| The Albatross: Good Omen for Sailors, Scientists, and Students |
| Brazilian Swan Songs |
| Geology on the Rocks |
| Ice, Ice, Ice, and Ice |
| The Big Bend |
| Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments |
| Nanotechnology |
| Telephone Terminology |
| Basic Hologram Principles |
| Flints and Stones |
| Living Rocks, Living Fossils |
| Amber at the AMNH |
| Visual Physics |
| Odd Socks and Buttered Toast |
| Infinity: The Sound of One Hand Clapping |
| Physicists Must be Poets, God Must Be a Gambler (Who Cheats), and Scientists Gotta Have Heart |
| Aging |
| Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science |
| Grim News for Dog Lovers |
| Organ Donor How-To Site |
| Forensic Entomology |
| Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts |
| Hard Science in a Candy Coating |
| The Skeptic's Entertaining |
| Physicists on the Money |
| Museum of Unnatural Mystery |
| Optical illusions |
| Asbestos Awareness |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
EARTH SYSTEMS
No matter where you go, there you are
The Albatross: Good Omen for Sailors, Scientists, and Students
Satellites, the Internet, and big birds dovetail to let grade school kids all over the country work along side biologists in North Carolina. The Albatross Project was designed both for students learning scientific method and for scientists who want to learn more about these monogamous island-nesters, who don't travel in flocks. Small homing devices planted between their wings track their unusual feeding habits. For example, to feed her chicks, a female might take off from a Pacific atoll, scarf 40 pounds of whale carcass at the Golden Gate 1500 miles away - then zip back with a delightful dinner to regurgitate. The site has maps, criss-crossed with colored lines representing flight patterns, plus experiment data and water-cooler tidbits. Did you know an albatross can sleep while flying? This project, funded by the National Science Foundation and hosted at Wake Forrest University, is open to any teacher who wants to join - free.http://www.wfu.edu/albatross
The Portuguese word "sodade" comes to mind when visiting this site, a listening post for the songs of 51 birds of the Amazon rainforest, many at the threshold of extinction. "Sodade" is difficult to translate, but it's meant to convey more than melancholy, less than schmaltz: a legitimate longing, a nostalgia for something impossibly beautiful. Listening on the Web to the Hyacinthine Macaw, the Great Xenops, and the Brasília Tapaculo, among others - remember, they won't sing much longer in the wild
http://www.mma.gov.br/ingles/CGMI/cantoave/cantoi.html
Need some ice for your drink? Try Antarctica - that's what a group from Rice University is doing and the research group has set up an impressive Web site exploring the experience. Antarctica possesses 91% of the world's ice, and you can find just about all of it at this site. The Introduction presents every imaginable aspect of the continent. You'll see and learn about ice, penguins, ice shelves, lichens, ice, albedo, ice rivers, climate, and ice. Other sections - Expeditions, Weather, Oceans, and (yes) Ice - cover aspects of Antarctic research in more depth, if in the language of junior-high science. Don't let that put you off, though. The lively writing and photos bring both the Antarctic research and the lives of Antarctic scientists to
your comfortably warm chair. http://www.glacier.rice.edu/index.html-ssi
Big Bend National Park can be found in Texas, appropriately enough where the Rio Grande bends and causes the state's southern border to follow a sigmoid curve. This site, though somewhat limited in scope, uses explanatory info and a virtual tour of the park to explore geological processes.
