Merry Christmas!

First of all, the most important message to day is: MERRY CHRISTMAS to all my wonderful, fantastic readers - I love you all!

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To follow up on the last blog post about stars, here are two more facts about stars that I think suits the theme of this day (my favourite day of the year):

1) There is no “Star of Bethlehem”, or "Christmas star". What the wise men probably saw on their way to meet baby Jesus, was Halley's comet (there are other theories as well, but I like the comet theory :) ), which was visible 11 or 12 years BC.

We told Alexandra this the other day, and she replied by instructing us to change the word "star" into "comet" in the songs :D (For the record: I have no trouble singing "star" - this was her choice...)

2) The most poetic fact is that we are all made of star dust (or we can call it starstuff), and Carl Sagan said it so beautifully and fantastic, I will just finish this holiday blog post with his words:

Friday Facts on a Sunday (at least it's Sunday some places in the world)

It's getting close to Christmas now, and it's darker than ever (oh, how much I hate that - so happy it'll go the other way around in just 2 days), so I though now is a good time for 10 FACTS about stars:

1) Stars are born when huge clouds of gas start to collide because they are attracted to each other, because of gravity (short fact: stars exist because of gravity :P ) <3

- where stars are born -

2) Stars make electromagnetic radiation (like for example visible light) by fusion of hydrogen into helium.

3) Stars are pretty

4) Our nearest star is actually what we normally call the sun - the sun is a star ;)

5) There are more than 200 billion stars just in our own galaxy, the Milky Way (that's huge!)

- our home in the Universe - the Milky Way <3  -

6) When we look at the night sky, we can only see 5000 of all the stars in the Milky Way :/ (However, 5000 is also quite much, even though it's super small compared 200 billion)

7) All those stars that we see in the sky are bigger than our own sun (there are stars with the same size as our sun, and smaller ones too, but they don't shine bright enough so that we can see them)

8) The things we see in the sky that shines the brightest are actually not stars. We see Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, for example, and they are planets ;)

9) The surface temperature of a star ranges from about 2100 degrees Celsius to 40 000 degrees Celsius (our sun has a surface temperature of about 6000 degrees)

10) Our closest star (besides the sun, of course) is called Alpha Centauri, and it is 4 light years away from us. This means that the light we see from this star today was actually emitted four years ago - we are really looking back in time when we are looking at the stars :) If we "translate" this distance into kilometers, Alpha Centauri is about 40 000 000 000 000 km away from us - this is our neighbour...the Universe is simply enormous!

Energy in an atomic bomb and energy in a nuclear power plant

Hi everyone :)
I got a question the other day about nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. There was some confusion about something I said on the radio (Abels Tårn) a couple of weeks ago, about nuclear power and nuclear weapons... Let me divide the question into two parts:

1) How much do you have to enrich natural uranium to make a nuclear weapon, and how much do you have to enrich to make nuclear fuel?
To make a weapon you have to enrich natural uranium, that consists of 99.25% uranium-238 and 0.72% uranium-235 (and the rest is uranium-234), to you get something like 95% uranium-235 - since this is the fissile isotope.
To make fuel you only have to enrich up to around 5% uranium-235.
In theory you could have made the 95% enriched uranium into fuel, and even though it costs money to enrich (and much more money the more you enrich), you would more or less get this money back since the higher enrichment, the longer it would last (and also, the less waste you would make - but that's another question ;) )

2) (Which was really the question I got.) Why can't we make energy from a bomb?
First of all: you could take the fissile material from a bomb and make it into fuel - it was actually done for 20 years in the Megatons to Megawatts program, and during that time 10% of all of the electricity in the US came from nuclear power plants that were fuelled with old, Russian, nuclear war heads :)
Second: What I was talking about on the radio was not the normal fission bomb, but a fusion/hydrogen bomb. Actually, I was talking about wether or not we manage to make fusion here on Earth, and my point was/is that we don't (yet, but maybe in the future? ;) ) manage to make energy from fusion the way the sun does it, but it's not correct that we don't manage to make fusion at all; since in a fusion weapon (also a type of nuclear weapon, also called a hydrogen bomb or an H bomb) we do get hydrogen to fuse. But to make the conditions right, so that the hydrogen nuclei get close enough and start to fuse, to form helium nuclei, and release energy, we have to "light it" with a "normal" fission bomb first - this is what I mean by we're putting in more energy than what we're getting out. So, we make hydrogen fuse in an explosion that we start with a nuclear fission bomb - not exactly a way to produce energy ;)

Was this any clarifying at all? Or more confusing? Please let me know, and tell me if there's something I should explain in more detail <3

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Today was the third (and last) day of the writing seminar. As I said yesterday, it takes time, a lot of time; and today I've spent most of that time working on a plot...

