| Vannevar Bush: The origins of hypertext |
| El Nino slowing Earth's rotation |
| Indonesian fire maps |
| Hot stuff from Volcano World |
| Have you hugged your plumber today? |
| Help for female computer scientists |
| Defacing Mars |
| Trashing space |
| Global Positioning System |
| Is the speed of light a speed limit? |
| Molecules of the month |
| Chemicool |
| Alternative photographic processes |
| Ice ages of the extinct and famous |
| Luis Rey, dino artist |
| Ancient cyberspace |
| Is it art or science? |
| Titanic secrets of cinematography |
| Gynecology 101 |
| The heart: An online exploration |
| Kudzu as a cure for alcoholism |
| The Gene Letter |
| Froggy goes awebbin' |
| Science is a joke |
| Fun with artificial music from dead western males |
| Why files |
| Science curriculum for elementary teachers online: Free, too |
| Empiricist, little brother to the big guys |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
SCIENCE IN CONTEXT
The Time Machine
Vannevar Bush: The origins of hypertext
Believe it not, World War II was only just over in Europe, when Vannevar Bush, Director of the U.S. war time Office of Scientific Research and Development, proposed the framework for hypertext. In the July 1945 "Atlantic Monthly", computing pioneer Bush wrote "As we may think", challenging scientists to create the means for making the already unwieldy mass of knowledge more accessible to users. The model arose from Bush's work with microfilm records, ruled by his realization that the way we order and use information is seldom linear in the way that books are linear. His notion, although conceived in microfilm, painted precisely the broad strokes of the hypertext model that now drives so much of the Internet (also first conceived for military purposes). To see how consuming a concept hypertext has become, look at Landow's "Hypertext and critical theory".Bush: http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/
Landow: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/ht/contents.html
EARTH AND SKY
No matter where you go, there you are
El Nino slowing Earth's rotation
Just when you that thought that everything had already been blamed on El Nino, new evidence from NASA indicates that the energetic wind patterns have absorbed energy from the rotating Earth, slowing its angular velocity. Though the effect is slight (usually 0.3 - 0.6 milliseconds each day), the cumulative effect is that a man who lives at the equator is now 152' to the west of where he would have been had the wind patterns not changed. Not mere guessing or computer modelling, this is the result of quantitative measurements performed by the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network, a global array of radio telescopes receiving signals from distant quasars. So, now you can explain why you've had trouble getting to work on time.Press Release: ftp://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/pao/releases/1998/98-039.htm
VLBI info: http://cddis.gsfc.nasa.gov/VLBI_summary.html
http://www.state.gov//www/global_issues/fires.html
You needn't know the difference between aa and pahoehoe lavas to appreciate the wealth of information at "Volcano World". Choose from images, video clips, data, breaking news, observatories, kids' pages, teaching aids, and the popular Ask a Volcanologist feature (no, he can't explain how a tricorder works; I already asked). Find out if that big hill down old Route 39 is really just the remnant of a receding glacier - or is it a dormant volcano with pressure building to a critical level, soon to send hot suffocating ash and waves of lava upon your house. The only thing objectionable about this site is the obvious and blatant attempt to raise its standings on the search engines through the use of terms like "cleavage", "ejecta", and "hardness" on its glossary page. Stick to science, please - we're wise to such tactics.
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html
COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal
Have you hugged your plumber today?
In ancient Rome, rich people's bathrooms were like small, heated, marble swimming pools; in ancient Greece, real men took cold showers because warm water was for sissies. Queen Elizabeth I may have bathed only monthly, but she did have the first flush toilet in England. Still, it took the British a long time to get their - um - sewage together. Even a century ago, the Thames River was a reeking sewer for London's raw waste. Nothing gives an intimate portrait of a people like a description of their ablutions. The History of Plumbing, prepared by "Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine", traces epidemics such as typhus, cholera and bubonic plague to poverty, ignorance and poor plumbing. Prince Edward, Queen Victoria's son, nearly died of typhus. When the royal plumber found the contaminated pipe and fixed it, Edward reportedly exclaimed, "If I could not be a prince, I would rather be a plumber".http://www.theplumber.com/H_index.html
Help for female computer scientists
Ellen Spertus, assistant professor of computer science at Mills College, recounts a telling story: As part of a study to find out why only about half as many women as men major in computer science, a researcher interviewed a prominent professor. The man flatly denied any biases in his department that could discourage women. But the interviewer was having trouble concentrating - she was distracted by the huge computer printout of a naked woman on the wall, framing the professor. This site, beyond posting MIT and NSF studies of gender imbalance, compiles links to university and professional organizations for female computer scientists. You'll find the magazine, "Annals of the History of Computing", published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which sponsors the site. Not just for comp sci hardcores, anyone grappling with gender issues will find hard numbers here.http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/gender.html
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away
http://www.msss.com/mars/global_surveyor/camera/images/4_6_face_release/inde
One hopes that Earthlings won't trash the final frontier, but the littering of space is already well under way. Space junk zipping along orbital pathways at 17,000 MPH has knocked out satellites and dinged space shuttle windows; next, it promises to be a headache for the soon-to-be-launched International Space Station. The on-line "Orbital Debris Quarterly News", out of NASA's Johnson Space Center, takes its garbage seriously, delivering scholarly reports on space debris mitigation, detection, and protection efforts. The quarterly includes an orbital debris box score - more than 6000 bits of tracked trash at last count - and links to pages covering nearly all aspects of the debris problem. No trash talk here, just solid, reliable information on an Earthly problem in the heavens.
