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| The Dead Media Project |
| And, the Jury's Still Out on these Media |
| The First Records: Edison's Wax Cylinders |
| Skewer Sewers |
| Houses of Straw |
| Forget the DES Challenge - Try SETI at Home |
| Geometry of War |
| Geometry of War, Parte the Second |
| Full Power on Magnet Eight! |
| The Rosetta Stone |
| The Evolution of Human Nature |
| Say What? |
| Ancient Roman Dishes |
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EARTH SYSTEMS
No matter where you go, there you are
http://hjs.geol.uib.no/Diatoms/
We're Pickin' Up Good Migrations
Birds undertake the most astounding migrations - with or without coconuts (Monty Python nonfans should ignore that last allusion). The grand master of migration, the Arctic tern, weighs about the same as a large sausage yet travels considerably further - 18,000 miles to and fro. The Physiology of Bird Migration site looks at the hows and whys of bird migration. Along the way, you'll learn nifty words like "Zuguruhe" and "hyperfagia" as well as conversation-stopping information like the fact that the blackpoll warbler flies for 90 hours straight. And you thought the New York-London route was a drag. Those 90 hours make this little songbird the record holder for vertebrate endurance. Even more amazing, the 90 hours of exercise consumes only as much energy as can be found in two-thirds of a Snickers. The site points out that were the calories derived from gasoline, the bird would be getting 720,000 mpg. We're speechless.http://wwwpp.uwrf.edu/~cg04/physiology/Bird_Stuff.html
Sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, Pulse of the Planet delivers what it notes as a "two-minute sound portrait of Planet Earth". Mixing natural sounds with interviews and spanning the globe in its coverage, Pulse presents an array of intriguing stories covering both nature and culture. Unfortunately, at the Pulse of the Planet home page, you can't appreciate the artistry of the audio reports - the site offers transcripts only. The stories definitely lose something in the translation from spoken or recorded word to text. Fortunately, Discovery Online does have a number of stories archived in RealAudio format and organized by subject. Pulse's pages may hold more archived transcripts, but the real story is over at Discovery.
Pulse: http://www.pulseplanet.com/
Discovery: http://www.discovery.com/news/pulse/pulse.html
If you're a resident of Los Angeles, you no doubt already know the standard measure of an earthquake's strength. The Richter magnitude scale was developed in 1935 by Charles F. Richter of the California Institute of Technology as a mathematical device to compare the size of earthquakes. The beauty of the scale is the fact that it allows the comparison of different earthquakes from differing distances from the epicentre of the quake. This page tells you just about all you want to know about the Richter Scale. You can also visit the main page of the National Earthquake Information Centre and learn more about earthquakes in general. Worth a look particularly if you live in a high-risk earthquake zone.
http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/general/handouts/richter.html
COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal
http://www.islandnet.com/~ianc/dm/dm.html
And, the Jury's Still Out on these Media
If the Dead Media Project has you feeling nostalgic for those vintage household devices of yesteryear, NSS has just the panacea. Three guys - Don, Dave, and Moses - have put their extensive collections of antique radios and televisions on the Web. At Don Adamson's Antique Radio Page you'll find pictures of hundreds of radios (tube and transistor) from over five decades, along with droves of resources for the radio hobbyist and collector. David Bertinot's Vintage TV Collection doesn't have the scope of Don's radio collection, but it makes up for it with a photojournalistic trip to a TV picture tube plant, circa 1950. Completing this triumvirate is the collection of Moses Znaimer, held at the eponymous MZTV Museum of Television in Toronto. His well-groomed Web site has some true relics in the virtual gallery, along with an oral history project and QuickTime footage of television broadcasts recreated in the old style. No more need to trek to the Smithsonian; now you can view these private collections from your own computer screen.Don's radios: http://members.aol.com/djadamson/arp.html
Dave's TVs: http://www.premier.net/~bertinot/tv/
Moses' MZTV: http://www.mztv.com/
The First Records: Edison's Wax Cylinders
Right now your computer is using technology based on Thomas Edison's 1877 wax and tinfoil cylinder phonograph. The principle is that a round thing goes around real fast so a stylus can read information imprinted on it. This wonderful site not only explains how Edison's cylinders recorded and played back sound, it displays period photographs and allows you to listen. Hear a cylinder recording of the song the band played as the Titanic sank. Or, catch the exhibit of cowboy poetry read by turn-of-the-century buckaroos. Get a look at early recording sessions where a singer would belt into a bank of some 15 horned recording machines at a time - because there was no way to duplicate records. Download or stream the audio files, which are beautifully prepared.http://www.tinfoil.com/
Well, there's the kind of boring history that you hated in fifth grade - and then there's weird history that's interesting. The Sewers of London Web page definitely qualifies for the latter category. Reprinted from Cleaner magazine (a publication for residential, municipal and industrial cleaning contractors), this article reveals such fascinating facts as the meaning of "sewer" (stands for "seaward" in Old English) and the formation of ancient London sewers ("open ditches sloped slightly to drain human wastes toward the River Thames"). Read this discourse, and you'll acquire a new appreciation for modern plumbing.
