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Dark matter hides, physicists seek
WIMPS are thought to be neutral in charge and weigh more than 100 times the mass of a proton. At the moment these elementary particles exist only in theory and have never been observed.
Shuttle Discovery to launch at night:
NASA wants Discovery back from its 12-day mission by New Year’s Eve because shuttle computers are not designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight.
The space agency has figured out a solution for the New Year’s Day problem, but managers are reluctant to try it since it has not been thoroughly tested.
I heard this on the radio this morning. Am I the only one that finds this fairly amazing?
Misleading headline of the week:
There is a conflict between publishing news and properly vetting the science (this conflict is pretty simple to manage I believe but exists nonetheless). I wish, at least, news stories made it clearer when the ideas are speculation, when they are very early research with some evidence in support of the contentions… And online news site should link to original research, more information, related information… That is one big problem with non-open access material. No simple way to share the material online. Links provide a big step toward providing an easy way for the reader to learn more themselves.
Method Could Help Carbon Nanotubes Become Commercially Viable:
Current methods for synthesizing carbon nanotubes produce mixtures of tubes that differ in their diameter and twist. Variations in electronic properties arise from these structural differences, resulting in carbon nanotubes that are unsuitable for most proposed applications.
…
carbon nanotubes first are encapsulated in water by soap-like molecules called surfactants. Next, the surfactant-coated nanotubes are sorted in density gradients which are spun at tens of thousands of rotations per minute in an ultracentrifuge. By carefully choosing the surfactants utilized during ultracentrifugation, the researchers found that carbon nanotubes could be sorted by diameter and electronic structure.
Ancient Moon ‘computer’ revisited
Writing in Nature, the team says that the mechanism was “technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards”.
…
the Moon sometimes moves slightly faster in the sky than at others because of the satellite’s elliptic orbit. To overcome this, the designer of the calculator used a “pin-and-slot” mechanism to connect two gear-wheels that introduced the necessary variations.
“When you see it your jaw just drops and you think: ‘bloody hell, that’s clever’. It’s a brilliant technical design,” said Professor Mike Edmunds.
Larger image via Hellenic Ministry of Culture
Related: An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists - High tech helps solve mystery of ancient calculator
Cool device from MIT: A Shrewd Sketch Interpretation and Simulation Tool.
One-Factor-at-a-Time Versus Designed Experiments by Veronica Czitrom:
I still remember, as a child, asking what my father was going to be teaching the company he was going to consult with for a few days. He said he was going to teach them about using designed factorial experiments. I said, but you explained that to me and I am just a kid? How can you be teaching adults that? Didn’t they learn it in school? The paper provides some examples showing why OFAT experimentation is not as effective as designed multi-factor experiments.
Related: Design of Experiments articles - Statistics for Experimenters (2nd Edition) - Design of Experiments blog posts
via: Girls in Science and Engineering - NSF book. The 2003 book from NSF on Girls in Science and Engineering offers advice on improving k-12 engineering education for girls.
I must admit most of the advice I read for how to improve education for girls is really about doing a better job of science and engineering education for anyone. There is also some good advice (in this booklet and elsewhere) that is specifically about how to improve education for girls. And those practices have been shown to lead to increased desire by girls to to pursue more education, and and achieve future success, in science and engineering fields.
Experts Combine Efforts to Improve Elementary Science:
Good advice.
Related: Center for Engineering Educational Outreach at Tufts University - Middle School Engineers - Middle School Science Teacher - k-12 Engineering Education
NASA Auditions Robots for Lunar Exploration Missions
In September, several such robots and an autonomous Moon buggy called Scout were put through their paces in the rough desert terrain. During a two-week campaign conducted by NASA’s Desert Research and Technology Studies team — a collection of government, university and industry scientists and engineers known as the Desert Rats — the robots demonstrated their ability to work side-by-side with space-suited researchers, helping with the kinds of tasks that actual astronauts will have to perform as they begin exploring the Moon and establishing outposts.
The photo shows me at Meteor Crater. I visited it, and some other sites in Arizona, a few years ago. It is interesting but hardly seems that amazing to me More travel photos: Glacier National Park, Kenya, Rocky Mountain National Park, New York City.
13 things that do not make sense by Michael Brooks discusses such things as dark matter, the horizon problem and the placebo effect:
NSF Undergraduate Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM).
“This program makes grants to institutions of higher education to support scholarships for academically talented, financially needy students, enabling them to enter the workforce following completion of an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate level degree in science and engineering disciplines. Grantee institutions are responsible for selecting scholarship recipients, reporting demographic information about student scholars, and managing the S-STEM project at the institution.” Students apply directly to the school.
Related: July post on this program (applications are taken each semester) - More science and engineering fellowships and grants
Tree of Life (showing 3,000 species, based on rRNA sequences), from the University of Texas. Humans are shown in the upper left “you are here.” I must admit this graphic doesn’t quite work for me but I figure some people might like it.
Grants awarded by NSF for engineering education programs include (next applications due Aug 2007):
Extraordinary Women Engineers (start date Oct 2006) - “to encourage more academically prepared high school girls to consider engineering as an attractive option for post-secondary education and subsequent careers in order to increase the number of women who make up the engineering workforce.”
Colleges of Engineering as Learning Organizations (Sep 2006) - “Based on the framework developed by Senge the PI will work with engineering colleges and departments to develop a rubric that will allow them to self-reflect, make governance decisions that benefit the organization, the faculty, and the students and continuously improve.”
Service-Learning Integrated throughout a College of Engineering (Sep 2005) - “Service-learning is the integration of academic subject matter with service to the community in credit-bearing courses, with key elements including reciprocity, reflection, coaching, community voice in projects.”
Related: NSF Engineering Education Grants - Engineering Projects in Community Service - Innovative Science and Engineering Higher Education - Reforming Engineering Education by NAE - NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education - NSF Provides $75.3 Million for 5 Engineering Research
A wheat gene, now present but inactive, could boost nutrition if it were active. Wheat’s lost gene helps nutrition
Writing in the journal Science, they suggest that new varieties with a fully functioning gene can be created through cross-breeding with wild wheat. “Wheat is one of the world’s major crops, providing approximately one-fifth of all calories consumed by humans,”
…
“This experiment confirmed that this single gene was responsible for all these changes.”
The researchers deduced that the reverse process - enhancing GPC-B1 activity - ought to produce plants which have higher levels of these nutrients in their grains and mature faster. The UC Davis team is already making such varieties, not by genetic engineering but through crossing domesticated wheat plants with wild relatives.
Related: Are Our Vegetables Less Nutritious? - Norman Borlaug and other Scientist who Shaped our World - Where Bacteria Get Their Genes
The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (pdf) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:
“40 million Americans rely on the internet as their primary source for news and information about science,” second to TV.
Another interesting piece of data: “59% of Americans have been to some sort of science museum in
the past year.” I find this unlikely but… That rises to79% for those that have visited a science website.
The respondents also reported extremely positives views of science, such as (see page 26-28):
To be a strong society, the United States needs to be competitive in science 39% strongly agree 50% agree 8% disagree 1% strongly disagree
Developments in science help make society better 31% 58% 8% 1%
Scientific research is essential to improving the quality of human lives 35% 56% 7% 1%
Science creates more problems than solutions for us and our planet 3% 19% 52% 19%
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