http://sn-callisto.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/news_index.html
Thanks to a $10 billion effort courtesy of the U.S. military, you can know where you are anywhere on Earth within 100 meters and set your watch to within 340 nanoseconds of UTC. Now, thanks to the University of Texas at Austin, you can learn all about how GPS works, right down to frequencies and modulation signals. You can take comfort in two dozen satellites in 12-hour orbits, constantly beaming microwaves at the Earth to aid you in maritime and aerial navigation, surveying, clock synchronization, precision military strikes, ionosphere mapping, or finding your way home from the grocery store. The site offers detailed information with graphics and sample data. Imagine the fun you'll have explaining to Cousin Lloyd the superiority of your GPS receiver over his old compass as you traipse around the woods trying to find your way back to the cabin.
UTA: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html
Another GPS site: http://www.aero.org/publications/GPSPRIMER/index.html
And one more: http://www.navcen.uscg.mil/GPS/
MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42
Is the speed of light a speed limit?
Any teenager with a brand new license and a flashy red sports car is no doubt in favor of raising the speed limit. The same goes for astrophysicists. Without a speed limit defined by the speed of light, the faster than light (FTL) possibilities of space travel posed by science fiction might be realized. Back at the turn of the century, when Einstein postulated relativity, he stipulated that the speed of light was a constant in all reference frames. Dr. Laro Schatzer notes that this stipulation was just an assumption by Einstein. Does it really have to be this way, at least in principle? Schatzer's arguments deal with the nature of the space-time continuum itself. Heady stuff, to be certain, but his paper keeps the subject simple and lucid, offering increasing complexity for those whose appetites for heavy physics need further whetting and sating.http://monet.physik.unibas.ch/~schatzer/space-time.html
OK, not as exciting as "Strange Site of the Day" or "Swimsuit of the Day", but these two "Molecule of the Month" pages do have some measure of informational value. Publisher Houghton Mifflin presents the first site, currently offering a description of the Olestra molecule, the fat substitute developed by Proctor & Gamble. Included is a model of the molecule, a description of its structure, an outline of its synthesis, and some editorializing about its nutritional and economic value (e.g., the dreaded leakage problem and the projected $15 billion snack food market). The other site, presented by the University of Bristol (U.K.), features MCM-41, a complex silicate with 80% porosity. Visitors may view molecules in 3D format through external programs (after downloading), plug-in, Java applet, or VRML, depending on the capabilities of your browser. Previous molecules included ozone, ATP, vitamin B12, buckyballs, water, diamond, aspirin, and the ever popular 4-bromo-4'-methoxyacetophenone azine.
Houghton Mifflin: http://www.hmco.com:80/hmco/college/chemistry/resourcesite/molecule/molecule
Bristol: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm
Whether you're preparing mercury fulminate or enriching Pu-239, you'll find the Chemicool Periodic Table a handier reference than that musty old handbook on the shelf. There's a colorful image map and all the things you'd expect from such a reference, such as atomic number and weight, density, and transition states. But, wait. There's more. You also get energy levels, electron configurations, physical properties, standard reactions, radius, thermal and electrical conductivity, relative abundance, and estimated cost. Dump your old links; impress your colleagues with Chemicool.
