education
grrlscientist | April 9, 2010tags: math class, film making, animation, technology, weird, offbeat, flatland, Biola University, Matthew Weathers, streaming video
This is a trick that Matthew Weathers made for a lecture he presented in his Nature of Math class at Biola University. He apparently likes experimenting with mixing live action with video.
Here's his Halloween 2009 lecture:
How the heck did he do that?
bioephemera | April 9, 2010
A very cool addition to the NLM "Turning the Pages" virtual library, which I blogged about back in December: the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus. You literally click and drag to unroll the papyrus, and then toggle the annotations on or off. While it doesn't have the pretty pictures that some of their other virtual manuscripts do (like Robert Hooke's Micrographia), it's pretty cool to unroll the world's oldest surviving surgical text, written in Egyptian script circa the 17th century BC.
(Alas, while my first instinct was "This would look so cool on the iPad," the website's in flash. Boo.)
drorzel | April 9, 2010The National Science Board made a deeply regrettable decision to omit questions on evolution and the Big Bang from the Science and Engineering Indicators report for 2010. As you might expect, this has stirred up some controversy.
I wasn't surprised to learn this, as I had already noticed the omission a couple of months ago, when I updated the slides for my talk on public communication of science-- the figure showing survey data in the current talk doesn't include those questions, while the original version has them in there. I noticed it, and thought it was a little odd, but it had no effect…
grrlscientist | April 9, 2010tags: Pied Crested Kingfisher, Crested Kingfisher, Megaceryle lugubris, Alcedo lugubris, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Pied Crested Kingfisher, Crested Kingfisher, Megaceryle (Alcedo) lugubris, photographed at Kosi River, Ramnagar, India. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: John Kneeshaw [larger view].
Canon EOS 40D with 300mmAF lens.
What sex is this bird and upon what are you basing that assessment?
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
rallain | April 8, 2010I have made some small changes to my physics textbook. Basically, I have been updating all my old posts so that you can find stuff. What I did was include tags for each topic. For instance, suppose you are looking at projectile motion. Well, I include a link to examples with projectile motion.
Some of the examples may not be the best for that topic, but it is better than nothing. Really, what I need to do (other than finish tagging all my old posts) is to pick one good example for each topic. There is always tomorrow.
bioephemera | April 8, 2010
While I was guest-posting over at Collective Imagination last month, I suggested that while better public access to peer reviewed research articles is a priority for the scientific community, knocking down firewalls may not be sufficient to help many patients, who lack the scientific background to plow through a Nature article. To get there, we may need efforts to provide plain language, accessible, searchable summaries of the research that clearly signpost the articles' relevance to patient needs. In addition to many interesting comments on the post, I got an email from the people behind…
drorzel | April 8, 2010Via Twitter, Michael Barton is looking for some good books about physics. I was Twitter-less for a few days around the period of his request, and this is a more-than-140-characters topic if ever there was one, so I'm turning it into a blog post.
The reason for the request is that he's going to be working as an intern at the Einstein exhibit when it visits Portland, which makes this a little tricky, as relativity is not an area I've read a lot of popular books in (yet-- that's changing). That will make this a little more sparse than it might be in some other fields.
There's also an essential…
grrlscientist | April 8, 2010tags: Pacific Golden-Plover, Asian Golden-Plover, Eastern Golden-Plover, Pluvialis fulva, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Pacific Golden-Plover, also known as the Asian Golden-Plover or Eastern Golden-Plover, Pluvialis fulva, photographed on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, Midway Island, Hawai'i. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Image: Joe Fuhrman, March 2010. I encourage you to purchase images from this professional photographer.
This migratory bird that visits North America as well as countries on the other side of the Pacific Ocean shares a…
grrlscientist | April 7, 2010tags: Light My Fire, physics, fire, weird, streaming video
Here's a short video showing a fun trick you can play with fire -- in your own home. It also is a graphic illustration as to why fires are so difficult to extinguish.
grrlscientist | April 7, 2010tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Kristin Baldwin, Assistant Professor at Scripps Research's Department of Cell Biology
What: free public presentation, "The Future of Stem Cells"
When: TONIGHT at 700pm
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: FREE, and there is a cash bar too! (must be 21+ with ID)
What if your cells could be engineered to grow your own replacement organs? Glimpse the future of…
grrlscientist | April 7, 2010tags: Butcherbird, Loggerhead Shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Loggerhead Shrike, also known as the Butcherbird, Lanius ludovicianus, photographed on the Katy Prairie, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 1 January 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/80s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
This mystery bird has a weird common name .. can anyone tell me why it has such an odd name?
