The Higgs Boson walks into a church...

Here at the University of Wisconsin, we have a lot of grad students and professors who study science and religion — most famously Ron Numbers and his many students, of whom the two current ones are the accomplished Dana Freiburger and the ecumenical Scott Prinster.

All three gentlemen should probably now dispense the standard church pun-ishment upon me. (I personally grew up atheist, so I have no idea what kind of trouble I'm in for.)


Congratulations, also, to all the hardworking physicists and engineers (you're welcome, Peter Galison) on the discovery of the particle-that-is-statistically-consistent-with-the-Higgs boson! We celebrate your great accomplishment by rejoicing in your use of Comic Sans in science. 


(Image credit: it's floating around on facebook, but I can't find the original attribution. I'm not sure memes can have original attribution these days, but that's a whole other blog post...)

Topic Brainstorm!

We discussed potential blog topics at our last grad meeting, but I thought I'd get the conversation going again here. What do you want to see on this blog? Remember this is our blog--all HSTM grads are welcome and encouraged to share ideas and links here!

Here are some things that came up when we talked, plus a few I've thought of since:

• Summary and further discussion of HoS brownbags and colloquia
• Ideas for future brownbags
• How to approach your first journey into the archives (organizing notes, etc.)
• Using Scrivener (I volunteered to do this one-- should be coming out in the next week or so)
• Using citation managers
• Writing grant applications/getting outside funding
• Brainstorming, outlining, organizing your writing
• Discuss your current research (a seminar paper, MA paper, dissertation) and get feedback on a problem, or just share a cool primary source
• Discuss a photo or image
• Discuss a book or share a reading list (or ask for reading suggestions!)
• Teaching ideas, experiences, and resources
• Share what you do in your spare(?) time
• Just finished/in the depths of some part of the process (prelims, dissertation proposal, job search, etc.)? Share what you learned!

Add to the list of posts you'd like to see in the comments section below, or claim a topic that you want to write on. Some things, like visiting the archives, could certainly be a series with multiple authors.

This is an informal space for sharing ideas in our community. And blog posts are short. Contribute!