Education and Outreach
The newest volume of Environmental Research has a special section focusing in the biological and ecological impacts of plastics... and the results aren't pretty.
The law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), enacted in 2002, set an ambitious goal: that across the nation, every state would test students annually in reading and math, and that the number of students scoring at the level of "proficient" or higher would rise each year, until all students reached proficiency in the year 2014.
This is the full 800-word version of a comparative book review that appeared in shorter form on the Sunday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette books page. The two books, Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D. and Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, M.D., may literally save lives.
Today is the first day of Latino/Hispanic Heritage Month. I encourage all eduactors to add a little history and perspective to your lessons this month. Highlight the contributions of Latino Science & Engineering professionals in your field and/or encourage students to do a biographical research report of Latino Scientists.
A news story about a BIG NSF grant to a US University to fund undergraduate scholarships in Engineering
Understanding science seriously influences our everyday lives, whether we are conscious of science or not.
With the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) coming on line tomorrow, 10 September 2008, many physicists are expecting the long-anticipated detection of the Higgs boson to follow soon after.
But what if they don't find it?
Are you smarter than Stephen Hawking? In this case, five high school kids were and now they'll have proclamations to prove it.
With the "Mommy Wars" once again erupting around Sarah Palin's nomination for V.P., a piece of valuable insight arises in the scientific realm. Planetary astronomer Heidi Hammel has managed to do world-class science requiring frequent travel while sharing the parenting of three children, ages 7, 9, and 11, with her equally busy husband. For insight into Heidi's work and how she balances her life, read "A Conversation with Heidi B. Hammel" in the Sept. 2, 2008, issue of the New York Times.
Then take the next step and read...
Abunga.com is having an online chat Wednesday, Sept. 3, from 2-3 p.m. EDT with Bayard Taylor, author of "The Late Great Ape Debate," to discuss his research on creation vs. evolution.
I'm Dr. Fred, and I'm here to tell ya
'Bout a Large Hadron Rap and some books to sell ya.
You can buy 'em online, but if you want 'em free
You can read 'em all you want at your librar-ee!
I just got my e-mail about the September Cafe Scientifique get-together in Pittsburgh.
It seems I know the speaker!
The Rense website posts the #16 Special on Morgellons with special guests. Dare you listen?
Despite investments, community goodwill and some good ideas, a vexing question remains in the age of school reform: Why has so much hope and effort led to disappointment?
Normal spiral galaxies have exponential disks and logarithmic arms (spirals). They must be interrelated and the relation is suggested to be iso-ratio. Assume that you come off the disk center by such route that the ratio of the star density on your left side to the one on your right side is constant. The route (iso-ratio curve) turns out to be a logarithmic spiral. Such distribution of iso-ratio densities is called a harmonic structure. It can be proved that arms are not harmonic and present (although small) disturbance to the harmonic disks, which explains why elliptical galaxies are clean while spiral galaxies are dusty. Some barred spiral galaxies have elliptical rings (arms). Mathematical study shows that there are very few types of harmonic structures. Most of them are axisymmetric (circularly symmetric). The only non-axisymmetric structure which I can find is the one with elliptical iso-ratio curves. The harmonic structure is handle-shaped while many barred galaxies show a set of symmetric enhancements at the ends of the stellar bar, called ansae or the ``handles" of the bar. This suggests that a bar which is the additional harmonic structure to circular disk, consists of several pairs of aligned handles. In far distance from the galaxy center, the bar brightness should not approach the disk one otherwise we could not distinguish between bar and disk in the far distance. It is surprising that my model bar decreases outwards much quicker (cubic-exponential, exp(-r$^3$)) than the exponential disk (exp(-r)). My bar model fits the images of nine galaxies very well. In addition, a similar iso-ratio model fits elliptical galaxies both theoretically and numerically. Because the iso-ratio principle explains and interrelates different observational facts, it must point to some truth.
