Netsurfer Science 03.15

Those fun guys over at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, who love to accelerate things to incredible speeds and then smash them together, have apparently discovered that the general Web audience likes to see those things as well. They've set up live webcasts for the 18th and 21st of November, and are hoping that you'll tune in to hear them talk about their latest experiments involving some of their biggest and most expensive systems built to date! Mind you, this is no ordinary stuff we're talking about smashing here; we're talking about matter/antimatter reactions. They already know how to create antimatter, so now they're trying to use their new 'antiproton decelerator' to help them trap antiparticles (for peaceful purposes, of course). Watch live with your RealPlayer, and submit questions via e-mail to the trained scientists. Their Web site also contains an explanation of general concepts and a history of the subject, as well as a children's art gallery that depicts a variety of horrendous particle interactions. Just hope that some hacker doesn't develop 'antipackets' that will interfere with the live event.
CERN: http://livefromcern.web.cern.ch/livefromcern/antimatter/
RealPlayer 8 Basic: http://www.real.com/player/index.html?src=001114realhome_2

EARTH SYSTEMS
No matter where you go, there you are

The Grand Canyon Explorer

Here's one of those sites that we just admire the heck out of. The whole package is inviting in tone and appearance. It's smartly designed without sacrificing bandwidth unnecessarily. And, author Bob Ribokas knows his subject so well that he can present even complex relationships without losing clarity. We all know much of the information already, but Ribokas puts a fresh face on familiar facts by showing us how they relate to each other to create one of the world's most spectacular shows. Unless you're planning a visit to the Grand Canyon, we're inclined to take you right to the geology page where the discussion ranges from root systems in the area's plant life to plate tectonics. Every critical idea is developed but not belabored, accompanied by photographs and illustrations that are on point with the text. Back up one level, and you'll find a hyperlinked timeline that traces the history of humans in the Grand Canyon or a paper about the Canyon and its weather. These pages are part of a larger site lovingly maintained by Ribokas and easily navigated from any starting point.
Geology: http://www.kaibab.org/geology/gc_geol.htm
Learn more: http://www.kaibab.org/gc/learn.htm

COMPUTING AND ENGINEERING
Open the pod bay doors, Hal

Rock Your World

If there is a reflexive 'wow' response in the human psyche, beholding a big building go boom triggers it. See for yourself as you watch video of the grand old Atlantic City Mayfair Hotel, or the Sears Merchandise Center, or West Virginia's Cotton Hill Bridge blow and fall to rubble. Of course, bringing buildings down safely and economically is an engineering challenge involving considerable skill. The Protec Corporation's site describes the different techniques used for imploding and exploding steel and concrete structures. And when blasting won't do - say, next to a gas pipeline - soundless chemical demolition is often used. Purdue University's Emerging Construction Technologies page explains how injecting expanding fluids into concrete and rock can crack a structure so it falls - sans boom boom, but not without a 'wow'. Emerging construction technologies:
Protec Corporation: http://www.implosionworld.com/
http://www.new-technologies.org/ECT/Civil/soundche.htm
Explosive demolition FAQ: http://www.bigblast.com/questions.htm

Remote Sensing and GIS in Archeology

While old-fashioned archaeologists muck about in the dirt with shovel and spade, relying on legends, crumbling maps, elderly locals, or dowsing to determine the next dig site, the modern explorer, armed with his advanced geographic information systems (GIS) technology, can peel away the layers without ever leaving his desk. (He may have to send out some undergraduates at the later stages of the research, but it's good to keep them busy anyway.) Dr. Scott Madry has been examining the Burgundy region of France for the last 20 years using such modern methods, but he has yet to unearth a decent bottle of wine. He has, however, put together a commendable presentation that shows the capabilities of systems that can blend satellite or aerial photographic, radar or other data with historical maps, and ground-collected data (assisted with GPS) in a comprehensive manner.
http://www.informatics.org/france/france.html

