| Rotating earth dragging space and time |
| Solar sails |
| Mega Io |
| Northern lights |
| Dinosaurs on paper |
| Dulcet choirs of dinosaurs |
| The science of hockey |
| World's smallest abacus |
| A few rules, provisos, quid pro quos . . . . |
| Calculating machines |
| History of algebra |
| Inspired by science |
| Hand-drawn holograms |
| How to be a happy flocker |
| The tree of life |
| Something bugging you? |
| The history of Islamic medicine |
| The Howard Hughes Medical Institute: In the realm of the senses |
| You think Sipowicz knows about this? |
| O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling? |
| Clones-R-Us |
| Netsurfer Science letters |
| Language without letters |
| Little Shop of Physics |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal
http://www.gardfoods.com/
Keep car cool without destroying the ozone layer
The fastest growing illegal substance smuggled into the United States isn't a drug. It's a refrigerant: Freon-12. In a month or so, come high noon in a heat wave, it may be tempting for Americans to refill that pre1995 car's air conditioner with the CFC compound that destroys the ozone layer. Since compliance with the Montreal Protocol outlawed domestic manufacture, freon-12 is getting more and more expensive and harder to find ('though it is still legal to buy). It may be cheaper in the long run to retrofit your car now, and switch to new nonpolluting, less expensive HFC-134a. This new Environmental Protection Agency site tells you how.http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/title6/609/choice.html
http://www.goodyear.com/nat/run_flat/index.html
You, too, can speak like a car mechanic
Maybe your mechanic isn’t stupid. Could be he just doesn't understand what a hoozawhatzit is. One hour at this site and you’ll not only get vocabulary, but a good understanding of how a car’s mechanical and electrical systems work. This is not like squinting through a phonebook-style tech manual. It’s color. It’s animated. And it’s bigger than a 1957 Cadillac. Locate and click on whatever part of your car is ready to explode. Click the brakes, for example, and an animation pushes the brake pedal, then clearly shows the action down the brake lines right through to the wheel. A text sidebar explains how it works. And you can do it over and over in the privacy of your own home. Watch the little pistons go up and down, up and down. Internal combustion. What a concept!http://www.innerbody.com/innerauto/htm/auto.html
Internal combustion: A noxious concept. Enter: The fuel cell
Isn’t it just about time we got past this internal combustion thing? Recently, car manufacturers such as Daimler-Benz, Ford, and Toyota have invested in fuel cell start-up companies. It’s getting close, but serious obstacles remain before cars and power plants will quit burning, and start churning electricity from chemical reactions. To push R & D for commercial applications, The University of California at Irvine recently opened The National Fuel Cell Research Center, the first public/private consortium of its kind. Frankly, the Center’s Web site seems to be more for companies and educational institutions interested in participating; it doesn’t give a good introduction to the technology or the emerging industry. For that, you can’t beat good ol’ Scientific American, plus a trade paper called the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Letter.Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/explorations/122396explorations.html
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Letter: http://www.ttcorp.com/nha/thl/index.htm
National Fuel Cell Research Center, UC Irvine: http://www.nfcrc.uci.edu/
http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/challenge/index.html
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away
Rotating earth dragging space and time
When you tell your friends about this Web site, be careful that you don't say the Earth is dragging the ether with it as it rotates, lest you earn the disdain of modern scientific thinkers; everyone knows that Special Relativity rendered the lumeniferous ether obsolete. Be sure you refer to the space-time continuum, that immaterial construct that provides no absolute frame of reference. Yet the Earth is dragging space-time with it as it rotates ("like a bowling ball spinning in molasses") to the tune of two meters per year as experienced by the laser-ranging satellites LAGEOS I and II. An international team of researchers has published its findings based on four years of data from the satellites. The launch of a new NASA spacecraft in the year 2000 should reduce their margin by over 95%. This frame-dragging effect was first described by Austrian physicists Lense and Thirring in 1918. Now that physical verification is possible, maybe they can start working on the mysteries of daylight savings time.NASA press release: http://exosci.com/news/50.html
Team documents: http://www.physics.org/Journals/featured/cq1997014100003/
"Avast! Raise ye mizzenmast! We've Jupiter to make in a fortnight!" When planning your next trip to the outer planets, give careful consideration to the advantages of solar power over conventional rocket fuels: cheaper, quieter, lower chance of catastrophic malfunction. Mind you, we're not talking about conventional solar power, with its expensive cells and relatively heavy panels. We're talking about the direct impulse given by the light itself, the photons striking a lightweight sail extended from the spacecraft. Although the force is slight (9 micronewtons per square meter at our distance from the sun), it has been estimated that this could amount to an acceleration of about a few mm/s/s with proper spacecraft. Read how investigations of this technology could lead to new developments in other fields, such as ultralight structure analysis, material engineering, and origami. And you thought being keel-hauled at sea was rough!
