The Eagle

We had lunch at this pub, a short walk from the Cavendish. It's been around since the 17th century, but one of the things it's famous for is being the place where Watson and Crick announced the discovery of DNA. Which does seem like the most English thing ever (and yes, I know that Watson was American.) You make one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time, and your first reaction is to stroll over to the local pub to tell your colleagues about it.

It was impossible to get a good photo of the plaque, but this is what it says:

On this spot, on February 28, 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson made the first public announcement of the discovery of DNA with the words “We have discovered the secret of life”.

Throughout their early partnership Watson & Crick dined in this room on six days every week.

The Old Cavendish

This was much more exciting than the colleges. The lab building was unfortunately closed for repairs, so we weren't able to go inside. But we lingered in the street outside and took pictures, awestruck and giddy at the same time, like pilgrims at a holy site. Or teenage girls outside a hotel where the Beatles were staying.

We'd been talking about James Clerk Maxwell and Ernest Rutherford in our class, and this was their lab! This is where J.J. Thomson discovered the electron! This is where Crick and Watson (and Franklin) discovered the double helix! I felt smarter just being in the same neighborhood.

Also at the History of Science museum

This beautiful astrolabe belonged to Elizabeth I, a gift from her childhood friend Sir Robert Dudley.

Einstein's blackboard

For our final field trip, we stayed in Oxford and visited the History of Science museum. This is their prize exhibit--a blackboard used by Einstein for a lecture in Oxford in 1931. (In case you can't make it out, he was talking about general relativity and the size of the universe.)

Some of the Oxford dons who had attended his first lecture decided to preserve the blackboards from the second lecture; there were originally two, but one was accidentally erased. Einstein was not pleased. He wrote in his diary: The lecture was indeed well-attended and nice. [But] the blackboards were picked up. (Personality cult, with adverse effect on others. One could easily see the jealousy of distinguished English scholars. So I protested; but this was perceived as false modesty.) On arrival [back in Christ Church] I felt shattered. Not even a cart-horse could endure so much!

Brown Station

Almirante Brown is an Argentine research station in Paradise Bay. I like the way the red jackets in the zodiac match the buildings.

Hi, Greenpeace!

We saw this Greenpeace ship near the end of the trip, when we'd reached more northerly waters and seeing other ships became more common. A week after I got home, I saw an article in The Guardian about the expedition, which was looking for creatures in previously unexplored sections of the Antarctic seabed.

The rare species were found by Dr Susanne Lockhart, an Antarctic biologist who visited the seafloor in a submarine last month as part of a scientific expedition organised by campaigning organisation Greenpeace.

It's worth going to the link to see pictures of the creatures she found on the ocean floor -- you can see the red submarine she used on the deck of the ship in my picture.

More signs of the times

Signs for science

The signs at the march were wonderful -- some of the ones I couldn't get clear pictures of:

   Newton, not Putin

   Got Plague? No? Thank a scientist!

   Unicorn Frappuccinos are magic. Everything else is science

It was a reminder that there are thousands of smart, funny, passionate people out there, and maybe we're not all doomed.

And even if we are, this is definitely the team I want to be on when we go down fighting.

March for Science

I had to work today, so couldn't march, but when I went out to grab some pizza for lunch I walked over to Broadway to take a look. The info online had said the march would go from 62nd Street down Broadway to 52nd Street, but despite the rainy weather the crowd extended in both directions as far as I could see from 51st Street -- at least 20 blocks long and maybe more.