http://geoweb.tamu.edu/faculty/herbert/bigbend/
COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal
Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments
If microwave radiation, fire, explosion, and poison gas fascinate rather than frighten you (and you're an adult), then you might be interested in this kitchen experimenters' site. Fluorescent light tubes, fused neon light bulbs, vaporized aluminum foil, cobalt chloride gas, argon balloons, and even fax paper can provide hours of fun with the standing waves within your own oven. Remember to take good notes and pictures, and your web site could make the big time. For the timid folk, there's a page of "microwave oven myths" to demystify some of the technology. Breathe easy, there are no biological experiments on this site.http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/weird/microexp.html
Imagine an army of self-replicating robots so small that they could dance on the head of a pin. Now imagine that they could do something useful, such as manufacture diamond fibers, or anti-cancer agents, or Mrs. Fields Cookies. Concentrate on the positive, like their use to clean up of oil spills or radioactive substances, rather than anything negative, like crawling inside your ear and playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" over and over. Such imaginings may become reality as the science of manufacturing on the submicron level matures. Lithography is expected to reach its practical limits within the next decade, and the ever-growing pursuit of faster-and-smaller will probably demand the ability to physically manipulate individual atoms in the fabrication of a wide range of materials, both organic and inorganic. This page, hosted by Xerox, describes this new science, including a brief introduction and information on methods of positional control and self-replication. The sites also details other sources for information, such as books, journals, newsletters, conferences, and Web links.
http://sandbox.xerox.com/nano/
AbleComm, Inc., a Lucent and Panasonic telephone system reseller has published a several-page description of telephone terminology, acronyms, and lingo. Ma Bell was notorious for her techospeak, but the breakup has led to a further confusion of terms. Learn in advance how to react when the repair guy tells you that "your KTS's KSU can't connect to the CO, and the local loop checks out, so maybe you should rip out that old D-station wire and replace it with UTP." Or maybe it's time to update your company's voice mail messages: "…for technical support, press three, then octothorpe…"
AbleComm: http://www.phone-system.com/learn6.htm
Payphones of the World: http://www.2600.com/phones/
Jason Sapan of Holographic Studios suggests that "you can think of photography or by extension holography as the art of selectively tarnishing silver in jelly where light has energized it" and that "a hologram is a photograph of the impression left on the surface of a light wave after it has bounced off an object". A very light series of essays examines some of the basic principles of holography. Frankly, the links to the more commercial aspects of the Holographic Studios in New York City were even more interesting: If you live in New York you can take a three-hour class and make a hologram - or if you're a student, perhaps you can grab a holographic internship. ARCHEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
http://www.holostudios.com/holohelper/index.html
Take your pick - shaman or archeologist. Choose shaman and get a first-person perspective on Stone Age life in Europe, primarily in cartoon panels. We appreciate the metaphorical comparison with cave paintings. Choose the archeologist and you'll be presented with the evidence - again, mostly pictorial - upon which the shaman bases his tales. As an added bonus, you can test your Stone Age survival skills in the Food Quiz. Do you have what it takes to find your supper in the European countryside?
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nantiq/menu.html
Some aquatic cyanobacteria bind calcium carbonate and sediment into layered, rock-like stromatolites, roughly the size and shape of shopping bags. Until 40 years ago, scientists thought that stromatolites - the oldest known evidence of life on Earth - existed purely as fossils, but now they study living forms around the world. The Modern Stromatolite site consists of only three links on a concise page. One links leads to the UC-Berkeley Museum of Paleontology's page on cyanobacteria, another heads off to an ill-organized page on the Precambrian era, and the third, devoted to pics of modern stromatolites, has ironically become extinct.
http://www.lifeintheuniverse.com/stroma.html
Amber is unique among gemstones for two related reasons: it is organic and it occasionally contains the remains of plants and animals. Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History hosts an online homage to the beautiful "stone". The site exhibits several amber marvels. Ten undescribed and poorly designed (where are those "back" and "next" buttons?) links lead to images and descriptions of amber-trapped flora and fauna. Other pages offer more fossils and describe the processes, history, and delights of amber harvesting. A page devoted to amber art presents images of some magnificent pieces and describes a Russian room that literally used amber as if it had been wallpaper. German forces in World War II dismantled, hid, and lost the walls of the Amber Room, but Russian craftsmen are working on a reproduction.
