ASEE PRISM - DECEMBER 2012 - FIRST LOOK Breathtakingly vast, Greenland’s ancient ice sheet turns out to be as fragile as it is formidable. Huge chunks—one twice the size of Manhattan—splintered with thunderous cracks from its giant glaciers this summer. NASA scientists also were stunned to see the whole 660,235-square-mile surface briefly turn into slush. Environmental photographer James Balog has spent the last five years documenting the impact of Earth’s big thaw on 16 glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Nepal, Alaska, and the U.S. Photo courtesy of james balog / extremelceSurvey.org Are hybrid farms the future of American agriculture? Photo courtesy of istock A University of Washington student group has won the $100,000 3D4D Challenge, sponsored by techfortrade.org, a British charity that sees additive manufacturing as a means to bring social benefits to the developing world. New York City sees 3-D printing as a budding new industry. Cloud computing. Photo courtesy of Google / Connie Zhou Photo courtesy of istock If the U.S.
Galaxy Zoo 40 Cool Science Experiments on the Web Perhaps you don't have enough class periods to do every science experiment you wish you could, or maybe your budget for beakers and baking soda is all tapped out. Maybe you just want to watch and see how it's done before you try to build a volcano with 24 fourth-graders. Whatever the reason, having students watch a science demonstration close up on the Web is the next best thing! 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. How to Choose a Science Fair Topic Help your students choose topics that will bring out their best work. An experiment can be as simple as "Why do I feel hotter when I wear the red side of my jersey instead of the white when I play soccer?" To start, ask them when was the last time they wondered why something happened or how something worked? Look at television commercials and question their claims.
The Milky Way Project Over 4,000 science books now free online - Mankato Homeschooling The National Academies Press announced this week that all PDF versions of its books will now be available free to the public. This includes more than 4,000 books on subjects such as agriculture, engineering, space, nutrition, chemistry and more. In a press release, NAP said: As of today all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press will be downloadable to anyone free of charge. Topics include: Note that many of the titles are quite advanced. Printed versions of NAP's books will still be available for purchase, and can be purchased in Mankato through Barnes and Noble bookstore.
10 Amazing Man-made Substances Technology We all know that mankind is capable of genius. But if you scratch the surface of what we can come up with, even those of us who have already discovered chocolate-covered pretzels can be blown away. For instance, did you know that we have … 10One-Way Bulletproof Glass The problems of the ultra-rich are different than yours or mine. Enter one way ballistic glass: it stops bullets from one side only, allowing return fire. When shot from the other side however, the bullet hits the polycarbonate first, stretching it initially. 9Liquid Glass Once upon a time, dish soap didn’t exist. Liquid Glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing, and make most cleaning products unnecessary, because it also renders surfaces anti-bacterial. The coating can be used to treat plants fungal infections and to seal corks for better bottle seals. 8Amorphous Metal The impact of the bearing actually leaves many small “pits” in the steel, meaning the steel absorbs and dissipates the energy of the impact.
Say Hi to hydrogen!.url If the hydrogen originates in water, hydrogen energy makes a closed loop: the waste product (water) supplies more fuel (water), with essentially no bothersome pollutants and carbon dioxide. That would do wonders for the threat of global warming, and strip mining, oil spills and acid rain. But how to make hydrogen? The obvious way is electrolysis -- an electric current in a solution -- which has long been used to separate oxygen and hydrogen in water. But whence the electricity? Doin' the ol' one-step John Turner, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, thinks he may have a better idea. To do this, the researchers sandwiched two semiconductors and exposed one of them to an acid-water solution. When incoming sunlight strikes the layer of the device made of gallium indium phosphide, electrons are liberated with the right energy level to release hydrogen in water from its bond with oxygen. Solar energy, he points out, is essentially a storage game.
California Seafloor Mapped By USGS - Science News - redOrbit.url August 12, 2013 Image Caption: Three sea stars on a rock, surrounded by a sandy seafloor littered with broken shells. Each sea star is approx. 10 - 15 cm (4-6 inches) across. Image acquired 4.5 km (3 miles) offshore Pigeon Point, southern San Mateo County, California at a depth of 52 meters. Credit: USGS Peter Suciu for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online While California offers an impressive shoreline, new research has been able to look beyond just the surface and has been used to reveal the hidden seafloor in unprecedented detail. Three new products in an ongoing series were released last week by the US Geological Survey (USGS), and include a map set for the area offshore of Carpinteria, a catalog of data layers for geographic information systems and even a collection of videos and photos of the seafloor along the entire Golden State. This data is available now as part of the California Seafloor Mapping Program from the Pacific Coastal & Marine Science Center.
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