http://www.ec-lille.fr/~u3p/
In 1979, the two Voyager spacecraft brought fame to Io. As the probes zipped by during their drives to interstellar space, they snapped pics of the jovian moon and revealed for the first time direct evidence of volcanic activity on a celestial body other than Earth. This page, part of a compilation called Views of the Solar System, succinctly features Io in all her glory. The two pictures show volcanic eruptions and a close-up of the surface. The text covers some fairly complex phenomena in language that's about as simple as could be used given the circumstances.
http://www.uni-trier.de/infos/solar/io.html
The Aurora Borealis - the Northern Lights - is illuminated for us by the Department of Geological Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Technological University. With prolific links (mostly valid) and several outstanding images (including some from space), the visitor has access to a variety of articles, tutorials, forecasts, and other scientific information. You don't need to imagine that the sky is on fire, that the government is performing bizarre electromagnetic experiments, or that the drive-in by the lake is showing another double-feature when you can learn the true facts of nature, as collected here. Did we mention the great pictures? ARCHEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
Northern Lights: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/weather/aurora/
The Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, recently hosted an exhibition of groundbreaking documents in the history of dinosaur discovery. This online companion offers the same works and more. Though the pages only supply synopses of the papers, each includes an illustration or two. Visitors can download many famous images like Richard Owen's detailed sketch of the first known Archaeopteryx or the Deinonychus that Bob Bakker drew to accompany the John Ostrom paper that kicked off the warm-blooded dinosaur debate. Anyone interested in dinosaurs will spend a glorious hour here.
http://www.lhl.lib.mo.us/pubserv/hos/dino/welcome.htm
Now that the movie's out, this site even has practical use - 'though by all accounts this should be better than that unnamed film. For best results, slide one of the office planted pots - preferably a palm or fern - over by your desk and shake the fronds gently as you click on the button. If your boss is away for the day, turn up your volume, too. In a matter of seconds you'll experience a frisson at the sound of a long-extinct dinosaur, Parasaurolophus, and your desk will be surrounded by coworkers demanding to know just what that heck that noise is. You can tell them it's Godzilla. Or, you can tell them the truth: They're listening to a scientific reconstruction of the sounds a trombone duckbill dinosaur might have made with the 5-foot high bony crest that stuck out of the top of its head. The site includes information about the dinosaur and a couple of videos as well. Surfers with slow modems, take note: These aren't small files.
http://www.nmmnh-abq.mus.nm.us/nmmnh/soundsandimages.html
MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42
http://www.exploratorium.edu/hockey/
Those of you using OS/2 will be glad to know that IBM, a world leader in scientific research, has vindicated your choice. IBM Research's Zurich laboratory has published a description of its successful attempt to create the world's smallest working abacus, whose beads are composed of individual molecules. Positioned and moved by the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), and resting on a copper substrate, the molecules themselves are actually spheres of 60 carbon atoms each, known as buckminsterfullerene, or bucky balls. The abacus works at room temperature, and can be viewed in operation with the aid of the STM, 'though the molecules are less than a nanometer (one millionth of a millimeter) in diameter. The research team hopes to develop even more complex structures, so we should all remember to check the IBM Patent Web site often for ultraminiature slide rules, food processors, steam engines, catapults, and pencil sharpeners.
IBM: http://www.patents.ibm.com/ibm.html
Bucky balls: http://tiger.chm.bris.ac.uk/cm1/AndrewJ/Welcome.htm
How to use an abacus: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mocat/abacus/abacus.html
A few rules, provisos, quid pro quos . . . .