http://www.amnh.org/Exhibition/Amber/index.html
MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42
http://library.advanced.org/10170/menuw.htm
"[U]nless one is rather worried about getting wet, the base-rate effect makes cheerful disregard of forecasts of rain the optimal strategy." So, says science journalist Robert A.J. Matthews in one of the many strange papers he's had published in such places as "Nature", leave the umbrella at home regardless of the forecast. As you might have guessed from the title of this little blurb, his interests also cover the mathematics behind which side of the toast lands up and why we have so many odd socks in our drawers. Enjoy this stuff online free, in his personal Website, before he collects it in a book and you have to pay for it.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rajm/
Infinity: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
If, as mystics tell us, time and space are counterfeits of infinity, mathematicians began printing money in the 19th century. Read Georg Cantor's revolutionary 1870s mathematical proof demonstrating different sizes of infinity. Loopy? Cantor was one of the few mathematicians who'd looked infinity in the face and said, you don't scare me. He went nuts, of course. The establishment loathed him but eventually came to credit his wildly courageous, creative work as the beginning of modern mathematical thought. Not all cultures have forged a working relationship with the infinite. At this Bellevue, Washington Community College site, get an introduction to some reactions through history to the paradox of squeezing all that nothingness into three dimensions.http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/infinity.html
SCIENCE AND ART
Puttin' on the Ritz
Physicists Must be Poets, God Must Be a Gambler (Who Cheats), and Scientists Gotta Have Heart
If you think it's unusual for physicists to write poetry, Niels Bohr, who developed quantum physics, considered it essential: "When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry". This and other pithy sayings from 49 other scientists are collected here. Remember Einstein insisted God does not play dice? British physicist Stephen Hawking rebuts: "God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen". Einstein had something else to say about God: "We should take care not to make intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality". George Washington Carver, the U.S. chemist and educator, explained his success in the lab this way: "Anything will give up its secrets if you loveit enough". http://www.bemorecreative.com/FamousI.htm
MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY
It's alive! It's alive!
http://www3.hmc.edu/~clewis/aging/
Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science
If you've noticed a lot of discussion about evolution lately in the media, it's probably the result of recent efforts by the National Academy of Sciences to publicize its recently released document on the importance of teaching evolution in public schools. Soon to be sent to over 20,000 teachers across the U.S., this material is aimed squarely at the teachers who may have avoided the topic in their classrooms due to its controversy, or teachers who may be suffering under the attacks of those who oppose the theory. Persuasive arguments are offered to establish the validity of the theory and illegitimacy of its opponents; this is done through careful definition (and reiteration), review of the historical development of the theory, application to contemporary issues (e.g., control of human pathogens & management of natural resources), hypothetical sample dialogues between teachers, and an emphasis on the unanimity of opinion among contemporary scientists (and the courts) on the matter. A comprehensive bibliography directs readers toward more supportive information, and guided activities direct students toward an understanding of the nature of science and the principles of evolution.http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/evolution98/
If, like one of our writers, you're a dog owner, you know that it's very likely you'll be called on someday to make heart-wrenching life-and-death decisions about Rover. Fortunately, the Internet offers support in what we'd hope will be your quest for informed decision making. Caring for Pets with Cancer isn't slick by any stretch of the imagination, but it is loaded with information. Basically, it's a set of veterinary lecture notes, but if you're not intimidated by some fairly familiar medical jargon, this text will give you an idea of what to expect, what treatment options are available - and to what effect. Our writer just went through the exercise and, on the subject of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) in dogs, can tell you how very grim the prognosis is, even with exceptional therapies. Still, she believes her decisions on behalf of her pet were better precisely because she had no false hopes for recovery, remission or markedly successful radical treatment. If you need to look truth in the face, this is the spot. (Miss ya lots, Gryphon.)
http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~ypd634/notes/d_skel.html
For those of us who don't imagine that we'll need our livers and corneas and kidneys and other meaty bits when we finally swim that golden river one fine morning - take a minute and learn how you can help some body still stranded on shore, bound by extreme pain and suffering. The site is sponsored by two federal government agencies: The Department of Health and Human Services and
Health Resources and Services Administration. http://www.organdonor.gov/
The Forensic Entomology page was created "to assist in the education of crime scene technicians, homicide investigators, coroners, medical examiners, and others involved in the death investigation process". We lucky non-industry Netsurfers get to enjoy the fallout nonetheless. The few pictures to be found in the mostly plain text pages feature maggots, larva, and adult insects - but brave the info. You'd be surprised at the breadth of the field beyond the analysis of dead bodies. An insect can be at fault for a car crash or air disaster. Remember to jot down that to mail insects to a forensic examiner, you should use the U.S. Postal Service or UPS, because Federal Express is too squeamish. You just never know when that information might come in handy.