Chemicool: http://wild-turkey.mit.edu/Chemicool/
Alternative photographic processes
Photography is seem by some as a meeting ground between science and art. As the medium is - from the perspective of digiterati -- poised to become almost entirely digital, it's fascinating to learn that there are other ways to print negatives than those methods that are generally commercially available. Among the possibilities are the argyrotype process (silver), the cyanotype process (Prussian blue), and the platino-palladiotype process (platinum and palladium). It is the hope of this site's author, Mike Ware, that these alternatives will "enhance the expressive capacity of the medium". We think it does - and the freely downloadable images provided here definitely support that hope.http://www.mikeware.demon.co.uk/
ARCHEOLOGY, PALEONTOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY
What is past is prologue
Ice ages of the extinct and famous
Say you're in Chicago some 16,000 years ago. Say, too, that you forgot your sweater. You'll probably be a little chilly, 'cuz there's a mile of ice on top of you. This exhibit, "The Midwestern U.S. 16,000 Years Ago", explores the environment of middle America as the last glaciers to cover the region retreated. Judging by sheer page count, the exhibit focuses primarily on the animal life of the time. Pictures and the occasional QTVR file supplement the fairly basic info, which makes a nice light snack but won't satisfy those with an appetite for meatier study.http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/
While Luis Rey began his career as a surrealist artist, his work as a respected paleo-illustrator has led to membership in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Luis's Web page delves into his paleontological obsession with a particular focus on dinosaur-bird evolution, and current commentary accompanies most images. You can find more pictures, including Luis's recent "Fortean Times" cover, behind the What's New link. If you like dinos, you'll like this site. But no matter how hard we try, we can't figure out what that wrestler dude is doing on the intro page.
http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey/index.htm
When digiterati think of urban centers, we think of places like Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley. Newly on-line, however, is Cataloyuk, the world's earliest known urban center (7000 BCE). It's currently the site of state-of-the-art archeological excavation and conservation - and soon will be a well planned heritage site drawing visitors from around the world. Clicking on flint daggers (forward and back) or a clay figure (contents) allows virtual tourists to range through a tasty menu of options - from fully scientific reports and data through QuickTime movies of the excavation and colorful reconstructions.
http://catal.arch.cam.ac.uk/catal/catal.html
SCIENCE AND ART
Puttin' on the Ritz
http://artn.nwu.edu/VP/index.html
Titanic secrets of cinematography
It won 238 Oscars, cable TV shows just about live underwater now, and Leonardo no longer means da Vinci, but how much do you really know about the making of "Titanic", the movie? This Kodak site reveals in the words of Russell Carpenter, Titanic's Oscar-winning (duh!) director of photography, the secrets of lighting and filming the action. We especially enjoyed the tale of how all writing, hairstyles, and clothing in the boarding scenes had to be reversed because while the film crew only had the starboard side of the ship to work with, Titanic boarded on the port (duh!) side.http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/carpenter/kodakTitanicHome.shtml
MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY
It's alive! It's alive!
http://www.gyn101.com/
The heart: An online exploration
"I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I have heard many things in hell." So said Edgar Allen Poe's character in "The Tell-Tale Heart". Now you can hear the sounds of beating hearts, thanks to the Franklin Institute Science Museum, which offers an entire virtual museum of the heart for your inspection. Listen to healthy and diseased hearts, view Quicktimes of open-heart surgery and echocardiograms, review x-rays, learn how the heart works, even take an animated trip down a coronary artery. You can learn how to correctly take your own pulse (five different ways) and how to keep your heart healthy. There's also advice on the importance of correctly matching blood types when you require a transfusion. Resource materials for teachers are provided, along with on-line activities and "the heart in popular culture" (songs, films, poetry). Your heart will thank you.http://sln.fi.edu/biosci/heart.html
Kudzu as a cure for alcoholism
What's worse: a creeping vine that dominates the landscape and wraps itself around trees, or a drunken creep who dominates parties and wraps his car around a tree? Relief from each may soon be found in the other, according to Dr. Scott Lukas, pharmacologist at MacLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. Lukas is currently conducting a study of the kudzu root and its possible role in the suppression of the effects of alcohol on the body. Kudzu is the alien weed that has been gradually taking over the southeastern United States, and Lukas is compiling evidence that an extract of its root may inhibit both the release of alcohol from the stomach and its reception in the brain. If true, the resulting rise in demand for kudzu as an antialcoholism drug could lead to southern roads that are not only safer, but more scenic as well.Lukas: http://www.ivanhoe.com/docs/backissues/anaturalcureforalcoholism.html
Kudzu: http://www.yahoo.com/Science/Biology/Botany/Kudzu/
It turns out DNA is like your e-mailbox: 95% of its contents are useless. Only 5% of DNA strands are active in reproduction. And another thing, before you call your boss a mutant, remember that technically, you're a mutant, I'm a mutant ... even Brad Pitt's body will generate at least 30 mutations during its reign on earth. Although the bimonthly "Gene Letter" is aimed at health care professionals, anybody who reproduces regularly might want to at least speed read a few runes in the book of life. Sponsored by the Shriver Center, the Letter features articles on ethical, medical, legal, and public policy issues. It provides information for people with gene-linked diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia. Of course, if you're interested in cloning, park here. And there's a chat room full of thoughtful questions from all kinds of people. A school girl spurred one of the more interesting debates with her question: Is being a tomboy a genetic trait?
