Author: Nazli Turan

The three different regimes of science policy and funding in 20th century America

Nazli Turan

After WW2, the world was paralyzed with the consequences of being exposed to cruelty in a large extent. Soon after, due to the practices of Nazi scientists, medical doctors and Atomic Bomb experimenters in the US, the perception of science has been altered abruptly in a way that scientific activities can trigger the monstrous aspects of human nature, almost in a sense of the Frankestein’s creator. Interestingly, the dimensions of science policies, how science is identified by experts and public, and the reactions of the state towards scientists have been deformed/evolved during the war times. To that end, three different regimes are recognized in 20th century America: WW1-1940, 1940-1980, 1980-today (Mirowski, 2004, p. 290).

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Three definitions of ignorance

Nazli Turan

The history of ignorance is moving hand-to-hand with the history of knowledge as emphasized in Verburgt’s recent paper, The History of Knowledge and The Future History of Ignorance: “(…) the history of knowledge does not just expand the boundaries of the history of science but investigates the boundaries between different forms of science, different forms of knowledge, and different forms of not knowing, in all possible combinations.” (Verburgt, 2020, p. 18).

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Against ‘Mainstream’ Feminism

Nazli Turan

I’ve encountered with an illuminating video that is worth to think about it for a while. Angela Davis is positioning herself against mainstream feminism or Bourgeois feminism. She thinks the mainstream feminism is being a part of the patriarchal hierarchy instead of reaching out the lower levels of hierarchy.  For example, the glass ceiling effect can be discussed for highly educated and, generally, white women who are willing to occupy highest positions in a society whereas women of color, indigenous women, trans women are still suffering from inequality.  See the video to get inspired:

Future of Conservation: Instrumental Value of Artifactualness

Nazli Turan

With concerns of the current climate change, I feel the urge to reevaluate our conservation attempts to act fast and reasonable while leaving no one behind. The definitions and attributed roles of nature and being natural have been formed in a way that saving modified organisms might become idle. I propose a conservation assessment of species based on their instrumental value without excluding genetically, physiologically, or naturally modified organisms. I redefined being artifactual as being shaped by humans directly or indirectly. Indirect effects are attributed to the recent human activities boosting global climate change. As a result, almost all species are sharing one more common thing in my view: being artifactual. Conservation strategies can be modified by evaluating species for their functionality in an ecosystem via their instrumental values regardless of being natural.

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Excited electrons driving a reaction have been observed for the first time

Nazli Turan

“In past molecular movies, we have been able to see how atomic nuclei move during a chemical reaction,” said Peter Weber, a chemistry professor at Brown and senior author of the report. “But the chemical bonding itself, which is a result of the redistribution of electrons, was invisible. Now the door is open to watching the chemical bonds change during reactions.”

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Seminar notes: The Evolution of Males and Females

Nazli Turan

Professor Judith Mank talked about variety of sexual evolutions and adaptations in living organisms, including humans, sea turtles, wild turkeys, gobies, clownfish and so on. The important point she made was that reproduction mechanisms can be extremely diverse for evolutionary advantages. Being larger and colorful or having many offspring can be good or bad. Moreover, sexes can be determined by environmental factors, such as temperature. As a result of the current climate change, some reptiles and sea turtles are having more male members, for example. This has totally changed the sex ratios and natural balance of some species. Now, conservation biologists are trying to preserve endangered species by keeping their eggs in incubators to simulate their fertilization conditions before the human-made climate change.

 

Here is the YouTube link: The Evolution of Males and Females – with Judith Mank

Spaceship drawing for fun

Nazli Turan

I am a little skeptical of my engineering drawings. Eventually, I’m giving a fine shape but I need to look for practical solutions in drawings. That’s why, I’ve explored more features in CAD. I’m using Siemens NX rather than SolidWorks, Catia, AutoCad etc. I think it is more flexible on drawing constraints. I chose my favorite item in the universe: spaceship!

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Easy, improved, inspired recordings: iZotope Spire

Nazli Turan

Well… I kept improving my recording abilities; of course the technical ones. I’ve bought a carry-on microphone and recorder: iZotope Spire! It is connected to my iPad with wifi and its application is pretty easy to use. Unfortunately,  my wicked voice can be heard now :/ Anyways… I’m still using GarageBand for drums and keyboards. My old Fender is the lead for sure \m/

 

Development of a small-scale helical surface dielectric barrier discharge for characterizing plasma-surface interfaces

Nazli Turan

Understanding plasma-surface interactions is important in a variety of emerging research areas, including sustainable energy, environmental remediation, medicine, and high-value
manufacturing. Plasma-based technologies in these applications utilize surface chemistry driven by species created in the plasma or at a plasma-surface interface. Here, we develop a helical dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) configuration to produce a small-scale plasma that can be implemented in a diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) cell and integrated with a commercial Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer instrument to study plasma interactions with inert or catalytic solid media. The design utilizes the entire surface of a cylinder as its dielectric, enhancing the plasma contact area with a packed bed. In this study, we characterize the electrical and visual properties of the helical DBD design in an empty reaction cell and with added potassium bromide (KBr) powder packing material in both air and argon gas environments at ambient conditions. The new surface DBD configuration was integrated into a DRIFTS cell and the time evolution of water desorbing from the KBr packed bed was investigated. Measurements show that this configuration can be operated in filamentary or glow-like mode depending on the gas composition and the water content absorbed on KBr solid media. These results not only set the basis for the study of plasma-surface interactions using a commercial FTIR, but also show that controlling the gas environment and water content in a packed bed might be useful for studying different plasma regimes that are typically not possible at atmospheric pressure.

You can reach the paper via this link: Nazli Turan et al 2020 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys

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