This stupid colon stole one hour of my #phdlife today... For those who know any programming you know it should be a semi colon there, and not a colon. For me, who's no where near to being an expert in programming, it took me one hour before I said to my self "I've tried everything now, and the error messages I get don't tell me what's wrong - I have to ask someone for help", and I turned to Gry, who was sitting next to me (thank god), and she saw my STUPID mistake in something like 58 seconds. And suddenly, instead of just giving me a completely blank canvas, I got exactly what I wanted - beauty, beauty, beauty:

Can I have it in pink, please? Oh, yes, I can - the magic code is "kPink+7" <3

There will be no plotting or writing tomorrow, 'cause then I actually have to go for some christmas shopping (now it sounds like I don't want, which is not true... I'm going with Anders, and I'm looking forward to it <3 ), but on Monday I'll be back at Blindern for a discussion with Sunniva Supervisor - and maybe Jon (my other supervisor) will get a draft of this paper as a christmas present ;)

But before anything else: SLEEP!

Pink - part 3: Why can we see pink?

Good morning, Wednesday!

It's cold, not too late, and I'm at the university library with my first latte of the day, and ready for the second day at the last writing seminar before christmas. I'm happy with yesterdays efforts (I finished all my Pomodoros), but I do realise that this takes forever... I'm seriously hoping that during the next months my "output" will grow more or less exponentially, or it'll be very hard to finish my thesis by the beginning of September (OMG!). At least I have to dedicate more days completely to just writing, like I'm doing today and tomorrow (and yesterday!) ;)

- dress: Vila // west: Gina Tricot // tights: HM (200 denier!) -

One thing I don't like about the cold is that it becomes so extremely difficult to find something to wear - I freeze, like, all the time. But on Monday I found this dress at Vila that's comfortable, cheap (199,-) and since it's made by cotton I think it works very nicely with warm winter boots. When I'm outside I put a big sweater on top of it, and it just looks like the perfect skirt. I love that it's quite straight - it's a little loose around the waist (which I think is nice when I'm at work, and will be sitting for hours and hours), but a little tight around the derrière. With my west from Gina Tricot, it's a perfect, comfortable winter work outfit ;)

They had it in several colours (like dark grey, black, dark blue, and others), and I also bought one in orange. Now that I know how much I like it already, maybe I'll even buy another one.

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Ok, over to todays title: the last guest blog post from my sister <3

(Read number 1 HERE, and number 2 HERE, to get the entire story about my favourite colour)

But why can we see pink?

Pink is a negative colour, if you will. When we look at a colour spectrum we see that the spectrum goes from gamma- to radiowaves, and visible light goes from red to purple, but nowhere is there pink. If an object absorbs all colours but green you get a sort of anti-green. Your brain interpret this as pink. Thus this is why we can see pink after all.

Lastly, I want to make a case for PINK. Even though pink is really a colour made by our brain, and not a real, visible wavelength, that doesn't make it any less of a colour. There are a lot of things that our brains make. Pictures and sounds are interpreted all of the time - that doesn't make the unreal! It is. however, neat to know how our brain works; if not for other reasons but to know what an amazing job it does every single day, and to understand how incredibly easy it is to trick a brain...

15th of December - 9 days to go...

Only nine days left to christmas. No christmas shopping for me yet; I'm spending all of today and tomorrow and Thursday writing writing and writing - I. WANT. TO. GET. A. REAL. DRAFT. OF. MY. PAPER. BEFORE. CHRISTMAS. - but maybe there'll be time for some christmas preparations on Friday...:)

Some of you probably still have an exam (or two?!?) left, and to all of you: A big good luck! I'm at the University Library right now, and from the number of people here, there are obviously a lot of students that are not finished with their exams just yet.

