Netsurfer Science 03.11

Mathematics can be fun. We hear your cybershout. "Is not!", you counter. And, then we win the day by pointing you to Plus, a lively online vehicle for increasing "public awareness of the importance of maths in everyday life". What a fine, fine effort it is, too. Clean, tailored design draws you in immediately. An intriguing selection of mathematics disguised as something else altogether appeals to the eclectic in us. There you are, reading about sundials, and almost before you know it, you're computing angles, examining ellipses, doing that old square of the hypotenuse thing. Rather rely on your Timex? Fair 'nuff. What about learning how to collect - instead of pay - compound interest? This excellent zine from Cambridge University presents math, even the toughest of it, in terms that you can understand - and, darn it all, even enjoy. The site also offers news, links, and puzzles for students, all in the same accessible voice. Everything is available in printable form. Try it. Even our reviewer - a hard science specialist - was surprised by Plus' considerable appeal.
http://pass.maths.org/

EARTH SYSTEMS
No matter where you go, there you are

The Ozone Hole Tour

If the sky hasn't fallen, then how can there be a hole in it? Perhaps that's one of the questions that we should ask the scientists at the University of Cambridge Centre for Atmospheric Science. The kind scientists there have set up a page (four main pages, actually) to inform the public about their research into ozone depletion, and they even have a page for submitting such questions. The history of the discovery of ozone loss, its basic chemistry, methods of measurement, and current research are reviewed; animations and reasonable graphics help in the presentation. Unfortunately for the serious inquirer, no source documents are referenced - but the numerous links to other ozone sites should satisfy the need for hard facts and data. Send in enough questions, and maybe they'll create a FAQ: Why can't we pipe urban ozone to the Antarctic to fill the hole? Is that layer between the n-zone and the p-zone? Didn't Masters and Johnson study that zone? Do we make things worse by leaving the refrigerator door open too long? Where can we get funding to repair the hole in Arthur's skylight?
http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour/

Okinawa Slugs

Actually they're sea mollusks, and there's no shortage of information about the variety that inhabits the western Pacific near Okinawa. Whether it's at this site or available at other sites linked through the curious 'jump' navigation provided from an alternate pop-up window, visitors will learn plenty about creatures that the author considers to be "conceivably the most stunning and attractive animals found in the ocean". There's even a sea slug of the week feature, along with a gallery of hundreds of thumbnail photos. A full taxonomy of these Okinawan opisthobranch mollusks rounds it out. We didn't notice any links to recipe sites, however; heavens, they look tasty.
http://www.rfbolland.com/okislugs/

COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal

The Grace of Obsolescence

Abacus. Astrolabe. Slide rule. Hourglass. Like the sundial, they've gone the way of other obsolete technologies. And, of course, they are all enshrined at various locations on the Web. This international, multilingual, sundial site, sponsored by the British Sundial Society, is the ultimate online resource for what are little more than quaint backyard garden decorations for most people. Technical details for setting up a sundial (it's more involved that you might imagine) can be found here, along with various projects, pictures, links to societies, manufacturers, and books, and even a full text search engine for the site (hm … nothing on 'electric sundials'). Even the most accurate sundial won't perfectly match your watch on a daily basis; not every day is the same length, due to the angle of obliquity and the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit. The mysterious 'equation of time' is unfolded here; in the past, its complexity must naturally have limited the manufacture of sundials to a hermetic cabal of artisans. Thank goodness for open source.
Sundials on the Internet: http://www.sundials.co.uk/index5.htm
Sundial Webcam: http://www.uk.research.att.com/sundial/

Vintage Computers - Neither Oxymoron Nor Insult

If you think old computers like the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum, or the Amiga series are only fit for the junkyard, process again. Not only do more people than you might think still run programs for them on new PCs with emulators; others collect and still run these technological artifacts. Apart from the 133 computers hosted here, the authors offer a fine set of links to related sites. Forget the midnight queues for the next greatest thing; instead, those of us of a (very tender) certain age can stroll down memory c:/<path> at this site.
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~alexios/MACHINE-ROOM/

Tour Canada from Space

Here's a beautiful collection of satellite and aerial images of Canada, courtesy of the Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS), currently some 35 in number from all Canadian provinces and territories. Choose from the clickable map or from the list of photographs on the homepage, sorted by province. Each image, which can be enlarged for greater detail, is accompanied by information on the technical specs of the imaging equipment, a detailed map of the area in question, hyperlinked explanations of the features in the image to aid in identification, and a glossary of satellite imagery terms. The site also features an online tutorial from CCRS on remote sensing (with a whopping five sliders!) which opens in a new window.
http://ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/ccrs/imgserv/tour/toure.html

Netsurfer Recommendations

Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the cover or title to order the item at a hefty discount from Amazon.com and Beyond.com and send a few pennies our way as well.