The Internet Archive

Consider the plight of a traditional librarian trying to deal with the Internet. Providing organized access to something as volatile, dynamic, and disorganized as the Internet is truly what they call in business an 'opportunity'. Founded in 1996 as a public nonprofit and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Internet Archive is tackling that opportunity by taking snapshots of Internet sites at various time periods, in essence preserving the place as it was, and making the resulting archive available for scholars and researchers. To gain access to it, you must register and describe either a project that requires you to get your grubby virtual paws on the material or a plan to deposit material. As of March 2000, the Archive had 1billion Web pages, 50,000 FTP sites, and 16 million Usenet postings, amounting to well over 14 terabytes of data. The site describes the challenges of preserving digital materials, how the snapshots (really Web crawls) are taken, the limitations to such automated processes, the archive builders' plans for the future are, and just why digital libraries are important.
http://www.archive.org/

Digital Libraries

For folk who have lived with it for some years now, the D-Lib site continues to provide an immense body of practical and theoretical knowledge about the impact and workings of things digital on things library. For those new to the field, it is indeed a treasure trove of almost awesome wonder. One of the major resources here is the D-Lib Test Suite, a group of digital library testbeds available to government and private researchers in the US, and even outside, when possible. Another is the Ready Reference section, a gateway to other resources related to digital libraries and information management. For most folk, however, the real value of this place is D-Lib Magazine, which is a pretty awesome monthly compendium of cutting edge professional articles and seemingly comprehensive news about events, conferences, and calls for participation involving digital libraries. The magazine is available online in its entirety, stretching all the way back to its bright, good pedigree beginnings in 1995. It's all online. It's free. It's invaluable. This is a high quality site of great value to anyone interested in the digital information business.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib.html

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

The Space Shuttle: Motherlode Payload

The page we're pointing you toward at first glance doesn't seem to be anything special - no images, no frills, no sound. But it is an incredible source of information about NASA's space shuttle program. Clicking on the hyperlinked text opens an even wider array of possibilities, letting you explore all facets of space shuttle missions, from construction to Challenger's accident, to mission preparation and pre-launch operations. The site - built around a 1988 reference manual - is actually offered as a background resource for reporters and science writers, but you don't have to show any media credentials and your abiding interest in all things spacey should be enough to make a visit here very satisfying in both a scientific and historical sense.
http://www.fas.org/spp/civil/sts/newsref/stsref-toc.html

Enjoy the Absence of Gravity

At one time, the old saw about death and taxes could have added one more inevitability to its inventory: gravity. Before Yuri Gagarin's first orbital flight, nobody could hope to escape, even for a second, gravity's embrace. Now, instead, we contemplate the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Because our body structure is in good measure shaped by gravity, what might the responses of our body be at its zeroing? This question was posed more than ten years before the first orbital flight. Now, Scientific American sums up the answers. You'll discover how many problems arise when living in a zero-gravity environment, but you'll be also amazed at how readily our bodies can adapt to their new circumstances.
http://www.sciam.com/1998/0998issue/0998white.html

MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
42

Virtuallaboratory.net

Because these two points seem to annoy some people, we'll mention first that you'll need the Flash plug-in to view this site and you'll have to register (free). Those two requirements in place, this site offers virtual biology labs to study bacterial growth, classic biological systems, the origin of mutations, and host/pathogen interactions. There are more labs planned, all with animations, explanations, and questions to help you assess your level of knowledge reached. This promising weblab is a painless way to learn.
Virtuallaboratory: http://www.virtuallaboratory.net/
Flash Player: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/

Factasia

If the Internet is based on the principles of digital computation which, in turn are based, ultimately, on Boolean logic, and if one were to create a Web page residing on that Internet, then wouldn't that page have to conform to the rules of logic? To answer our self-imposed question, we need to give careful consideration to the word 'logic', turning to the Web itself for inspiration while ignoring our recursive guilt. Roger Bishop Jones, programmer, pianist, and writer has organized such a page for us, with his thoughts and musings on logic presented in a manner that is more creative than one might expect. Symbolic, philosophical, first-order, mathematical, and other types of logic are examined, as well as set theory, type systems, and even a form of calculus so complicated it can only be denoted by the symbol l. We find an 80-word definition of 'truth' provided for the unbelieving or other politicians, although it can't avoid using the words 'true' or 'truth' in the definition a few times. There's a history of formal logic and logical revolutions, and even a predication for a 'logical revolution' that will eventually lead to "trustworthy intelligent systems which use logic and formal mathematics to support our work, education and entertainment". And if you're not convinced that such is right around the corner, then you should have a look at the Lycos Top 50 to see just where the unfettered interests of the electronically enlightened masses will lead.
Factasia: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/logic/log025.htm
Lycos Top 50: http://50.lycos.com/

ARCHEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY
What is past is prologue

The Book of Hours

The pious Christian of the 13th century would do well to carry his Book of Hours with him during his daily activities. In it, he found instruction on which prayers to pray at eight different times during the day, each day of the year, according to the various seasons, saints' days and holy days. Whether recitations of passages from the Gospels or the Psalms, or supplications addressed to the Virgin Mary, God, saints or angels, the total time commitment expected of the devotee must have been a substantial one. Use of the book declined during the 16th century, when Readers' Digest came out with an abridged "Book of Minutes". The full hypertext tome paralleled in Latin and English is available at the site.
http://members.tripod.com/~gunhouse/hourstxt/hrstoc.htm

Akhenaten, Pharaoh of the Sun

Tutankhamen became a major figure in Egyptian history only thousands of years after his reign and principally because his tomb remains among the most astonishing archeological discoveries of any era. Akhenaten's name probably doesn't strike the same chords for you that Tutankhamen or Nefertiti do, but the fact is that in life, he was infinitely more important to Egyptian life than the Boy-King or his doting wife. Akhenaten changed the basis of religious life for Egypt when he embraced Aten, the sun god, as the sole god, reducing the Egyptian pantheon to one member. At this distance of time, it doesn't sound like much, but consider for a moment the ramifications in Christianity if the Pope himself abruptly championed polytheism in our age. It was for Egypt and would be for us a revolution in religious and even secular life. Egyptian monotheism died along with Akhenaten, but the nature of the changes that his belief wrought in Egyptian life have emerged from an excavation at the city of Amarna. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is hosting an exhibition of the artifacts evidencing the changes. View the exhibit online (you'll need the free Flash Player), or buy tickets for the real thing.
Akhenaten: http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/pharaohs_exhib/amarna/ex_hi_ind.html
Flash Player again: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/

Megalithic Mysteries Photo Shoot

Everyone's heard of Stonehenge, but how about the Rudston Monolith, or Seahenge, or Cairnholy? We could list many more, but our very own gentle editor is clearing her throat meaningfully, so to find out more about the myriad of mysterious places that seem numerous enough to trip over in Scotland, England, Cornwall, Wales, or Ireland, click on the link below. There you'll find a photographic feast of places with standing stones, stone circles, and other puzzling prehistoric monuments. The site design is kind of clunky and garish, but the contents are wonderful, often including not only pictures but also brief descriptions and ratings for general impression, ambiance, and access, as well as map directions. The sites are numerous, the pictures plentiful and amazing, and there are audio tours of many of the locations featured. Overall this is one smashing, spiffy place, clearly the product of much dedication and enthusiasm.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/stones.htm

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.

Einstein, History, and Other Passions: The Rebellion Against Science at the End of the Twentieth Century
Gerald Holton
Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674004337

Our skeptics' hearts aren't entirely bloodless. As much as we appreciate the astonishing beauty of modern science to the limit of our understanding of it, we're still entranced by some of the romantic notions that are so inconsistent with science. We understand, too, how contemporary science - from medicine to quantum physics to pure mathematics - is beyond the ken of most of us. If scientists love the simplicity of consistency in their theories, most people treasure the consistency of simplicity - at least as they understand it. It's also eminently human to treasure our own intimate worlds over expanding universes. But, as science moves into a realm that's invisible for most of us, it and its opponents become more polarized - and we only need to take a brief tour of the Internet to know how polarized. It also seems that, at the extremes, neither side can fully separate or integrate science and its uses or abuses. Holton's book, as much philosophy as science, urges us toward the rationalism of science to find its poetry. The most poetic of scientists, of course - whose body of work was founded in imagination, not the scientific method - was Einstein. Holton appreciates Einstein's poetic genius precisely for its scientific value. We admire the beauty of his science too, but Einstein thought in a different place and plane of poetry to which only a handful can aspire. Can we reconcile science and poetry at our own level?

