ScienceCafes-Feb2013

 

Also see:

  • Science cafes offer a sip of learning — from reuters.com by Barbara Liston — with thanks to Annie Murphy Paul (@anniemurphypaul) who used twitter to ask: Americans resist studying science in school, but they flock to “science cafes” on their own time. What gives?
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    Excerpt:
    (Reuters) – Americans may be turning away from the hard sciences at universities, but they are increasingly showing up at “science cafes” in local bars and restaurants to listen to scientific talks over a drink or a meal.

 

An interesting augmented reality app:

Some other innovative apps:

  • Nuclear — with thanks going out to Mr. Steven Chevalia for this find/resource
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Nuclear lets you learn, play, discover and explore the chemical elements at the atomic scale.

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http://robotsapp.spectrum.ieee.org/

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  • Solar Walk — with thanks going out to Mr. Steven Chevalia for this find/resource
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The Wider Image app from Reuters

 

From DSC:
Publishers — take a look at what Reuters is doing here; consider offering such a constantly up-to-date stream of content that fills up digital “textbooks.”

 

Addendum:

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Note Anytime app

 

Note Anytime – Write stylish notes, mash up handwritten text or typed text with photos and high resolution graphics; scale from a piece of paper to a whiteboard, then output to your favorite social networks. Take a Note Anytime! By MetaMoJi Corporation

 

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Also see:

 

From DSC:
I’m also reminded of what I’d like to see in a digital textbook — a series of “layers” that people — with various roles and perspectives on the content — could use to comment on and annotate an article:

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Chemistry project goes viral -- great work Eli Cirino!

 

From DSC:
Great work Eli Cirino!

It is my hope that we could create more teaching materials like this — i.e. content that uses digital storytelling to create a more last impression…to elicit emotions…to move a piece of information through the gate (i.e. someone’s attention) and then through someone’s working memory and into their long term memory! Great, creative, innovative thinking Eli!

 

 

Art Olson: Augmented Reality for Chemists -September 2011

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Online marketplace helps professors outsource their lab research — from The Chronicle by Alex Campbell

Excerpt:

Jill Wykosky, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, needed to make some antibodies, but she couldn’t do it all herself.

To help find a lab partner, she tried a new Web site called Science Exchange, posting an ad there saying she needed someone to make peptides to be used as “antigen for monoclonal antibody production.” Within a couple of days, she had bids from seven or eight companies.

Also see:

http://scienceexchange.com/

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The Singularity: Five technologies that will change the world (and one that won’t) — from MaximumPC.com by David Gerrold; originally saw this in Steve Knode’s July 2011 Newsletter

Excerpt I want to comment on:

Now, let’s try a thought experiment. If we apply Moore’s law and assume that the rate of scientific advancement doubles at the same rate as the computer power that we apply to research, then we can project that we will likely accomplish a whole 20th century’s worth of scientific advancement in 5 years—by 2015. As the rate continues to double, we’ll accomplish a century’s work in 2.5 years, then 1.25 years, 7.5 months, 3 months and 3 weeks, then a smidge less than two months, one month, two weeks, one week, then 3.5 days, 1.75 days, and if you ignore Zeno’s paradox, by the end of 2020 we will be accomplishing a century’s worth of research every day, and two weeks later, every second. And after that…?

From DSC:

This is why it is critical that all of us are tapping into streams of content. We can’t be dealing with damned up “water” — but we need to access ever-flowing-streams of content. We need to learn how to learn — and like learning! We’ll also need to know how to manage learning agents in order to sort through the information overload coming at us.

What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

 

Also mentioned in the above article:

  • Graphene
  • Robots
  • Bio-Fabbing
  • Universal Smart Tech

Also from Steve Knode:

 

Interactive streaming video technology from Stanford - Summer 2011

Stanford researchers designed software that allows a viewer to zoom and pan while streaming online courses. They recently released the code to the public.

20 most impressive science fair projects of all time — from onlineuniversities.com
 

MIT’s new liquid flow batteries — from trendbird.biz
MIT’s new liquid flow batteries could make refueling EVs as fast as pumping gas

 

 

Also see:

  • Enerkem raises $60M to transform garbage into fuel — from trendbird.biz
    Canadian company Enerkem has devised an innovative plan to transform garbage into a source of fuel, and today it received $60 million in new financing to bring its technology to the mainstream.

 

Also see:

ecostar.png

Do you know how plastic bottles are actually recycled? The amount of energy that goes into it is pretty insane, as you’ll see in this video below of the Ecostar recycling facility in Wisconsin. The amount of steps—not to mention electricity, water and manpower—that need to be taken to go from a bale of plastic bottles into safe, useable material is pretty staggering.

What’s even more staggering is that as energy-intensive as recycling is, it still gives off only half the carbon that’s produced when creating virgin materials. It makes you wonder why we don’t spend more time looking at more efficient ways to convey fluids, or if our current system of plastic bottles is really the best thing mankind can come up with.

 

Also see:

 

 

Also see:

 

 

Addendum 6-11-11 — also see:

 

Solar Array

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Science Simulations: A Virtual Learning Environment — from Journey in Technology by Dolores Gende

Where do I find simulations?

One of the best websites for science simulations is PhET from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Originally founded by Physics Nobel Prize laureate Carl Weiman, PhET provides fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for free. These simulations can be downloaded or played directly on your browser.

Teachers can access the Teacher Ideas & Activities page for teacher-submitted contributions, designed to be used in conjunction with the simulations.

These are the links to the core science courses simulations. The PhET website also contains excellent Math simulations.

Simulation Resources

Biology
Chemistry
Earth Science/Geology
Physics

Some resources from Flipping the classroom — from learningconversations.co.uk by Mark Berthelemy

From DSC:
…and I would add the people who I saw who first started this new pedagogical practice (at least here in the U.S.)

  • The Vod Couple — from TheJournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser — 08/01/09
    High school chemistry teachers Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann have overturned conventional classroom instruction by using video podcasts to form the root of a new learning model.

The Vod Couple

GOOD CHEMISTRY
Sams (left) and Bergmann together practice a student-centered pedagogy.

THUMBING through an issue of MacWorld a few years ago, Aaron Sams was struck by an article about an application called ProfCast that allows instructors to record live classroom lessons on a Mac. He brought the story to the attention of his fellow Woodland Park High School chemistry teacher, Jonathan Bergmann. The two men both saw that the ability to capture their daily lecture as a video podcast– or vodcast– and then allow students to view the recording on their own schedule later that evening could be the solution to a nettlesome yet unavoidable problem they were facing.

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