Amazing astronomy photos

The folks over at PetaPixel  held an astronomy photography contest and have now posted the winners. Above is the overall winner. The picture is described as

First up is the overall winner and winner of the Earth and Space category taken by Australian photographer Mark Gee and seen at the top. It’s called “Guiding Light to the Stars,” and it shows the Milky Way seemingly emerging from the light of a New Zealand lighthouse.

See the rest of the photos at Introducing the Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013 Contest

Truly larger than life

A. Einstein statue on the Washington mall.

One of the figures that looms larger than life in our nation's capitol is Albert Einstein. While we can't all be Einsteins, we can all make contributions to science and science education (in and out of the classroom). This photo was taken by Dean David Brakke.

Ever wonder what physicists do?

David Saltzberg, right, hosts his "Geek Of The Week," UCLA student Andrew Peck.

Professor David Saltzberg, UCLA has one of the cooler jobs in physics. He is the consultant for the award winning television show Big Bang Theory to make sure that all the science is correct. There is a great article about him and his role in the program on NPR today.

If you don't already have enough reasons to consider starting a career in physics JMU, maybe this helps.

Bohemian Gravity

The title says it all:

The Annual Department Photo

At our opening meeting this year, we once again posed for our annual group photo. The weather outside was a bit iffy so we opted to do the photo in room 2212.

Back row: Steve Whisnant, Kim Emerson, Costel Constantin, Art Fovargue, and Shanil Virani
3rd row: Gabriel Niculescu, Ioana Niculescu, Sean Scully, and Scott Paulson
2nd row: Brian Utter, Jason Haraldsen, Joe Mahler, and Mark Mattson
Front row: Kevin Giovanetti, Keiko Fukumura, Giovanna Scarel, and Elizabeth Jeffery

Absent: Chris Hughes, Klebert Feitosa, Harold Butner, Anca Constantin, Adriana Banu