http://klingon.util.utexas.edu/londonsewers/londontext1.html
Well, at least one of the little pigs might have had the right idea. According to Brett Doran, bales of straw make for great building material. With a bit of plaster applied, straw bale houses have proved to be structurally sound, safe, and economical, no matter who's at the door. This is just one bit of intriguing information you'll find at Doran's Earth Architecture Overview page hosted by the Rainforest Action Network. In addition to straw, Doran covers adobe, rammed earth, and arches, vaults and domes - all materials or techniques that can help diminish the use of wood as a building product. The information offered is fascinating, though we would have enjoyed an additional picture or two of the various materials in use.
http://www.ran.org/ran/ran_campaigns/rain_wood/wood_con/earth_arc.html
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away
Forget the DES Challenge - Try SETI at Home
Anybody who has seen "Contact" - or even better, has read the book - knows that SETI stands for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. The SETI Institute's Web pages explain just what it does and keeps the public abreast of changes and new data. Aside from a little hoax-busting of recent claims of a signal from EQ Pegasi, the site's latest novelty of interest is the SETI at Home project, a natural evolution of distributed computing. Distributed computing projects allow you to use your own computer as one data-digesting cog in a larger effort - readers may be most familiar with cryptography-cracking challenges. The SETI Institute will adopt this approach to parse through radio-telescope data gathered at Puerto Rico's Arecibo Radio Telescope. SETI at Home plans to start up next April.http://www.seti-inst.edu/
MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/geometry/content.htm
Geometry of War, Parte the Second
After pouring over the texts and diagrams of the Oxford exhibit, you still might need a little conceptual help. Another museum, the Singapore Science Center, has just the thing: a hands-on cannon projectile simulation. Bring your Java-capable browser and a little curiosity, and have a (cannon)ball.http://www.sci-ctr.edu.sg/interexh/java/Cannon/index.html
The Internet Plasma Physics Education Experience proves that the Internet can be used to teach science in ways not possible with text book or standalone computer. Developed by the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology, IPPEX provides a marvelous way to learn. The Interactive Physics Modules on matter, magnetism and electricity, energy, and fusion are aimed at advanced middle school students and higher. The classroom modules are pretty neat, and include Shockwave experiments, questions, tutorials, and experiments to do off computer. Step by step these develop an insight into the struggle to develop practical fusion reactors. Once you've mastered the art of confining a hot plasma magnetically, progress to running a Tokomak fusion reactor interactively. If you feel so inclined, you can study and analyze real Tokomak data (via charts but raw data are also available as an option), send answers, and ask questions via e-mail at several optional levels of difficulty. After taking the magnetica confinement test, we've agreed not to sign on as a Tokomak operator just yet.
http://ippex.pppl.gov/ippex/
ARCHEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
What is past is prologue
http://www.cs.oberlin.edu/classes/cs115/lect29n.html#@sli@1
The London School of Economics (LSE), oddly enough, presents the Evolutionist. This e-zine features interviews with and articles by leading thinkers of evolutionary thought, including such luminaries as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker (the son of your humble reviewer's high school guidance counselor, we kid you not!). Topics lean primarily toward the evolutionary and genetic bases of human nature and behavior rather than the nuts and bolts of genes, but that's expected - the portion of the LSE supporting the e-zine is the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. Grab a coffee, some of the pieces are quite long.
http://cpnss.lse.ac.uk/darwin/evo/start.htm
MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY
It's alive! It's alive!