Since it's the 15th today, there are two things from nuclear history I want to share:

1) On this day, in 2000, the reactor number 3 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down for good. Yes, you got it right; Chernobyl wasn't closed after the accident in 1986 - the reactor number 4, where the accident happened, was of course shut down (it was completely destroyed), but the other reactors continued to operate. Reactor number 1 ran until 1997, number 2 until 1991, and number 3 until 15th of December 2000. (Read more about the shutdown of the Chernobyl NPP HERE)

2) Today is also the birthday of Henri Bequerel - the discoverer (together with Marie and Pierre Curie) of radioactivity. He got the Nobel Prize in physics for this discovery, in 1903, just five years before he died. It was just an accident that he, in 1897, actually discovered that uranium salts emit some kind of radiation - a penetrating type of radiation that could be registered on a photographic plate. Bequerel wanted to, and first thought that he was studying a type of X-rays, but the radiation that came from the uranium salts turned out to be the new phenomenon called radioactivity :) (If was actually spontanious radioactivity that he discovered; radioactivity can also be induced - if a material is bombarded with for example neutrons it can become radioactive, and this discovery was done by Irène Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Cuire.) 

10 days to go - 14th of December

Monday again, and this week I promise to (try to :P) be better at blogging than last week! My excuse is mostly Anders' exam, which affected me quite a lot too... It's just so much better when you're sort of working on a team with someone - but that's almost impossible when one person has an exam and works constantly except for the 8 hours he needs for sleeping, and the other one has a child ;) Now he's finished with exams for quite a long time, and we're back to being a team again - working together in the evenings in our living room, going to bed early, and getting up early in the morning <3

Anyway, I'm super happy to have my team mate "back" from quantum field theory, it's the last whole week before christmas (for many, maybe the last week before vacation?), and it's the 14th of December, meaning there are only 10 days left to christmas. So I thought I should give you the 14th element today :)

Element number 14 in the periodic table of elements is silicon (short: Si). The reason why it's the 14th element is because it has 14 protons in its nucleus. There are 24 different isotopes ("types") of silicon that we know of, and the stable ones (the non-radioactive) are silicon-28, silicon-29, and silicon-30.

If you want to make stable silicon, the recipe is 14 protons, and either 14, 15, or 16 neutrons. If you use 14 neutrons, you'll make silicon-28 (14+14=28), and this is the most abundant type in the universe - actually 92.23% of all silicon is silicon-28. If you use 15 neutrons, you'll make silicon-29 (4.67% of all silicon), and if you use 16 neutrons, you'll make silicon-30 (3.1% of all silicon). If you mix your protons with less than 14, or more than 16 neutrons, you'll end up making radioactive silicon.

Silicon is the eight most common element found in the universe, if you sort by mass (before silicon, there's hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, neon, iron, and nitrogen). Even if there is a lot of it here on Earth, it's not common to find it as pure silicon - meaning not as part part of some chemical compound (which is a substance that consists of two or more different types of atoms, like for example water, which consists of both hydrogen and oxygen). Pure silicon is actually quite important for us today, since we use it in all kinds of modern technology, and we like <3 technology...

Facts on a Friday - Beta radiation

Hi everyone, sorry I've been quiet since Sunday! I was planning to share my plan of the week on Monday, but then the day just sort of disappeared, and I really don't know what happened to the rest of the week either (I know that yesterday disappeared since I was in charge of the nuclear physics group's christmas party, and this weekend, including today, I'm at Trysil, but Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I really don't know...:/)

Anyway, here are 10 facts about Beta radiation, since today is Friday and it's rime for facts (read about Alpha radiation HERE):