Microcosmos
Marie Pérennou, Claude Nuridsany (directors), Kristin Scott Thomas (narrator)
ASIN: 6304501684

Quite rightly, we spend much of our lives looking to the stars for answers to questions about ourselves. We should pause for a bit, though, to look closer to the Earth - much, much closer. Microcosmos will help you do it. If you weren't lucky enough to catch this hypnotic treasure on a big screen, here's your chance to correct a grievous oversight. Microcosmos' directors spent three years just designing the close-up cameras that capture the everyday lives of insects. Beetles engaged in Sisyphusean endeavor with balls of dung. Snail lovers caught in flagrante delecto. Tiny prey, trapped in monumental death throes. Narration is sparse, supplanted by evocative music and the amplified sounds that come of just being an insect. Narration isn't really necessary, though; the images speak to our emotions and feelings about universal struggle as much as they speak to our scientific curiosity. Microcosmos might sound like just another nature documentary, but it stands in a class by itself, the proud recipient of all the opposable digits that Roger Ebert has to give.

MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42

Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names

Dr. Paul W. May, of the University of Bristol School of Chemistry, presents a collection of (currently) 32 real molecules that would be certain to garner snickers when mentioned in front of a class full of chemistry students. We won't reveal any of the names here, lest we spoil the fun, but be assured of valid humor content. You should almost be able to hear the stereotypical, disheveled, inept professor droning on about the properties of compound 'X' as disorder ripples from the back of the room. 2D and 3D structure images, actual photos of the substances, or representative cartoon characters illustrate the text, where appropriate, and the actual use or role of the substance is usually indicated. And we thought apatite was funny. Heh - heh - he said 'cleavage'. (Caveat surfer: We're telling you this seriously whimsical page is very smart , but it ranks somewhere around 2 out of 10 on our admittedly tolerant offensiveness scale. If your scale is more sensitive, consider yourself warned.)
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/silly/sillymols.htm

The Page of Entropy

More powerful than a locomotive. More universal than the law of gravitation. Fairer than the Department of Justice. Entropy is your friend. You may not think so when your car breaks down, your roof leaks, or neighbors burn plastic in their rubbish pile, but it is the second law of thermodynamics that will prevail as the ultimate arbiter of justice in the universe. Consider Bill Gates. As a result of localized negentropy - whether through random chance or applied intelligence, as opposing theorists would argue - he has amassed a great fortune and a formidable commercial enterprise. But, it's the principle of entropy that will eventually disperse Bill's billions of bills evenly throughout the world economy. The masses of techies that he's assembled in Redmond will eventually be drawn to opportunities elsewhere. Someday, wind and rain will reduce his $50 million (USD) house to rubble. Even the molecules of his body will, in time, break down to component atoms and be homogenized with the rest of the cosmos. The Page of Entropy explains such principles (without reference to Bill, though), with a light-hearted approach that tries to avoid being too technical (no math, anywhere). The only potential flaw found here is the author's self-defeating attempt to increase localized information; he should have made sure that random data were transmitted at the end of each page to properly increase entropy. (If this link is no longer functional, don't blame us; blame entropy.)
Entropy: http://tardis.svsu.edu/~slaven/Entropy.html
Bill's house: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/tech/billgate/gates.htm

Light and Refraction Tutorial

In case you've forgotten how rainbows are formed, here's a small site that will educate you generally about the properties of light and what happens when it passes from one medium to another. Especially useful and fun are the Java simulations of a prism and a raindrop that allow the user to manipulate the incoming light and view the effects on the spectrum. There's a section on the nature of light itself, and you'll also learn the principles of refraction in a prism, how spectrums are influenced by angle and wave length. The site includes sample problems to solve, a glossary, and additional links to sites that deal with the properties and behavior of light.
http://arts.magnet.fsu.edu/light_optics/tutorials.html

ARCHEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
What is past is prologue

Paleomagnetism - Old Attractions

Free book! Free book! Yes, thanks to the publisher's decision not to publish the second edition of this work, you can reap the benefits of self-education via the Internet! The original author, Robert F. Butler, of the Department. of Geosciences at the University of Arizona, was able to regain copyright, and has converted the text to PDF format and published it himself on the Web. This 237-page book is a comprehensive look at the subject of paleomagnetism, and would adequately serve as a midlevel college textbook. (There are even sample problems at the end of each chapter.) Background material brings readers up to speed on the principles involved, and the field is later expanded into other areas that intersect with paleomagnetism, such as paleographic dating, plate and regional tectonics, and paleogeography. There's even a small section on biomagnetism. The author pretty much manages to sidestep quantum physics, but there is a smattering of integral calculus, so be forewarned. Suggestion: You can look for your compass and shovel while the chapters are downloading!
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Paleomag/book/

Plants Older Than History

Although dino-diggers get all the press, to really understand conditions in the prehistoric world, you need a paleobotanist. While animals move around, or even migrate, plants are more directly dependent on climate and soil and so their fossils tell us much about the ancient landscape. The featured link at the Web site of the Paleobotanical Research Group (RSG) at the University of Munster in Germany is A History of Paleozoic Forests, an illustrated article with hyperlinked terms, concepts, and taxons that records the development and diffusion of forests in the early and coal-forming eras in North America and Europe (united at the time at the equator) until the mass extinction (95% of all plant and animal species, 50% of all genera) at the end of the Permian. In addition to copious illustrations of fossil plants, the article links to paleogeological maps and globes to show the positions of the continents and the geological conditions of the time. Other items of interest include notes on current research at the RSG, recent paleobotanical publications and textbooks, and an annotated links list of online courses and texts, museums and university departments, databases, and even other links lists. For a somewhat briefer summary, Hans' Paleobotany Pages is a good introduction to the first land plants for the non-expert, with thumbnail illustrations.
Paleozoic forests: http://www.uni-muenster.de/GeoPalaeontologie/Palaeo/Palbot/ebot.html
Hans' paleobotany: http://www.xs4all.nl/~steurh/home.html

Dino Poop

Two paleontologists taking a breather at a T-rex excavation in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1995 made the discovery of a lifetime: a 17-in. (42.5 cm.), 16-lb. (7.2 kg.) piece of fossilized dino doo, known scientifically as a 'coprolite'. Its gargantuan dimensions make it by far the largest paleo-poop find so far. ABC News covered the story and the significance of the find, specifically how the bone fragments in the fossil demonstrate how and what the producing dinosaur ate and how it helps us gain clues about its digestion. For a more general examination of coprolites, this article from the California Wild magazine of the California Academy of Science focuses on the work of Karen Chin, a scientist with the USGS who's made a career studying these fossils. Her study of coprolites has not only demonstrated the variety of herbivorous dinosaurs' diet but also the interaction with other ancient species, such as dung beetles and snails. The article offers links to three more coprolite sites, including Chin's article in the Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs.
ABCNews: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/coprolite980617.html
California Wild: http://www.calacademy.org/calwild/archives/fall98/horizon.htm

MEDICINE, BIOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY
It's alive! It's alive!

DownsNet

DownsNet is run by the Downs Syndrome Educational Trust in England, an organization dedicated to furthering education and research for children with Downs Syndrome. The information provided here will be of interest to anyone who works with children with Downs Syndrome, from parents to professionals. There are scholarly articles on inclusion, improving quality of education, early intervention, and much more. There is also information regarding conferences and training provided at the Sarah Duffin Centre in Hampshire, England. A pricing policy posted at the site explains that they charge for these services, but only enough to recoup their losses. This is an attractive site, but it is a work in progress. The Online Library, for example, houses only one book, and there is a note that says the diagrams and tables for the book will be put up shortly. The site is well designed, with lots of growing room. There's already a great deal of valuable information at this site, and there promises to be much more as it matures.
http://www.downsnet.org/

