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PUBLIC
- Did a Comet Cause Noah's Flood?
- Dee's images and chemical analyses of microscopic fragments created during meteorite impacts provide support for a controversial new theory that many more comet and asteroid strikes have changed human history, as well as the Earth's surface and climate, than are traditionally accepted by geologists, astrophysicists and other impactologists. Ongoing work by Dee and colleagues Dallas Abbott and Enrico Bonatti from Columbia University and 5 other scientists worldwide includes the Tunguska (Siberia) impact of 1908; twin impacts into the Gulf of Carpentaria (northwestern Australia) that may have caused severe climate cooling in 535 AD with resulting wars, famines, plagues, and population movements; and a massive impact into the Indian Ocean around 2800 BC that may have caused the torrential deluge and floods in numerous global myths and legends, including Gilgamesh and Noah. The Indian Ocean impact study is featured in Comet Catastrophe, a documentary that premiered in September 2007. The film includes several scenes of Dallas and Dee looking at some of the impact's micro-ejecta on Drexel's SEM. The National Geographic Channel has begun the initial planning stages of a similar documentary to be filmed in 2008.
- The Remarkable Microworld: Revelations from the Scanning Electron Microscope
- Dee's breathtaking images take children and adults on a journey that weaves through a fascinating world inhabited by minimonsters, microminerals, invisible seashells, the stuff of our everyday world, and much much more. Close up views of the astonishing beauty of a tarantula's fur creates a new appreciation for nature's animal wonders, while images of seeds and pollen lead to a new understanding of how plants grow and reproduce. Glimpses of tiny structures that invoke a ten-million-year-old volcanic eruption, or the cosmic impact that created Chesapeake Bay, stretch our awareness of time as well as offering fresh insights into how our planet works. The microworld reveals familiar objects in a new way: what a dust bunny looks like up close, how Velcro holds tight, why our modern industrial life is based on unimaginably tiny things. More abstract images show how the immune system fights infection, how climate changes can be read in tree rings, or what the tiniest plants and animals at the bottom of the marine food chain can tell us about our own world.
- Polar Oceanography: Polar Bears, Penguins, and Science at Sea
- Some research voyages in the Southern Ocean still sail through uncharted blanks in even the most up to date maps. Through slides, audio, video, and show-and-tell items, Dee gives her audience a peek into these little-known waters, recounting adventures of oceanographic expeditions at the ends of the Earth. Combining a pictorial overview of the polar regions and the animals that inhabit them with presentations of scientists at work in sophisticated makeshift laboratories, her audience experiences what life is like on a remote station on the frozen continent of Antarctica and on icebreaking research vessels at both poles, far from the reach of civilization.
PROFESSIONAL
- Optimizing Scientific Images: When, Why, and How
- Offering microscopists and other picture-making researchers a guide through the confusing maze of image creation and dissemination, Dee discusses techniques (known as visualizing information) that result in improved pictorial communication of science . Covering the whys and hows of image optimization, the presentation clarifies the digital world as it applies to research science, when, how, and when not to enhance raw images ("cleaning" and colorizing), and how to maximize quality reproduction during printing and publication. Dee addresses specific processes involving issues of reduction and enlargement; tiffs and jpegs; journal and media publication; slides and posters, the web, and museum-quality glicee prints for display. The presentation also includes tips and tricks in the use of Adobe Photoshop, suggested hardware choices, a discussion of non-corrupting archival storage of digital files, and touches upon issues of copyright. This presentation can be given in either a slide-based lecture or expanded tutorial/workshop format.
© 2006 Dee Breger