1. beta radiation consists of particles - you can call it betas, beta particles or beta radiation.
2. beta particles (or betas or beta radiation) is just exactly the same as electrons - beta particles are free electrons.
3. you can have either beta plus or beta minus radiation (so it's actually not exactly true that beta particles are electrons, because if they're beta plus particles, then they're positrons, and if they're beta minus, then they're electrons).
4. I think beta decay (the process where a nucleus emits a beta particle) is really weird: I mean, a neutron actually changes into a proton (or a proton changes into a neutron, if it's a beta plus).
5. beta minus decay is also called electron emission, and beta plus decay is called positron emission.
6. when a nucleus emits (sends out) a beta particle, it transforms into a nucleus that has a higher proton number (hydrogen would for example turn into a helium nucleus, since helium has one more proton than hydrogen) - this also means, that, yes, you can make gold from platinum, that has one less proton than gold.
7. beta particle a are sometimes relativistic - that means that they move with a speed that's close to the speed of light, and that makes them seriously difficult to deal with (for instance theoretical calculations).
8. if the beta particle is emitted in air, it usually moves a few meters before it is stopped (it has a range of a couple of meters in air). In water it moves only a few centimeters. This means they're quite easy to shield yourself from...
9. most fission products emit beta (minus) radiation.
10. beta radiation can cause actual "burns" on your skin; you can see (and feel) that your skin turns red, if you're very close to an intense source of beat radiation.

I didn't make it (#phdlife no. 284610798)

I'm a little bit upset and angry at my self right now, since I didn't even get close to my milestone/goal of these last 14 days :/ I was supposed to finish the analysis part of my paper, but then it turns out I haven't even touched it, since I've been busy giving talks. Going on "tour" around Norway to give talks just takes more time than I like to think that it does - I guess it's time for me to realize this now...

I have to become better at planning (not that I'm horrible at it, but I'm definetely not perfect either...). 

Tomorrow I think I have to start the day by making a DETAILED plan for the next week - to get through what I should have done the last 2 weeks. I understand that I have to change my next 14 days milestone a little bit, but I don't want to make the biggest changes either; I want to try to get very close to my original plan, which means three things: 

1 part PLANNING

1 part STRUCTURE

1 part DICIPLINE

Come on, Sunniva, you can do it! Don't let yourself down ;)

love this new notebook from IKEA - perfect size, and perfect amount of coolness and pink <3 

Hope you all had a great weekend, and sorry that I'm not happy and inspiring just now - at least I'm honest... I'll keep you posted on snap (sunnivarose), with #teamsunnivarose <3 <3 <3

Friday Facts - Alpha radiation

We just finished this week's experiment, where we used alphas to learn more about zirkonium, and therefore I thought that today I have to give you 10 Friday Facts about ALPHA RADIATION (a couple of weeks ago I wrote about radiation in general, you can read that blogpost HERE):

2 proton (p) + 2 neutrons (n) = alpha particle = helium nucleus

1. Alpha radiation is one of the types of particle radiation - alpha radiation is like a stream of alpha particles (I change all the time between calling it just alphas, alpha particles, or alpha radiation - they're all the same :) )
2. An alpha particle is exactly the same as a helium nucleus (so, a helium atom stripped of its electrons)
3. A helium nucleus consists of 2 protons and 2 neutrons - meaning that an alpha particle consists of two protons and two neutrons
4. Alpha particles/radiation have a very short range - meaning they can't move very far; for example they only get a couple of centimetres in air
5. Since the alpha particles have such a short range, it means that they are very easy to shield yourself, or protect yourself, from 
6. If you get something (a source) in your body that emits alpha particles, this can be quite bad, since basically none of the alphas will get out of your body, and all their energy will be deposited inside your body
7. Radon is an example of a radioactive gas that emits alpha radiation
8. As long as whatever material that emits alphas is on the outside of your body, it can't hurt you (if the only problem with this material is that it emits alphas, of course)
9. If I hold some material that emits alpha radiation in my hand, I won't get any dose (from radiation) to my hand (except from the part of my skin which is already dead, but I don't really care about whether or not my dead skin cells are exposed to a radiation dose ;))
10. Heavy, unstable nuclei can emit an alpha particle to become a little bit lighter, and therefore more stable - ie, it's a little bit like "chopping" off a small part of the nucleus (like you have an apple, and you take a knife and you chop off a small part, then you have a little smaller apple and a piece of the apple)

helium atom: alpha particle + 2 electrons <3

Happy Birthday!