Review…
grrlscientist | April 7, 2010tags: Seed Media Group, online media, science news, science writing, public outreach, education, announcement, press release
Yesterday, The Mothership (Scienceblogs.com), released their traffic figures from the launch of the site in January 2006 through the first quarter of 2010. These numbers are quite impressive, regardless of which universe you inhabit [free PDF]:
Visits for the quarter ending March 31 grew by 41% year-over-year to approximately 13 million, and page views topped 25 million. Monthly unique visitors grew to 2.4 million worldwide and in the US surpassed 2 million for the…
bioephemera | April 6, 2010
So the word among my friends is that the iPad, which, as Stephen Fry noted, may be the closest thing humanity has yet produced to a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, might just be worth buying -- if only as a stunningly cool toy and not, alas, the tablet many of us wanted. For example, I give you TouchPress' ebook The Elements for iPad, by Theodore Grey:
As the first really new ebook developed from the ground up for iPad, The Elements beautifully shows off the capabilities of this lovely device. It is impossile to describe in words the experience of seeing and almost feeling over 500…
grrlscientist | April 6, 2010tags: education, public outreach, SciCafe, science cafe, AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, NYC, streaming video
Who: Kristin Baldwin, Assistant Professor at Scripps Research's Department of Cell Biology
What: free public presentation, "The Future of Stem Cells"
When: Wednesday, 7 April at 700pm
Where: Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street (Rose Center) [directions and maps]
Cost: FREE, and there is a cash bar too! (must be 21+ with ID)
What if your cells could be engineered to grow your own replacement organs? Glimpse the…
grrlscientist | April 6, 2010tags: Razorbill, Alca torda, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds] Razorbill, Alca torda, photographed at the Machias Seal Island, Maine. [I will identify these birds for you in 48 hours]
Image: Paul Sweet, 26 May 2008 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
These stunning birds are the only member of their genus -- can you identify it? As a bonus question, can you tell me about one of its famous relatives?
Review all mystery birds to date.
bioephemera | April 5, 2010This is kind of cool:
For the second year in a row, AAAS [the American Association for the Advancement of Science] will be arranging hands-on science activities for children attending the White House Easter Egg Roll.AAAS was invited by the Office of Science and Technology Policy to help infuse science into the event on Monday 5 April. In partnership with AAAS, the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, also will be participating in the event.With the theme "The Science of Spring," AAAS staffers have arranged activities, such as bean dissection and viewing of seeds…
grrlscientist | April 5, 2010tags: Lake Gull, Common Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Larus delawarensis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Ring-billed Gull, also known as the Common Gull or Lake Gull, Larus delawarensis, photographed at Bolivar Peninsula, Galveston County, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, March 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/640s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | April 4, 2010tags: Self Playing Harmonica, music, music video, DIY, computer printer, harmonica, vacuum cleaner, Instructibles, Stupid Inventions, streaming video
There are lots of different types of Self-Playing Instruments, but the folks at Stupid Inventions wanted to create something new so they decided to build the Self Playing Harmonica. Made from an old printer and a vacuum cleaner, the Self-Playing Harmonica will play different songs based on the image you print.
You can learn more about this and find step-by-step instructions for constructing your own self-playing harmonica at Instructibles.
grrlscientist | April 4, 2010tags: birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds] photographed in mystery world location. [I will identify these birds for you in 48 hours, unless I've eaten them all first]
Image: orphaned [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
This flock of birds is easy to ID, so I am "upping the ante" by also asking you to give me these birds' scientific name, traditional geographic range, age and gender! Can you do this?
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | April 3, 2010tags: African Pied Wagtail, Motacilla aguimp, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] African Pied Wagtail, Motacilla aguimp, photographed in East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania, Africa. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Dan Logen, 12 January 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D300, 600 mm lens ISO 320, 1/200 sec, f/ 7.1 Exp comp -.3
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.