http://csssrvr.entnem.ufl.edu/~pmc/forensic.html
ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, ECONOMICS, AND GEOGRAPHY
All that we see or seem
Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts
While some debate whether it's valid to examine science in light of the Bible, others discuss the role of science in examining the Bible. This established science of "textual criticism" seeks to study and reconstruct the ancient manuscripts on which our modern translations of the Bible are based. Brown University has prepared a summary of this discipline, including its history and some examples of the process. The various types of transmission errors are discussed, as well as how these errors have led to the various "families" of manuscripts. In the field of nuclear engineering, a "critical apparatus" may be a pressure relief valve, but in this field it's the footnote commonly found at the bottom of a Greek New Testament that explains the source and the nature of a variant reading. There's plenty of good information here to explain where that old Bible up on the shelf came from.http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/mss/overview.html
SCIENCE LITE
Where are you, Mulder?
Hard Science in a Candy Coating
Science a GoGo has a lot of serious. It has a lot of fun, too. This is the place to go if you want daily science news in crisp nontechnical language along with a dose of the giggles. About two new short articles appear each day, but after you're done reading those, check out the other sections. Best of all are the contributions of the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). If you don't know, AIR is a magazine that highlights spurious and/or amusing developments in the scientific world. It's always worth a look. The Rant section needs more spice (we hear Ginger is available...), but the factlets in the Top 10 make time spent there worthy. The forum is at once chaotic and - um, is entertaining the word we're looking for? Check out the package.http://www.scienceagogo.com/
The Skeptic's Dictionary should really be called the Skeptic's Encyclopedia, for it does much more than merely provide definitions. Whether you use the alphabetical list or the topical index, each page contains paragraphs and paragraphs of information and relevant links, both pro and con (but mostly, the skepticly con). We applaud site owner Robert Carroll for his chutzpah in grouping Amway, Slick 50, and multilevel marketing with Rama, Piltdown Man, and Uri Geller in the frauds and hoaxes category. Bravo, Bob!
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~btcarrol/skeptic/dictcont.html
Benjamin Franklin may have saved and earned a lot of pennies, but it is the U.S. $100 bill that bears his portrait. And, sure, he may have played some role as a statesman for his country, but readers here will know that it was his contributions to physics that earned him this honor. A page presented by the University of Maryland reveals that Franklin is not the only physicist to appear on currency; at least 15 others have been so immortalized by various nations. These include: Bohr, Boscovich, Copernicus, the Curies, Einstein, Euler, Faraday, Galileo, Gauss, Marconi, Newton, Rutherford, Schroedinger, Tesla, and Volta. The site contains pictures of the various denominations, as well as links to brief biographies of the men - and woman - who contributed so much to modern scientific thought.
http://physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/money/
RESIDUE
We can't be sure what else is out there
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/unmuseum.htm
How many legs does the elephant have? Which line is longer? How many colors are there in this picture? Is this line bent? Are you bent? You've seen some of these illusions before, but unless you're an aficionado you've not seen them all. It's a service to humanity to collect them all in one spot like this. One question, though, if there really are two people kissing in that picture of the old man with holly in his hair, do they have to be so ugly?
http://members.aol.com/Ryanbut/illusion1.html
There were now thousands of dagger-like slivers of the mineral per cubic litre of the atmosphere, each many times slenderer than a human hair and nearly indestructible. Even though Ben could not see them he knew that the deadly amosite and tremolite fibers were there and that his pulmonary organs were being damaged. He turned and glared at Ruth, "You just had to move that ceiling tile, dammit! Call the Environmental Health and Safety Department at once." Need a refresher on just what asbestos is, where it can be found, and what to do about it? This is the place.
http://www.pp.okstate.edu/ehs/modules/asb.htm