I almost forgot, but today, the 2nd December, marks the 73 year anniversary of the world's first man-made nuclear reactor :) (Yes, you read that right; there have been nature-made nuclear reactors here on earth <3).
In 1942, man achieved the first self-sustaining chain reaction, and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy.

On the picture below, you even see the ax man - or the Safety Control Rod Axe Man (SCRAM), and even today it's called scramming the reactor when you shut it down:

Good luck with all your exams!

I know many of you have already had your first exam, so I guess I should have wished you luck a little bit earlier, but I also know (from all the great #teamsunnivarose snaps you send me - some of you are really working hard; GREAT JOB! ) that many of you have one or more exams left so I just want to say:

Good Luck to all students who are having exams these days! 

I also want to give you one tip, in addition to telling you to remember it's all going to be worth it, of course (and also remember that if it goes to h**l, that's actually not the end of the world either; worst case you have to do it over again, there are far much worse things in the world than that ;) ): try the Pomodoro Technique if you're one of those who are having problems with concentration and procastination... In short it goes like this:

1. Decide on some task to be done (doing exercises, reading, writing a summary, answering e-mails or whatever)
2. Set a timer to 25 minutes (this is one Pomodoro
3. Work until the timer rings (and don't do anything else than the task you decided on in those 25 minutes)
4. Take a break for 5 minutes (go and get a coffee, check Facebook, go to the toilet or whatever)
5. Do another Pomodoro, and after 4 you have to take a longer break - at least 15 minutes, but it can be longer :D

I guess this is sort of the academics answer to interval training :P

And remember: when you're working hard, be proud and show it at #teamsunnivarose <3

I'm rooting for you!

Surprised and inspired

Today's been quite a good start of a new week; I was at the university at half past eight this morning, and left at half past seven. I din't get through my entire to do list, but then again, I never do (maybe I need to rethink my way of making lists? ;) ). I did do quite a lot, though, and I'm (almost) ready for my talk at Arbeidslivskonferansen tomorrow (don't know what to wear yet, and I have to make a couple of notes - but I'm close), and I worked on my article, and started reading a new article from an experiment we did at our cyclotron, on uranium-238.

There are two words that sort of sum up my day today: the first is Surprised and the second is Inspired. 

Inspired is what I become from reading that article about uranium-238 - it's simply just so well-written (so far - I haven't read all of it, but I'm hoping the rest of it will continue as the beginning of it), and explains everything in a great way, and I actually love some of the sentences:

"To shed light into this puzzling observation... 

This has never been done before and is the aim of the present work... 

Britt and Cramer noticed that (...) the fission cross sections obtained via the surrogate reaction was significantly lower than the corresponding neutron-induced cross section. They attributed it to the breakup of the deuteron. Deuteron breakup is actually a rather complex process..."

I can't explain exactly what it is, but it inspires me to continue my work, and to try to make my own article as well-written and interesting as I can possibly manage.

The Google poetry came to be since I had to read a little bit about deuteron breakup - and I still have to read more about this tricky thing...(why can't the d**n deuteron just stick together?!?)

my kind of (Google) poetry <3

Surprised is what I become when people who themselves know A LOT about science (but don't work in a climate science related field themselves) don't believe in human induce climate change, for reasons like "CO2 is just small part of the greenhouse gases". I don't work with a climate science related field either, but I know two things: 

1) The scientist that I do know, that work with issues related to climate, tell me there isn't any doubt about human induced climate change, and

2) Based on the very silly misconceptions people (also other scientist that don't work in the field of nuclear physics) often make about, for example, thorium based nuclear power plants, I have seen how easy it is to know so much about something that you may think you understand the entire picture; but then it turns out there is some small effect from something you don't know about without having worked in the field for a long time - some effect that completely changes the picture. Since that's the way it is in my field of science, I'm pretty sure it can be exactly like this in other fields as well, and I think it's a little bit arrogant to think that because you know everything about one field, you probably know enough about any other field to say that this field is just BS...