You always hear lawyer jokes, but never any scientist jokes. After all, science has laws, too. So many, in fact, that it gets confusing when you're trying to remember the difference between Kirchoff's first law and his second law (and don't even think about his rules!). The Laws List is exactly what it claims to be - a glossary of most of the laws, rules, and concepts of physics and astronomy that delineate the nature of reality itself. Lawyers may have just a few more rules and laws of their own, but they'd be hard pressed to find an index like this page for quick reference to all of them.http://www.alcyone.com/max/physics/laws/index.html
Odds are, if you're a scientist, you use some sort of hand-held calculator. Whether you're an HP person or a TI devotee, your calculator has a common lineage, dating back to one Blaise Pascal. Most high school students of computer science have drudged through Pascal's namesake programming language, but he was also the first person to develop an adding machine. Adding machines were the precursors to calculators and a godsend for mathematicians everywhere. Although Pascal may have been the first to actually make an adding machine, even the great Leonardo da Vinci tried his hand at designing one. You'll learn all this and more at the Calculating Machines home page. Even if you're not intrigued by the history of mechanical mathematics, you might find something to amuse you; the staff of Newsweek magazine loved gawking over the dated 1940s ads for adding machines.
http://www.webcom.com/calc/
Even if you never really cared what X stood for, you may be interested in the historical development of algebra (from Arabic, meaning "the reunion of broken parts"). Trace its refinement to 16th-century England's Robert Recorde (died in debtors' prison; you'd think he'd be able to keep better books). Read about the contributions of Charles Babbage (inventor of the cowcatcher, had an irrational fear of street musicians), George Boole (killed by his wife, was nephew of George Everest, after whom the mountain is named), Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll, liked to photograph young, nude girls), and Alan Turing (taskmasters feared treason was byproduct of homosexuality, didn't exercise care while experimenting with potassium cyanide). Learn about recent developments, such as the use of algebraic laws in the verification of computer specifications. Jonathan Bowen (lives in same English town as Uri Geller) has produced a concise and thorough account of the subject, with profuse hyperlinks and even a few pictures. So, if eight main pages each had 12 links, all with 2kb of content, how long would it take to download them through a 2400-baud modem?
http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/users/jonathan.bowen/algebra/
SCIENCE AND ART
Puttin' on the Ritz
http://silweb.sil.si.edu/exhibits/artistsbook/brochure.htm
Kids: Ask your parents before you try this on the family chariot!!! Bill Beaty, who runs a popular science hobbyist Web site, has published his discovery of a simple way to make holograms on the hood of a car (or other flat, polished surface, such as plexiglass). Simply by making randomly-spaced arc-shaped scratches in the surface with a sharp-tipped compass, the hand-drawn image made at the vertex will apparently become visible above or below that surface. Bill claims that this technique makes holograms without regard to illumination frequency or interference fringe spacing, thus greatly reducing the cost and complexity of producing them. He speculates that billboard-sized holograms would be feasible (Camel? Angeline? The Mystery Spot?), as well as incoherent-light holocameras. Now where does Dad keep his compass?
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amateur/holo1.html
MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY
It's alive! It's alive!
Brakke: http://www.susqu.edu/facstaff/b/brakke/complexity/hagey/flock.htm
Reynolds: http://hmt.com/cwr/boids.html
When biologists talk of phylogeny, they mean the relationships between groups of animals - the tree of life. Phylogenetic analysis uses many tools: morphology; stratigraphy; cladistics; molecular analysis; and more. Any Web site trying to cover the phylogeny of all life had better have access to limitless resources and desk space. The University of California Museum of Paleontology has both. Don't expect to find the entire history of life here, though that may be an ultimate aim. The pages here do enough to just skim the theories, the methods, and the phylogenetic groups. Links to special projects, like one on vertebrate flight, enliven your visit. The sheer amount of content and numbers of links here cannot possibly be covered in one evening. Bookmark it, and take your time.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/phylogeny.html
Entomologists and anthropologists, unite! Cultural entomology is the study of human culture as it has been influenced by insects, and the first four issues of the Cultural Entomology Digest e-zine cover everything from the role of certain insects in ancient cultures the Greek art of "cricket cages." Only entomologists with devout love of the science would devote an entire page to pictures of scarab hieroglyphs, but even a few minutes reading Kafka's "Metamorphosis" or gawking at a new VW Beetle will make you consider their point: humans are influenced by the insect world more often than they realize.
