| Chillin' |
| Fungus: It's What's for Dinner |
| Ferns of the Canberra region |
| WaterWorks |
| Rocket Science for Your Lousy Golf Game |
| No Time to Say 'Hello'. Goodbye. We're Late. We're Late. We're Late. |
| "Initiate the Ion Drive!" |
| Netsurfer Book Recommendations |
| Better than Ships in a Bottle, Try the Solar System in a Bottle |
| Bad Science |
| Mathematicians of the African Diaspora |
| Shocking Materials Originate with Teens |
| Paluxy Dinosaur-Human Tracks |
| From the Alberta Badlands |
| Paleological Geographic |
| When is a Scientist Not a Scientist? |
| The Heart Surgery Forum |
| B-EYE |
| The Reptilian Authority |
| Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know |
| Ancient Medics and Old Pills Online |
| Ship of the Desert with a Crow's Nest |
| Cogito Ergo Sum ... Skeptic? |
| Urban History at Rice University |
| Laws of Science, of a Sort |
| Mirror, Mirror on the Web |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
| Netsurfer Digest |
EARTH SYSTEMS
No matter where you go, there you are
National Ice Center: http://www.natice.noaa.gov/
NOAA: http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Ice/
Fungus: It's What's for Dinner
Next time you bite into your mushroom and Swiss burger at the local greasy spoon, pause to think about the 'shrooms. Doesn't it seem odd that you can only think of a few types of fungus - mostly the mushroom variety - and yet they're organisms so unique that they have an entire kingdom devoted to them? At Natural Perspective, you'll learn about the sundry orders and families of fungus. You'll also see loads of vivid pictures of alien-looking fungal samples like the slimy spore sacs of the stinkhorn. On said Web meanderings, you'll also find out from the Californian fungus-lovers at MykoWeb.com that in San Francisco they actually hold Fungus Fairs where you can bask in the splendor of hundreds of species of fungi. MykoWeb equally devotes itself to mycology, the study of these sometimes tasty, sometimes deadly, sometimes spectacular life forms.Perspective: http://www.perspective.com/nature/fungi/
MykoWeb: http://www.mykoweb.com/
Chances are you've seen ferns growing in the wild during walks in the woods. Perhaps, turning over their leaves, you spied an array of small nodules that look like they could be eggs of some insect or gastropod. You needn't destroy the leaves, though; the nodules are merely the manner in which ferns reproduce. (You did notice the absence of flowers, didn't you?) While this site is particularly interested in the ferns of the Canberra, Australia region, there is a great deal of information regarding their general ecology and preferred climate, how to find and identify them, and how to grow mature plants from spores in your own home. Be advised: the introductory page is a bit self-conscious, but the rest of the pages get past the problem.
http://www.home.aone.net.au/byzantium/ferns/index.html
COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal
http://www.omsi.edu/sln/ww/
Rocket Science for Your Lousy Golf Game
Chagrined at your loopy chip? Wilson's new dimples may bring a smile to your lips. 500 small, medium and large dimples on the patented Wilson Ultra 500 ball have been configured in a pattern of 60 spherical triangles. That means "the most symmetrical ball surface available”, according to the NASA space shuttle scientist who designed it. Less drag, more stability means faster! higher! longer! better! - on the drawing board, if not on the scorecard, anyway. Just the same, a recent European-produced series on the history of golf devoted an hour to the history of golf equipment, and said that the only remaining area in which technology could produce dramatic change in the game - springing from the equipment, at least - is in the ball's design and material. Wilson's page shows the rocket science.http://tommy.jsc.nasa.gov/~woodfill/SPACEED/SEHHTML/pg76s95.html
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away
No Time to Say 'Hello'. Goodbye. We're Late. We're Late. We're Late.
It seemed like a notice from an errant episode of Dr. Who, because the issuing body was the Directorate of Time. On closer inspection, it proved to be a simple heads-up from the Directorate of Time at the United States Naval Observatory concerning the addition of a leap second to this year's calendar. (Dick Clark, are you listening to this?) Make what you want of the fact that the second is being tacked on at the behest of the International Earth Rotation Service (no, they don't rotate it, but they do keep track of it).Time Service: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/
Earth Rotation: http://hpiers.obspm.fr/
Ion drive sounds cool in any SF file or book. It's even cooler in real life where it's set to power NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft. Part of the New Millennium Program housed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, DS1 successfully launched on October 24, bound for asteroid 1992KD. As with all NMP missions, DS1 is serving up technology first, with science on the side. The spacecraft will be the first to use a solar-electric propulsion system to accelerate the probe to cruising speed, 'though it will take a bit of time; the engine produces just 1/250 of a pound of thrust, enough to increase DS1's speed by 30 feet per second per day. But those seconds and days add up. DS1 will also test a number of other technologies, including autonomous control during flight. Other Deep Space missions are due to launch over the next few years, all pushing the bleeding edge of technology, and all hosting some pretty slick Web pages.