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

FightAIDSatHome

You've probably heard about the SETI@home project that lets you download portions of the electromagnetic spectrum received from distant galaxies so your computer can scan the data for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence during what would normally be idle processing time? Well, it was just a matter of time until someone else capitalized on that general concept; a company called Entropia has recently launched a commercial venture to do just that. It's already compiled over 636 million hours of research over a vast network of Internet-connected computers, and claims a sustained processing rate of 1 teraflop/sec. Best of all, Entropia has philanthropically donated the bulk of this processing time to fighting AIDS, by teaming with the Scripps Research Institute "to model the evolution of drug resistance and design the drugs necessary to fight AIDS". So you'd better upgrade that old PC you've been keeping in the basement and hook it up to your home network. You might be responsible for detecting alien life and finding a cure for AIDS - and how cool would that be!
http://www.fightaidsathome.org/

Hip Pain

Although the dominant sense here is one of heavy reliance on pills, prescription and otherwise, there is indeed basic information about hips, hip pain and hip replacement. In fact, the site does a fairly decent basic job of explaining when such an operation might be indicated, how the hip works, how the artificial joint is installed, hip exercises, and the like. Don't look here for anything particularly deep, but as a starting point for anyone interested in the subject the illustrations and basic descriptions are effective, except, alas, for the lack of links to let you go deeper. Having aging parents that have had the operation, we've always wondered quite how hip replacement worked and now we know. One warning: the surgery center and doctor locators are way too limited to be of any use.
http://www.hippain.com/hip.html

Anesthesia in Exotic Animals

Veterinarians have a tough job. Sure, the family pooch can give the doc a bit of trouble, but what does she do when the local zoo calls to tell her that its prized, endangered, Greater Latvian Whooping Stork has swallowed a balloon and may have a blocked intestine? How does she go about capturing, anesthetizing, and preparing it for surgery? Christian J. Wenker, doctor of veterinary medicine at the Clinic for Exotic Pets and Zoo Animals at the University of Zurich, has practical experience that may render the solution. Dr. Wenker explains the proper procedure for using a blowpipe to administer anesthetics from a safe distance. Once sedated, the animal will have to be kept knocked out with the use of inhalants, so Dr. Wenker considers the various types of drugs along with their potential side effects. Delivery of such inhalants is also examined, because you can't exactly fit a facemask over an elephant or a python. (The editor chimes in: Anesthesia is a tricky business even with animals that aren't so exotic. When NSS mega-mascot and Irish wolfhound, Gryphon - tipping the scales at 180 lb. and standing more than 4' tall at the crest of his brow - required surgery, a veterinary specialist undertook the anesthesia. Not only does the breed have known and potentially fatal sensitivities to anesthetics, but the dog's size puts it at increasingly greater risk the longer the surgery wears on.)
http://www.ispub.com/journals/IJA/Vol2N3/zoo.htm

Howard Hughes Billions Go to Biomedical Research and Education

As biomedicine careens along with its map of the human genome in the glove box, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute would appear to be using its 13 billion dollar nonprofit endowment to make sure we're not driving in circles. Its research facilities employ hundreds of respected biomedical scientists. Greater worldwide science literacy is a primary mandate, and the Web site shows it. A smattering of bioscience news and feature stories help round it out, along with links for students. The "Ask a Scientist" feature is particularly useful to high school advanced placement students and college science majors.
http://www.hhmi.org/

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

Totem Poles

The totem pole is not dead, nor is it alive only in museum captivity. And a visit to the Prelude to the Study of a Totem Pole site is rather like a hike through a redwood cathedral into the lively totem art world of contemporary British Columbia and southern Alaska. Photos document how the village of Gitanyow recently roused the whole community to ritually raise a pole in one of its coastal villages. Master totem artist Jim Hart of the Haida nation explains how he spends his days carving supernatural beings in redwood. The University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology offers rich information, photos, and reference background.
http://www.moa.ubc.ca/Virtual/Other/prelude2/start.html

SCIENCE LITE
Where are you, Mulder?

We Can Name That Tune in Six Lines of Code: When Geeks and Beer Collide

You know the, um, lyrics of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. As if singing the song wasn't waste of time enough, some darned fool wasted bandwidth by posting the entire song in a Usenet entry some time back, whipping geeks everywhere into a coding frenzy. Believe it or not, the humble lyrics of this road trip classic have so far been written in 227 programming languages. And you thought French was the language of love.
http://www.ionet.net/~timtroyr/funhouse/beer.html

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CREDITS

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 Craig Kott Michael Luke Elizabeth Rollins
NETSURFER SCIENCE © 2000 Netsurfer Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. NETSURFER SCIENCE is a trademark of Netsurfer Communications, Inc.