http://insects.org/ced1/ced_index.html
The history of Islamic medicine
The term “Arabic medicine” has been widely used to describe the body of healing knowledge native to middle eastern and North African countries. But this site adopts the term “Islamic medicine” to emphasize spiritual underpinnings that the authors feel elevate scientific cultural achievement to divine work. And the scientific achievements are fascinating. Read about how 9th-century Persian writings on smallpox were referenced in European medicine through the 18th century. How middle eastern physicians and alchemists preserved and built on much of the world’s scientific knowledge all but lost to European culture during the dark ages. And anyone in the healing arts may be deeply moved and refreshed by the devotion in the words of The Oath of a Muslim Physician.http://www.mic.ki.se/Arab.html
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute: In the realm of the senses
If you’re like us, you’ll jump to the “sniffing social.sexual signals” page first. And it’s not a bad place to start learning about how the nervous system interprets sensory stimulation. Some of the most provocative research in the past five years has been on the so-called “accessory olfactory system,” two little cigar-shaped sacks behind the nostrils called the vomeronasal organs. Scientists suspect that’s the sweet spot in the initial, purely unconscious stages of the mating ritual. This site covers regular old conscious sniffing, too - as in home made bread - in addition to sight, hearing, taste, and the complex signals that register touch. Whether you’re learning the basics, or you thought you already knew all about the brain and the senses, this Howard Hughes Medical Institute site lays out the latest in clear language and vivid graphics.http://www.hhmi.org/senses/
ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, ECONOMICS, AND GEOGRAPHY
All that we see or seem
You think Sipowicz knows about this?
You and a good friend are caught under suspicion of a heinous crime. Put in separate interrogation rooms, you and your friend are each offered the same deal: squeal on the other guy, and you get a commuted sentence. You know that if you both keep mum, the police can't prove anything. If you squeal on your friend, and he says nothing, you'll be much better off than he will; if you both confess, you both get a sentence that's not as severe as if the other guy had ratted you out. What do you do: rat out your friend, or stay quiet and hope he does the same? What strategy would you use if you and your friend are caught over and over, and you have the chance to make the decision again, each of you knowing full well the outcome of the last encounter? This is the iterated prisoner's dilemma (IPD), a scenario used to model chaotic and complex systems in everything from biology to economics. It can even predict the blood-sharing behaviors of vampire bats, who, on a bad night, turn to their roostmates for a little sustenance. Who says playing a game won't teach you anything?http://www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/~brembs/ipd/ipd.html
O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling?
Why is selling life insurance in Cleveland a skate compared to selling in Madrid, where an agent is likely to get a door slammed in her face? Because life insurance is ridiculous, say the Spanish. They have a completely different view of death from Americans, who buy more life insurance than any other nationality. This site uses cultural comparisons; philosophical, artistic and historical ruminations; and, government studies to look at the event shared by every being. The point of view is sociological, as summed up in the declaration that “’Death’ is a socially constructed idea”. This site is so chock full of references and links to solid scholarship, statistics, and ethical action groups, you don’t have to agree. And there’s practical advice, too: how to arrange a funeral, and how to search for Great Aunt Fanny’s grave site, may she rest in peace. Our title is from the World War I era song, "For You, but Not for Me".http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/death.html
SCIENCE LITE
Where are you, Mulder?
http://www.d-b.net/dti/
RESIDUE
We can't be sure what else is out there
http://www.netsurf.com/nss/letters/sletter.01.03.html
A group at the interdisciplinary Haskins Laboratories has posted a page that summarizes its complex research into speech. The group took normal speech and acoustically reduced it to mere tones. Graphically, where speech is normally a complex pattern of wavy smudges on a frequency vs. time graph, the tones show up as a set of clearly delineated sine waves. When subjects listened to the tonal sounds, few could decipher them; but when told the sound was a sentence, most subjects understood it properly despite a complete lack of normal phonemes (the sounds of letters). The scientists reached the fascinating - once you understand what's going on - conclusion that no part of spoken language is necessary for comprehension. The site provides sample sound files with which you can test yourself.
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Haskins/MISC/SWS/SWS.html
The online experiments you'll find at Colorado State University's Little Shop of Physics are decidedly entertaining, sometimes surprising, and, above all, approachable. They don't take much equipment - the coolest employs nothing more than a pencil and a computer monitor - but they do deliver interesting lessons in basic physics. There's a goofy gung-ho attitude to science here, perhaps best reflected in a note concerning the Little Shop's attempts to build a Galilean thermometer by putting a bunch of different condiment packets in a bottle: mayonnaise, ketchup, BBQ sauce, and whatever else might work (they're open to suggestions). Experiments are available in three flavors: those you can handle on your computer; those that require some household props; and a few that employ Shockwave for a bit of experimental interactivity. For starters we'd recommend the Raspberry Shake: Not only do you get to learn a little physics and physiology, but you get to stick your tongue out at your computer too.
http://129.82.166.181/experiments.html