sense.

Ever since then, I really try to look at the world through the eyes of a skeptic. I know how easily we can be fooled by others as well as ourselves. Especially ourselves.

Anyway, thankfully, people way smarter than me have done all the hard work for me and have explained exactly why these scare monger websites are so very wrong and I was able to point these folks in the right direction and give them, hopefully, some peace of mind.  I hate to see people scared over nothing and actually buying into whatever these snake oil salesmen are selling.  And it’s always something, isn’t it.

LHC promises to do some really neat science and I, for one, am really looking forward to it being switched on and seeing what we learn.  It’s truly exciting!

For more information on why the LHC isn’t really going to destroy the planet, here are a few links:

Bad Astronomy: No, the LHC won’t destroy the Earth

Bad Astronomy: Breaking: LHC still will not destroy the Earth

Universe Today: Will the Large Hadron Collider Destroy the Earth?

Some links about the LHC:

CERN: LHC Home Page

O’Reilly: Interview with Brian Cox

Universe Today: Large Hadron Collider Rap is a Hit

So, I do my due diligence and do a Google search.  The information that the so called discoverers of the “beast” are providing, as is usual in cases like these, is vague and contradictory and they haven’t actually given proof of anything.  At least not yet.  The photographs could be a number of things and they have told at least three different versions of the events that led them to the beast.  And then there is the DNA samples they provided to a University of Minnesota entomologist:

Biscardi, Whitton and Dyer presented what they called evidence supporting the Bigfoot theory. It was an e-mail from a University of Minnesota entomologist, but all it said was that of the three DNA samples sent to the scientist, one was human, one was likely a possum and the third could not be tested because of technical problems.

So far it just isn’t credible.  Of course, it does not help the case at all that the main guy trying to sell it – Tom Biscardi – is already known for hoaxing Bigfoot.  He certainly isn’t credible.

Hey, if they can actually offer proof that whatever is in that freezer is what they claim, then that would certainly be something worth examining.  I’m not going to hold my breath, though.  So far they have been big on promises of proof and light on actual proof.

Edited to add: The Discovery Channel has a pretty good write up on this.

Another edit: Now Tom Biscardi is admitting it was a fraud and is claiming to be a victim of said fraud.  Ya know, I just don’t buy that he wasn’t complicit.  Is he really so dumb to not examine the “find” before calling for a press conference?  Uh huh.  Sure, Tom, I believe you.

Today is the 39th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy, posted about it today along with the left half of the picture above of Buzz Aldrin’s footprint on the moon.  There is a really neat trick of perspective in that picture (that many of the commenter’s noticed).  When the picture is looked at right side up, the footprint looks raised and the surrounding ground more solid, while when turned upside down the footprint looks indented (like one would expect) and the surrounding ground looks softer.  I just love stuff like this.

It is just a trick of the light.  When the picture was taken the sun was lighting the area from the upper right and the shadows were harsh, giving the indentation’s the raised look.  Just turn it 180 degrees, however and the brain suddenly can make sense of the picture.

The brain is, indeed, a terrible thing.  It can easily play tricks on us and it does so with regularity.  From paradoilia to deja vu to seeing something out of the corner of your eye only to turn and find nothing there.  And, of course, tricks of perspective.  Seeing isn’t necessarily believing.  Not for me, anyway.