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7th Grader mimics Nature

7th Grader mimics Nature
13 year old copies Nature to Improve Solar Performance Thirteen year old Aidan Dwyer was walking in the woods in Upstate New York in the winter and noticed a spiral pattern to tree branches. Aidan realized the tree branches and leaves had a mathematical spiral pattern that could be shown as a fraction. After some research he also realized the mathematical fractions were the same numbers as the Fibonacci sequence. "On the oak tree, the Fibonacci fraction is 2/5, which means that the spiral takes five branches to spiral two times around the trunk to complete one pattern. Other trees with the Fibonacci leaf arrangement are the elm tree (1/2); the beech (1/3); the willow (3/8) and the almond tree (5/13) Aidan's backyard in Northport, NY. The 7th grader next wondered why nature used such a pattern? Aidan discovered that the Fibonacci pattern helps deciduous trees, in higher latitudes, efficiently track the Sun and collect the most sunlight even in the thickest forest, on the cloudiest days.

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How to Memorize - Learn to memorize and increase memory If you are visiting from StumbleUpon and like this article and tool, please consider giving it a thumbs up. Thanks! Memorizing does not have to be as hard as most people make it. The problem is that most people only know how to memorize by reading the same thing over and over again. Plantduino Greenhouse Introduction: This project is in the instructables microcontroller contest. If you enjoy it, please vote here! If we win we will begin construction on a solar earth roving robot. Disclaimer: This project uses high voltages! We are currently adapting the instructions to to run the control board and relays on DC power from batteries.

Good coffee threatened by disease outbreak A disease called coffee rust has reached epidemic proportions in Central America, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farmers and the morning pick-me-up of millions of coffee drinkers. Caused by a leaf-blighting fungus, possibly exacerbated by growing practices and climate change, the disease leaves coffee plants spindly and barren, their precious fruits unripened. "Where people have been using heirloom varietals for a century, you just have trees without leaves," said David Griswold, president of Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers.

- StumbleUpon Eating 10 hot dogs in 6 minutes and belching the national anthem may impress your friends, but neither of those feats will do much for your body—at least not much good. Instead, why not train yourself to do something that may actually pay off? We're not talking bench presses and interval training (though those do help). You can teach your body to cure itself from everyday health ailments—side stitches, first-date jitters, even hands that have fallen asleep. Open source hardware 2009 – The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009 Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up – What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and “board” files to recreate the hardware – they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric. Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 125 unique projects/kits in 19 categories, up from about 60 in 2008, more than doubling the projects out there! – it’s incredible!

18 of Nature’s Most Powerful Medicinal Plants (Part of an Exclusive WebEcoist Series on Amazing Trees, Plants, Forests and Flowers) From marijuana to catnip, there are hundreds of remarkably common herbs, flowers, berries and plants that serve all kinds of important medicinal and health purposes that might surprise you: anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, insect repellent, antiseptic, expectorant, antibacterial, detoxification, fever reduction, antihistamine and pain relief. Here are eighteen potent medical plants you're likely to find in the wild – or even someone's backyard – that can help with minor injuries, scrapes, bites and pains

Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Ubi-Camera: In the Future, Will We Take Photos with Our Fingers? This is version 1.0 of a technology that's a bit clunky now, but has the potential to be awesome at the 2.0 or 3.0 level. The Ubi-Camera is a working concept devised at Japan's Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences which allows you to take photos the way a pretentious art-house movie director frames shots: By framing them with your fingers. We say it's clunky because the current prototype requires you stick your fingers into that little box, but it's not difficult to imagine where this could go: 1.) Picture the lens being something tiny that attaches to the fingernail of your pointer finger.

Natural Revolution » Farmers vs. Monsanto: Court Case Update Many of you likely recall the OSGATA vs. Monsanto case from last year. The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA), comprised of some 300,000 individuals and non-GMO farming alliances, filed suit against the biotech behemoth Monsanto in 2011 in order to protect themselves against Monsanto’s suing for incidental GMO seed drift onto their non-GMO fields. To the world’s outrage, OSGATA’s case was denied last year by judge Naomi Buchwald on insufficient grounds for bringing a preemptive case against Monsanto. In other words, they were denied the right to protect themselves against Monsanto’s frivolous lawsuits. OSGATA vowed to appeal, which they did, and that appeal was finally heard by a three-judge panel today, June 10, 2013.

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