DS1: http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/NASA/
New Millennium: http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/
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Netsurfer Book Recommendations Books our staff likes and you might too. Click on the cover or title to order the books at a hefty discount from Amazon.com and send a few pennies our way as well.
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Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
Oxford Concise Science DictionaryBetter than Ships in a Bottle, Try the Solar System in a Bottle
It's the classic grade school assignment. Build your own accurately scaled model of our solar system. If this site had been available at the time, you might have had the good mark you were hoping for. Simply enter the diameter that you want your model sun to be in inches or millimeters, and the javascript-based form calculates the scale diameters of your model planets and the orbit distance. With these calculations in hand, you can go about constructing your model. The site recommends using a very long tape measure or pacing the distances and then marking the planets with a piece of paper, a flag, or even a person. For a smaller model, you can use a roll of toilet paper and make your sun about 10mm in diameter. You can also click on the planet names and be transported to a page of info on that planet. Just the thing for passing the time on a rainy day.http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/
MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html
Mathematicians of the African Diaspora
This project focuses on profiles of contemporary mathematicians with Black African heritage. The author notes that the initial estimate "appeared to be 0.1% of the total number of mathematicians in the world"; if the estimate is limited to the United States, that number expands to approximately 1%. The site provides a list of links to profiles of the approximately 200 mathematicians located thus far in the study. Related links, such as The Ancients in Africa, are included.http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/madpeeps.html
Shocking Materials Originate with Teens
If you find electricity and electronics obscure subjects, "Electronics, an online guide for beginners" will have you chanting "ohm" sooner than you think. The guide presents bits of basic electronics in short, digestible screens, using crisp graphics when called for, and will take you from electrons to breadboards in a short visit. Truth be told, the site does have a few bugs hidden within, but you tend to forgive those when you learn that the site's authors are three high school students - class of 2001 - who developed the site as a response to a perceived dearth of introductory electronics sites on the Net. Since developing the site, they've entered it into the 1998 ThinkQuest annual competition for 12- to 19-year-old students. ThinkQuest focuses on the Web as a collaborative interactive teaching and learning tool. Buzz over for more examples of stunning work by students.Electronics: http://hyperion.advanced.org/16497/home/index.html
ThinkQuest: http://www.advanced.org/thinkquest/
ARCHEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
What is past is prologue
http://members.aol.com/paluxy2/paluxy.htm
No noisy hordes blocking your view and no tired feet! These are the advantages of the online version of The Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology at Drumheller Alberta. (That's its name, Folks, with a second "a" in the p-word). This electronic version of Canada's only institution devoted entirely to paleontology is a haven for those to whom the term suggests the massive jaws and sharp teeth of T. rex and Albertosaurus, as well as those who know there's more to it than that. Not all the sections are well developed yet, but there's substantial depth to this virtual museum, including an online encyclopedia; annotated lists of serious sites dealing with geology, museums, or paleontology; a QuickTime virtual reality dinosaur to download; and, a special Burgess Shale exhibit. Still, the highlight is the virtual museum tour, which can be followed linearly, or wherever your mouse click fancy takes you, thanks to the two maps. The photographs are excellent and the display notes informative. In this museum that never closes the tour is exhaustive, but never exhausting.
http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/home.html
For the past 23 years, Alfred Ziegler's University of Chicago research team has been making maps of Earth. But, not just any maps. Ziegler's project uses extensive field research and powerful computers to generate maps that follow the evolution of the world's geography and climate over the past 500 million years. What's the use in charting paleoclimate and paleogeography? From Ziegler's maps, anthropologists study the origins of human civilizations, oil companies look for places that might boast better deposits of fossil fuels, and meteorologists look to past climate patterns for ways to better predict future climates. The article presented here is a little dated (it's three years old), but from the scope of the project we assume that it's still well underway.
http://www2.uchicago.edu/alumni/alumni.mag/9512/9512Mapping.html
SCIENCE AND ART
Puttin' on the Ritz
When is a Scientist Not a Scientist?