Hypothermia and Cold Water Survival
Late-season boaters, ice-anglers, drivers on icy lakeshore roads, and passengers on North-Atlantic cruise ships should all become familiar with the facts regarding cold-water immersion and the treatment of hypothermia. Consider that an average adult has but two hours of predicted survival time while swimming in 50F water. Realize the dangers of rubbing or massaging a victim of hypothermia (cardiac arrest). Learn the appropriate places to apply heating pads! Discover that direct, body-to-body contact actually is the best way to revive a person with depressed body temperature (yeah, sure, that old chestnut!). Practice the H.E.L.P position and memorize the Rules of 50!http://www.akcache.com/akcache/hypo1.html
A Monk, Some Peas, and Curiosity
Curiosity, time, and a methodical approach guided Gregor Mendel to breakthrough discoveries in plant inheritance, appreciated mostly long after his death. If all you remember about Mendel is that he was a monk who monkeyed around with peas, MendelWeb will correct, refresh, and invigorate your knowledge of the father of genetics. The kernel of the site is Mendel's original German paper and an English translation studded with hypertext links to glossaries, explanations, exercises, footnotes and numerous sources of related material, so that it becomes an endless, rich, radiating exploration of great depth and enormous appeal. During Mendel's Lifetime provides an intriguing context to Mendel's patient investigations by revealing what else was happening in the world at the time, and the hypertext links here alone are worth hours of exploration. As well, there are some fine and stimulating essays explaining the significance of Mendel's work. There's a Moo, too, called the Mendelroom, but we were too cowardly to venture in.http://hermes.astro.washington.edu/mirrors/MendelWeb/
In This Corner, Straight from the Fireswamp...
....it's the world's largest rodent! Also known as the capybara, this rare Rodentia weighs in at about 110 pounds. It could easily be mistaken for a small dog, and it swims so much that the Vatican once classified it as a fish so people could eat it during Lent! Make these cuddly natural oddities a must-see on your next trip to South America. Watch out, Lassie!http://www.merl.org/capybara.htm
And in The Other Corner, Straight from the Indonesian Isles...
....it's the world's largest lizard, the Ora! Also known as the Komodo dragon, this dinosaur descendent weighs in at over 200 pounds. It's a lethal predator with stomach juices that dissolve animal hooves, bacteria in its saliva that can fell a human, and a voracious appetite. Read about one intrepid writer's trip to Indonesia to witness these insatiable beasts. Watch out, Lassie!Sally's trip to Komodo: http://www.bpe.com/travel/asia/dinosaur3.htm
More info at merl.org: http://www.merl.org/komodo.htm
While it may sound like a titanic adventure for eggheads, the Cranial Cruise has a much more modest objective - to provide information about the human cranium, or skull. It does this in a straight-forward, unadorned manner in sections called Calvaria or skullcap, Facial Skeleton, Individual Bone Growth, and Cranial Base. The site provides no clues about who is responsible for it but your tireless NSS staff has discovered that it is the result of a ThinkQuest high school project. Although the site provides neither directions for further exploration nor links to additional resources, if you want some information about the cranium, and are unafraid of technical terms, this site will put you ahead.
http://tqd.advanced.org/3598/cranium2.html
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Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954-1965ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, ECONOMICS, AND GEOGRAPHY
All that we see or seem
http://www.mcu.quantico.usmc.mil/www/library/navajo.htm
Tired of the same old cheeseburger? Try the iscia omentata. It's a kind of (ancient) Roman burger. This - and a dozen other dishes - are what remain of the book of recipes written by Marcus Gavius Apicius. These recipes, first followed in Ancient Rome are translated and rearranged so we can taste a pullus fusili, or a ticopatinam, or a vitellina fricta. Yum! All you need are an Internet connection, the right ingredients, and your next toga party. So, Martha Stewartus, in which aisle do we find the triclinium?
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/wchuang/cooking/recipes/Roman/Ancient_Roman.html
SCIENCE LITE
Where are you, Mulder?
Of Heaven, Hell, Humor, and Heat
Did you know that Heaven is hotter than Hell? This Web page parodies the physics of thermodynamics, concluding that Heaven is hotter than it netherneighbor. There's a response to that parody as well, offering Biblical evidence interwoven with thermodynamics to show that Hell is actually hotter than the ovens of Heaven. It's a burning issue that's devishly funny.http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hell.htm
RESIDUE
We can't be sure what else is out there
http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/just_for_fun/startrek.html
Languages as we know them today are the result of slow but inexorable evolution through centuries. But, what about a language born from nowhere and developed to work for a science fiction TV series such as "Star Trek"? Klingon as a second language may not yet have night-school status, but this popular linguistics exercise is also more than a childish prank. This is a living language, evolving and thriving through years, with its own grammar and pronunciation, thanks to the many people contributing to its growth. If you're about how a few lines of guttural dialogue can spawn a pseudolanguage, warp on over to this site.
http://www.kli.org/KLIhome.html