And I think this is the only thing I should say about climate and stuff... Now I'm going to fix Alexandra's christmas calendar, and then I have to decide what to wear for my talk tomorrow, and then I have to make notes so that I'm sure I won't forget anything during the talk.

Kiss kiss <3

Pink! Part 2

Dear everyone, and happy Saturday - hope you're all enjoying the weekend!

I attended this years first christmas party yesterday, and after a very busy week I was so exhausted I had to leave the party at midnight (and I worked hard to stay that long) - guess that's kind of the price you pay when you try to work hard, play hard. 

The great thing about leaving such a party that early, is that you wake up feeling fantastic the day after ;) So far today I've been hanging out with Anders (finally!); we stayed forever in bed, and then we went to Colonal Mustard at Alexander Kiellands plass and had brunch, and now he's at the university (working with quantum field theory), and I'm at Espresso House at Majorstuen (preparing for my talks next week - I'm giving a completely new talk on Tuesday, so there is some preparing to do). 

A pretty ok Saturday, I'd say <3

Here are a couple of snaps from last nights party:

- me and Jo -

- just me, and my glass of wine, and my iphone, and the christmas tree... -

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I know yesterday was supposed to be Friday Facts day, and I'm truly sorry there were no facts (or no blogging what so ever :/ ) yesterday - or the week before that! I promise Friday Facts will be back next week, and while you wait I want to give you part 2 of my sister, Carina's guest blog about my favourite colour - PINK! (Part 1 is HERE):

What is a colour?

When light hits something, the energy from the light makes some of the atoms excited. In those atoms an electron jump from it's own ("normal") electron shell (a, in the picture below), to an outer shell (b, in the picture below). The energy, however, isn't enough to keep the electron in the outer electron shell, so it jumps back to it's own, original shell (c, in the picture below). When it jumps back in, energy is released as a lightwave (called a photon). 

In the back of our eyes we have cones that react to these emitted wavelengths. An object might absorb some colours, and those colours are the colours you won't see emitted. White is a mix of all colours, this is what we see when all colours are absorbed, but none are emitted and caught by the cones. Black is the absence of colour, this is what we see if no colours are absorbed, but all are emitted and caught by the cones.  It's just that there isn't any wavelength for pink... 

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PS: I was reminded by someone leaving a comment today, that I haven't told the story about how the neutrino got its name yet - as I promised earlier. I had actually forgot that I wanted to tell this story, so I was happy to be reminded, and I'm planning on telling the story in the week to come :) 

Also, don't forget about Question of the month; I'm collecting questions continuously, so if you have a good one, maybe your question will be next...

On my team, everyone can join! #teamsunnivarose

The title really says it all...But to make it (super) clear: since I wrote about #teamsunnivarose I've received a lot of really cool snaps (not so many picture on Instagram - maybe we could do better there, and really "show off"? :O ) from some great students (and others). Thank you so much, you make me happy and motivated every time! 

It would be so cool, though, if even more people would join the the team, since there's room for more - let's motivate each other :)

Just believe me: 

I.

LOVE.

THIS!

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Here are a couple of the snaps (sunnivarose) and instas (@sunnivarose) I've posted lately:

Let's be proud, and let's not be afraid to show :)

Everyone can join #teamsunnivarose, and everyone's welcome <3

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I'm on my way to Stavanger now, where I'll be talking about why choosing science tomorrow :)

Tomorrow evening I'll be going back home to Oslo, and that'll be good, since I really miss Anders now (yup; haven't seen him since Monday, and I'm already crying myself to sleep...ok, not all of that is true, but you get the picture :P ) - falling asleep next to someone you love is the best, and safest, feeling in the world <3

Experimental setup. Check!

My main goal last week was to finish the part about the experimental setup for my next paper (article), and even though there will always be changes, I can still say that I more or less achieved my goal :D I still have to look at the comments and corrections that I got from Sunniva Supervisor, but that's not a very big job.