Billed as "The Ultimate Physics Resource", PhysLink.com comes pretty darned close. Although it's essentially a portal site with links to physics jobs, companies, theories, departments, etc., what sets the site apart is its ability to capture a colorful characterization of the physics profession. A good example of this multidisciplinary approach is the site's current cover story, "Science and Art", excerpted from Dr. Leonid I. Ponomarev's book The Quantum Dice. The essay uses clever analogies and examples to explore the intertwined nature of art and science, and considers how scientists can often be artists at heart - and vice versa.http://www.physlink.com/
MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY
It's alive! It's alive!
http://www.hsforum.com/
This is the world seen through many different eyes. B-EYE is a program, normally used for scientific purposes, able to show you the world as seen by apis mellifera, a.k.a the honey bee. The site guides you step-by-step into a different point of view. More accurately it takes you to millions of points of view, into the small eyes forming the composite eye of a bee. You'll look at the world through new eyes. Be a bee for awhile; it'll give you a buzz.
http://cvs.anu.edu.au/andy/beye/beyehome.html
The Reptilian Authority claims to be the largest herpetocultural resource on the Net, and they're probably not too far off the mark. If you're thinking of buying any kind of reptile as pet, check here first for detailed reptilian health care information. For example, you can find out what to do if your pet chameleon breaks out with a horrible case of scale rot. Or if you've got your heart set on a Colombian Boa constrictor, ask yourself first if you really want a snake that will get to be 10 feet long, weigh over 50 pounds, urinate and defecate like a St. Bernard, and live more than 30 years? For your sake and the snake's, It's worth checking here first.
http://www.reptilian.org/
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know
The Extreme Science home page is gosh-darned scary - and proud of it. A big photo of a creature with oversized fangs glares at you. If you have the courage to make it past the graphic, you can read about "the biggest, baddest and the best" in the natural world are, and get introduced to the "way cool scientists" who study these extreme critters. It's a great site for kids (both in age and at heart), who will be educated and entertained by such features as the "Biggest, Smallest, Fastest, Deepest: Marine Animal Records".http://www.extremescience.com/index.htm
Ancient Medics and Old Pills Online
This Web site is like a portal to the history of medicine. From a historical overview of acupuncture to the AIDS history project through the Freud archives, the Medical History on the Internet home page offers a veritable medicine chest of links to the past. The site also includes links to medical journals, associations, bibliographies, and more. A great chance to collect trivia: did you know that the Museum of Contraception includes weasel balls and crocodile dung?http://www.anes.uab.edu/medhist.htm
Ship of the Desert with a Crow's Nest
He's over 18 feet tall and can move at 30 mph. His hair is a pale buff covered with geometric blotches of reddish-brown. There are usually a herd of adoring females chasing after him. No, it's not Dennis Rodman, but another famous bull - the male giraffe. To the Romans the giraffe was "camelopardalis" - a camel marked like a leopard. Okay, so they missed the considerably longer neck and absence of humps. But like its dromedary friend, the giraffe can go for weeks without water and then down up to 12 gallons of the stuff in one go. It's the drinking that's the hard part. Because of the giraffe's unique frame, it's quite a balancing act just reaching the ground without blacking out. Ahh, the things we'll do for a good drink.http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/m/r/mrp141/camel.html
ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, ECONOMICS, AND GEOGRAPHY
All that we see or seem
http://www.skepdic.com/
Urban History at Rice University
Lately, the city-as-dystopia theme has gained popularity, even as more and more people continue to swell the world's major cities. For a more thoughtful study of urban life, try Rice University's Professor Richard Ingersoll’s thesis of the city as a living process. At the heart of this series of lectures is what Ingersoll acknowledges as a metaphysical devotion to the theoretical - and illusive - ideal of justice. Lecture #1 of “Cities in History” presents the urban process thesis. Other lectures concentrate on specific cities such as Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and Cairo.Introduction: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~arch343/lecture1.html
Lectures: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~arch343/
RESIDUE
We can't be sure what else is out there
Feynman's "Cargo Cult Science": http://www.uky.edu/~holler/msc/readings/cargcult.html
Laws of Cargo Cult Science: http://www.voicenet.com/~eric/scilaw.txt
CORRECTIONS AND UPDATES
Make it so
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/98/06/14/stinwenws01029.html?2551891