http://www.geneletter.org/mainmenu.htm
SCIENCE LITE
Where are you, Mulder?
http://frog.simplenet.com/froggy/
Those who think science a tad too dry at times ought to stop by Joachim Verhagen's "Science Joke Archive". There are scads of jokes from various disciplines - math, biology, chemistry, physics, and more. Some will get you chuckling, while others will simply leave you scratching your head (Customer: "How much is a large order of Fibonaccos?" Cashier: "It's the price of a small order plus the price of a medium order." Huh?). If you poke around long enough, though, you'll find some gems. Our favorites: the poem "Near A Raven" in the mnemonics section which encodes the first 740 decimals of pi; a chemist's recipe for chocolate chip cookies found in the chemistry section; and, under other sciences, the Smithsonian Institution's reply to an amateur paleoanthropologist who forwarded a chewed up Barbie head (identified as a hominid skull) as evidence of "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams".
http://www.princeton.edu/~pemayer/ScienceJokes.html
RESIDUE
We can't be sure what else is out there
Fun with artificial music from dead western males
For a euphonious dose of artificial intelligence, try Mozart's 42nd symphony. "Ah-HA!", you cry. Even Netsurfer Scientists are gum-popping Puff Daddy purveyors of a declining culture! Everyone knows Mozart only wrote 41 symphonies! Yes, indeedy. But respected composer David Cope has created a computer program called EMI (pronounced "Emmy") which takes up where the great composers left off. EMI analyses a composer's body of work, then performs a bunch of secret calculations you can read about at this Web site, and poof! A Chopin mazurka. Or a Bach fugue. Or a Scott Joplin rag. Listen to a few pieces. David Cope is the first to admit it's a little computery - short on soul, but still better than most of the stuff that Solieri guy wrote.http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/home/
El Nino washed away your house,
And Bessy might be a mad cow;
You're wracked with emotions of love and grief,
And these scientists want to say how.
They take a look at the things they read
In the news or watch on TV,
Then they turn to books, and profs and docs,
And give the straight dope in their screed.
Each week, each month, you'll find something new:
Cool photos, news flashes and more.
Yet the greatest thrill is the visceral chill,
Wondering what's up next and in store.
From lunar ice to killer ticks
To meteors from the sky,
To sports, to clones, to satellites--
All covered in the files called "Why".
http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/
Science curriculum for elementary teachers online: Free, too
Be honest: is your frog evisceration shtik getting tired? Looking for fresh ways to get the kids excited about the quantifiable qualities of the illusive mysteries of life itself? You might get some ideas from the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization, Optimizing National Education. Their site offers more than 4,000 pages of kindergarten through sixth-grade science texts, teaching plans and creative ideas for activities outside class. The prime mover of the "Exploring Science" program, third-grade teacher Leigh Hoven-Severson, tried to get it on the California Board of Education's list of approved texts. The Board refused, saying it contains factual errors and other problems. But a National Science Teachers Association review gives it thumbs up. Emphasis is on teaching not just book facts but also science process skills: observation, and data recording, evaluation, and analysis. Incidentally, for three years running, Hoven-Severson's classes were state champions in a NASA-sponsored science contest.http://www.opnated.org/
Empiricist, little brother to the big guys
Lego has Duplo. Boy Scouts have Cub Scouts. Why shouldn't something as prevalent and essential in the scientific community as academic, peer-reviewed journals have their own "junior" equivalent? Until now, there hasn't been such an ambitious site as "Empiricist". Serving a useful niche for high-school science education, Empiricist is not only a peer-reviewed journal for pre-collegiates, but also a resource of great ideas for science projects. Although many of its content supplements, such as the rainstorming section, are still under construction, Empiricist offers budding scientists a chance to get experience writing papers for publication.http://biology.nebrwesleyan.edu/empiricist/