Great! you are selected for grad school, now what?

This is one of the post I am writing for the graduate students coming aboard.
First, my congratulations for being selected. Pursuing your dream in higher studies is going to be very important. It is important not only because you get into graduate school but also because it will define your career path for rest of your life.
Your question is regarding whether you wanna go the the university that offered you. If you had carefully selected and applied to the universities, you will have no problem in deciding once you get the offer letter But what if two very competent universities are calling you?
I have the following recommendations (and they apply equally to cases when one is preparing to apply for grad school):

• Visit the University website. Especially, the departmental website. 
• Visit Each faculty website, see the trends in the department research. Are the faculty actively involved in research?
• See if the research field particularly interests you.
• See if you can figure out the number of graduate student to faculty ratio. 
• If your support comes from doing the TA duties, see if you can figure out the number of undergraduate student to graduate student ratio.
• How about the weather? Location? Socialization?

These are the basic questions that you need before you start out your venture. They are important as it will guide your next five years (plus/minus 1) and ultimately your academic life.
Once you figure out such basic academic facts, you can then go for planning the (local) life style there. The best case scenario would be if you have any close friend living nearby. If you can contact the department secretary to learn about the housing, it will also make your life much better. Craiglist listing on apartments can also be equally illuminating.

Survival of the Fittest: Tricks allowed

Surviving in the wild is not easy, especially if you are born to survive in the wild. So, you come up with tricks to survive. You do whatever it takes to survive.
I found few videos, surprisingly awesome!

Cordyceps, a killer fungi, that invades the body of an insect to grow and diminish the insect population. This is one of the Fascinating animal and wildlife video from the BBC epic natural world masterpiece 'Planet Earth'. This video was brought to you by Sir David Attenborough and the Planet Earth team.


The next on is about the Zombie Snails. As written in its description:
... this parasite is called Leucochloridium paradoxum. There are many other "mind-controlling" parasites such as the Spinochordodes Tellinii which infect grasshoppers and forces them to drown themselves... (Where the worm reproduces). Oh and one of my favs is the Toxoplasma Gondii found in cats intestines. But I'll let yall look it up. Savor the knowledge my children.



Who is inside you?
JK!

Ask questions to Physics Nobel Laureate in YouTube

Have you ever wanted to ask a Nobel Laureate a question?
Now, here's your chance! Ask a Nobel Laureate is offering you a unique opportunity to communicate with some of the world´s most brilliant minds.
The current participating Nobel Laureate is Albert Fert, Nobel Prize in Physics 2007 "for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance", which forms the basis of the memory storage system found in your computer.

Albert Fert will answer a selection of your uploaded video questions.
Upload your video question no later than March, 19, 2010.
Vote for your favourite questions, and a selection of the most popular questions will be answered by Albert Fert. Video responses will be posted in early April.

From wikipedia:
Albert Fert (born 7 March 1938 in Carcassonne, Aude) is a French physicist and one of the discoverers of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks. He is currently professor at Université Paris-Sud in Orsay and scientific director of a joint laboratory ('Unité mixte de recherche') between the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Scientific Research Centre) and Thales Group. Also, he is an Adjunct professor of physics at Michigan State University. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Peter Grünberg.
 
Head on to:
Ask a Nobel Laureate with Albert Fert
http://www.youtube.com/user/thenobelprize

NobelPrize.org page:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2007/
Ask questions!!!

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
-Albert Einstein

Hubble in IMAX 3D

AVATAR was my first and second(!) IMAX 3D movie.
IMAX is bringing another fantastic movie... it is about the hubble space telescope

Some Screenshots:

More...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=hubble-3d-imax-movie-2010-01-29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO4ZWJlROwE
http://www.imax.com/hubble/

Journey: From and Back to Home

I was completely absorbed by the following video... Journey from Home to eternity and back to home.
After you go out of the solar system, you are in void. tranquility prevails and you are alone in there... navigating away from your home. The journey is not so easy as it was fantasized.



http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/index.php