My next goal, or milestone, is to finish the part about the experimental results. I'm supposed to do this by the end of next week, and even though that should be enough time, I'm a little bit more uncertain about this one... To finish the results part, I also have to have all the results (which I don't), and since I'm spending this week on "tour" and next week I'm also giving two talks, there isn't that much time left to work on data analysis - but I just have to manage, spending the weekend, or something, I guess <3

(picture from phdcomics.com)

#whatiwore on Friday

@sunnivarose #foredragsoutfit

On Friday I started the day with a lecture for a bunch of physics teachers that were spending half of last week at the institute, to learn even more than they already do.
I must admit I always get a little bit nervous before I'm talking to teachers, since I have such a great respect for the job that they do, and the knowledge they possess; when it comes to "old" physics teachers I'm certain that I have almost nothing "to bring to the table" (except my very own research, which I'm probably the best at...). So when I'm giving talks to these people it always feels a little bit like I'm back in high-school, and that this is my final, oral exam ;)

In spite of my nervousness, I was still on "my field"; nuclear power and thorium - I know I know this, right, and therefore Friday's talk is one example of those occasions where I feel like I can be maximum girly: that means a combination of heels + dress + long hair + accessories <3 (The more secure I am about what I'm talking about, the more I can sort of "girly up" my outfit.)

I never know what to wear before I have tried on several outfits (which is also the reason why my suitcase is way heavier than it logically should have been, now that I'm on a little "tour", visiting schools around Norway; I visited one school today, where I gave two talks, there will be another school tomorrow, and yet another on Wednesday - on Thursday I'll be talking in Stavanger, and I can tell you for sure there are more than three outfits in my suitcase, since I can never know in advance what I want to wear on a particular day), but on Friday I ended up with a simple, quite short, light pink shift dress, that I bought when I visited Paris last year with my mother. I really like the length of the sleeves - just below the elbows - makes it perfect for this season.

With my glasses, that I have already become quite fond of, I feel like I can be even more girly (than without them; hello pink, and big "diamonds"!) - it's just like the glasses neutralize some of the girlyness ;) But when my hair is down, like here, I go a little bit back on the accessories when it comes to size, since it can be a little "competition" between all the hair and big ear rings (for example), and I just don't want that.

- I love to accessorise; not too much, but definitely not too little (rather too much ;) ) -

Only problem (or maybe I should call it challenge? ;) ) this time of the year is that it's cold, and all I really  want to wear is wool and soft clothes, layer on layer. Well, I guess you have to "suffer" a little bit...

- the dress, from my Paris trip with my mother exactly one year ago -

- my dearest Oslo, waking up in the background <3 -

Guest blog: Pink - part 1

Hi there people! Thursday already, and past ten already? Guess I should have gone to bed by now, since I'm getting up at six tomorrow (I have to, to get everything ready - look presentable before the talk I'm giving at nine, get Alexandra ready for kindergarden, and get her to kindergarden...should I do an outfit-post tomorrow, maybe, since I'm giving a lecture I could make a #scienceoutfitoftheday-post?), but I just sat down - literally, so I'm not through my to dos yet...:/

- me and my sister -

Anyway, to night I want to present you to my sister - Carina.

Carina is 25 years old, and studies biology at the university here in Oslo. She has two kids and one guy. She has giant snails in a terrarium, a rat in a cage that she's seriously allergic to, and she also just got a hedgehog that will spend the winter with her (biologists!).

She is really into science and scepticism, but still loves Harry Potter so much that's she's patiently waiting for a letter from Hogwarts telling her she's been admitted to the school. Carina's biggest dream is to own an elephant - preferably an African type - and she also has a blog, HERE (in Norwegian).

- me, and Carina, and our mother; at my birthday this year (Alexandra took the photo <3) -

- me and my sister getting ready in old Rose-castle - 

Carina knows how much I love pink, and therefore she has written a little something about pink (ok, I'm not sure it's completely true, but at least maybe she's been inspired by my crazy love for pink).

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Part 1: Pink as a girly colour

Pink is a well known, and for many loved, colour. Actually there are few other colours that get as much attention as pink; both positive and negative.

Before the 40's, pink was primary a colour used on boys. In the 20's girls were supposed to be dressed in blue, because that was seen as a soothing colour, and girls should be cute, and calm. Now almost every girl is dressed in pink. 

There's just one thing though; pink does not exist. This is not a philosophical postulation of sex or gender, but a comment on visible lightwaves.

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