Jennifer Ouellette

Serving up science and culture with a splash of wit.

Cocktail Party Physics is a group science blog that aims to create a salon-like virtual space where contributors and readers alike can chat about the latest news and ideas in science -- with a twist. If we can make it fun, funky, unconventional, and blur the lines between traditional disciplines -- both within the sciences themselves, and science and the arts, literature, pop culture, history, and every other aspect of our culture -- so much the better. We need fewer barriers and more bridges in this world.

Faux-French avatar Jen-Luc Piquant is the tres chic hostess who presides over the festivities with a suitably jaundiced eye and cool panache. Her "guest list" of regular contributors consists of Allyson Beatrice, Calla Cofield, Lee Kottner, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, M.G. Lord, and Jennifer Ouellette.

For those brave enough to join the party, we salute you!

ABOUT JEN-LUC PIQUANT:
Jen-Luc Piquant is a faux-French avatar with a penchant for gourmet cuisine, high fashion, existential angst, and dabbling in amateur scientific research of questionable import. She is created by Lee Kottner using templates provided by Portrait Illustration maker -- with a little extra help from Photoshop.

ABOUT ALLYSON BEATRICE
Allyson Beatrice always wanted to be a member of the Go-Go's when she grew up, but it never worked out. She knows little of math and science, and somehow got through her college's math requirement by taking a class on the history of math. She knows that the number one is represented by a lotus flower in ancient Egyptian. After a lifetime spent shoveling snow in New England, she moved to Los Angeles on Halloween night eight years ago. She took a temp job as a secretary at the Jet Propulsion Lab, which lasted approximately six years. There, she shoveled government bureaucracy off of physicists' desks. She now works as a secretary at a private lab, and writes books in between long bouts of procrastination. Allyson knows little about physics, but has developed great insight into physicists -- and likes them anyway. She is the author of Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby, a collection of essays about her experiences with an online fandom community. Find her on the Web at http://www.allysonbeatrice.com.

ABOUT CALLA COFIELD
Calla Cofield was voted "Most Likely to Win an Academy Award" in her high school year book. To everyone's disappointment she chose to study physics and astrophysics at the University of Utah, and then at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she also minored in English. Since 2007, she has turned down calls from Hollywood executives to pursue the glamorous life of a science writer. She has written for Physical Review Focus, Physics Buzz, Discover, and Symmetry, and currently resides in Palo Alto, California. Because she has not written any books, Calla would like to give her portion of the "self-promotion" column on the blog to the Arrested Development DVDs. At some point, Calla suspects that the wonderful people at the American Physical Society and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will figure out that it was she who ordered new chairs for everyone -- not once, but twice! At each office! --and ask for their money back. To throw them off the track a little longer, she thanks them for their marvelous training and support.

ABOUT LEE KOTTNER
Lee Kottner is an unapologetic science, tech and "Star Wars" geek and Trekker; a former wannabe marine biologist; and all-around dilettante whose professional dabblings include writer, educator, college instructor, blogging addict, and book artist. She received a feminist liberal arts education (with a concentration in biology) at Chatham University and an M.A. in medieval English at Michigan State University, where she also taught freshman science writing. She has a lifelong fascination with science fiction and technology and the cultural issues they often raise. The rest of her on-going higher education consists of an insatiable curiosity, three years of Gestalt therapy, 22+ years of living in New York City, 10 years of employment with an environmental consulting firm, 5 years with the physicists at the American Institute of Physics, and a couple of long, strange trips to Europe. She currently lives in the Bronx, but you can find her on the Web at http://www.leekottner.com.

ABOUT DIANDRA LESLIE-PELECKY
Diandra Leslie-Pelecky is a professor of physics at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she researches biomedical nanomaterials. She has published widely both on her academic research, and on improving science education at all levels. Her first book, The Physics of NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed, was published in February 2008. She wrote the book after seeing a race car crash for no apparent reason, and set off on a quest to find out why -- the trademark of the scientific mindset. She also occasionally dabbles in writing screenplays and fiction. Find her on the Web at http://www.stockcarscience.com.

ABOUT M.G. LORD
M.G. Lord is a cultural historian and investigative journalist. She has been a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and the Time's Arts & Leisure section. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She has written two books: Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll and Astroturf: The Private Life of Rocket Science. She lives in Los Angeles.

ABOUT JENNIFER OUELLETTE
Jennifer Ouellette is a recovering English major who stumbled into science writing quite by accident, and has been avidly exploring her inner geek ever since. She is the author of Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics and The Physics of the Buffyverse, both published by Penguin, and is currently writing her third book, The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Outbreak. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, New Scientist, Discover, Salon, Symmetry, and Physics World, among other publications. As of November 2008, she is the director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a new LA-based initiative of the National Academy of Sciences to foster creative collaborations between industry professionals in Hollywood and scientists. Obligatory disclaimer: everything she writes on this blog is her personal opinion and does not reflect the views of the NAS or the Exchange. So there. She lives in Los Angeles with a tall cosmologist named Sean. Find her on the Web at http://www.jenniferouellette-writes.com.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This blog contains original material by the various contributors, and is protected under a Creative Commons license. Quoting a couple of paragraphs on your own site and linking back to us is fine -- in fact, we welcome that. Copying entire posts is NOT cool, whether you link back or not. (We're talking to YOU, commercial aggregators!)

BLOGROLL POLICY
Our blogroll is often hopelessly out of date because the blogosphere changes so rapidly. Help us keep it current! If you're not on the blogroll, or your blog has changed URLs, let us know.

FYI, just because we link to a blog, that doesn't mean we endorse every last bit of content on it. Our blogroll is offered as a service to visitors to help them explore the wacky, wonderful world of science blogging.

COMMENT POLICY
We moderate comments with a very light hand. We're not prudes, and we don't mind strong language -- heck, sometimes we like to indulge in a spot of profanity, ourselves. (It's the pause that refreshes.) Nonetheless, we do have boundaries. Do not cross them. We will delete an inappropriate comment rather than edit or disemvowel it. The author of each post has the right to make a judgment call as to whether any comment on that post should be deleted. If someone persists in misbehaving, they will be warned, and if that doesn't dissuade them, they will be banned outright. We are happy to say that this is a very rare occurrence.

Things that will get your comment deleted include:

(1) obvious SPAM, including "affirmation SPAM," where you generically praise the post/blog solely as a lame attempt to leave your URL selling some product or service;

(2) comments that are more than 600 words (write a separate post on your own blog and link to it in the comments);

(3) long, techno-babble rants about your pet theory, new discovery, or latest perpetual motion machine (we adhere to the laws of thermodynamics here at the cocktail party);

(4) comments complaining about how your previous comment was "censored";

(5) comments that are unnecessarily crude or vulgar, contain obvious hate speech, or sexually explicit sniggering (what are you, 12?).

If you're not sure if the above apply to you, consider this Golden Rule: if you wouldn't say it to our faces while a guest in our homes, don't say it on our blog. This is our virtual living room. And we are under no obligation to tolerate bad behavior.

Questions? Comments? Email Jen-Luc Piquant at JenLuc [at] gmail.com.