Olympic cleanup

By Jef Akst Olympic cleanup Pictured from left: Prof. J. Hirokawa, Hokkaido University; Nathan Kellams, Valparaiso University; Ted Pietrzak, Valparaiso University; R. Saito, Hokkaido University. Photo by Katherine Kuster On August 6, 2008, just after 2 o’clock in the afternoon in Sapporo, Japan, physicist Gary Morris of Valparaiso University in Indiana surrendered the 6-foot-wide, solid-white weather balloon that he had just spent ov

Written byJef Akst

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On August 6, 2008, just after 2 o’clock in the afternoon in Sapporo, Japan, physicist Gary Morris of Valparaiso University in Indiana surrendered the 6-foot-wide, solid-white weather balloon that he had just spent over an hour calibrating and preparing for its journey through the sky. The graduate students from Hokkaido University assigned to the launch eagerly accepted the instrument, and Morris headed up to the nearby rooftop observatory to make the last-minute checks before radioing the final “Go” to the students below.

“I’ve done a lot of balloon launches, [but] it was a little more nerve-wracking being in Japan launching,” Morris admits. “I wanted things to go smoothly.”

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At 2:54 p.m., the students released the balloon, which lofted peacefully into the air, rising at a rate of 5 meters per second. It was an unusually hazy day, a balmy ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
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Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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