Rare Disorders

It's a strange fact that so many Americans are affected by rare medical disorders (defined as affecting fewer than 200,000 US citizens) that more than one in ten people have been diagnosed with such a disease. The number certainly constitutes enough potential viewers to warrant their own Web page, so the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) stepped forward to fill the gap. NORD is a not-for-profit organization made up of over 140 other not-for-profit voluntary health organizations dedicated to serving the people and families affected by 6000+ somewhat-less-than-common disorders and disabilities. News, legislation, special events, a searchable rare disease database, a used medical equipment exchange and more can be found here. Browsing hypochondriacs will be thrilled to find descriptions of such things as blue diaper syndrome, burning mouth syndrome, cowpox, floating harbor syndrome, glioblastoma multiforme, imperforate anus, Johanson blizzard syndrome, jumping Frenchmen of Maine, hairy tongue, wandering spleen, X-linked juvenile retinoschisis (not an Internet disease), and a multitude of other unpronounceable maladies. (Say, some of these might also make good band names.) Descriptive information is not terribly detailed unless you're willing to pay a modest processing fee - but, hey, it's for a good cause. Besides, it's not as if come September you're likely to be watching the Jerry Lewis maple syrup urine disease telethon.
http://www.rarediseases.org/

ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, ECONOMICS, AND GEOGRAPHY
All that we see or seem

Former Soviet Satellite Openly Debates Social Issues

The former Soviet satellite country of Lithuania was one of the first to thumb its nose at the centralized economy and plow ahead with its own agenda. Now this Baltic republic is openly discussing social conditions and theories which in Soviet times had been either insignificant or repressed. Sociumas, a sociology journal published in Vilnius, addresses such issues as: legalizing the sale and use of drugs (as in the Netherlands), juvenile crime, women's experience in the workplace and the home, violence against children, suicide, and changes in the labor market. Essays give historical perspectives on European social theories and movements, as well. The English version is translated with halting fluency, but it provides good information for anyone interested in contemporary European thought.
http://www.sociumas.lt/Eng/default.asp

If Urban Sprawl Galls You

Sprawl is like pornography: you know it when you see it. But one man's bedroom community may be another man's vulgar environmental crash pad. Which must be why definitions are so varied. Try this one from writer James Howard Kunstler: "The geography of nowhere". "Sprawl", according to The Planner's Web, "destroys the unique character of urban and rural areas creating miles of undifferentiated new development". This site will tell you all the ways to mess up an acre of God's green earth, and some of the solutions available to professional politicians and planners, and other concerned urban and suburban dwellers.
Planner's Web: http://www.plannersweb.com/sprawl.html
Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/

RESIDUE
We can't be sure what else is out there

The Scientific Method for Beginners

The title of this site actually puts its ambitions at an intermediate level but, to our eyes, this is a short and rudimentary discussion about how to design experimental science projects. It's not that we're quarreling with anything that teaches the basics of the scientific method, mind; it's too seldom understood when it's often most important. The authors make the case for the scientific method by speaking to the relationships among observations, hypotheses, data, variables, testing, calculations, and conclusions. They don't really address subjects that we would consider to be intermediate - something like reproducibility, for example (the cornerstone of one of science's smartest parodies). Additionally, while we know it's so ingrained in the vernacular that it's easy to slip into using 'data' as a singular noun, when it's used repeatedly in a scientific setting, the authors should remember that it's actually a plural noun. Data are. Data are. Data are. (Oh, please, please, please, don't allow us to let that slip past in the very next NSS.) We don't want to sound negative about this site. It's a fine summary of the high points of scientific method and it takes a moment to ponder the elements that make the method word; just don't assume it to be the dernier mot on the subject.
Method: http://www.isd77.k12.mn.us/resources/cf/SciProjInter.html
Journal of Irreproducible Results: http://www.jir.com/

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Publisher: Arthur Bebak Editor: Judith David Contributing Editor: Production Manager: Bill Woodcock Netsurfer Communications, Inc. President: Arthur Bebak Vice President: S.M. Lieu	Writers and Netsurfers: Jason Alderman Jonathan Baum Kate Brown Davide di Lazzaro Geoff Fox Craig Kott Michael Luke Elizabeth Rollins
NETSURFER SCIENCE © 2000 Netsurfer Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. NETSURFER SCIENCE is a trademark of Netsurfer Communications, Inc.