Are You Curious?

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You know by now my desire for you to find the wonder in science: the origin of the universe, multi-generational space travel, life on other planets, even the confluence of doomsday theories for 12.21.2012. So has your curiosity been piqued yet?

Scientists spend their lives exploring the unknown, searching for clues that might lead to the answers. Just such a quest is about to begin this week! The Curiosity Rover, pictured above is set to launch from Cape Canaveral this Saturday (11/26) at 10:02 am. Its mission to Mars will try to answer the question, “Is there life out there?”. Read more ….

 

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What do you discuss at dinner?

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A nice meal with family and friends, a bottle of wine and good conversation — a perfect Sunday evening. Who could ask for more? What did we talk about? Well neutrinos breaking the ultimate of speed limits — the speed of light. What else would we have been talking about?

No really, that was part of our conversation. Nothing is suppose to be able to go faster than the speed of light! That’s part of Einstein’s theory of relativity. You know Einstein, the guy with the funny hair.

So what is going on at CERN, the mammoth underground particle accelerator in Europe?

Image Source BBC

Click here to read more and listen to an interview with Professor Antonio Ereditato of CERN.

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What Have We Done?

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Three weeks gone already? That just doesn’t seem possible. But it’s true, you are beginning week 4. Here’s a little challenge for you — write a short summary of what we’ve done, better yet what you’ve learned and post it to the comments.

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Know Your Source

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So if scientists publish their findings in scientific peer reviewed journals and those journals, along with most scientific research projects, are not written in a way the average person can easily understand, how do we learn about new discoveries? Where do we get our science?

Well that depends on what you read, watch and listen to.

Many types of popular media include science related information, but we must be able to spot bias. Does the publication have a specific point of view they are trying to support? Are they trying to sell something using “science” to increase sales? Do they have staff that are qualified to write about science? What is the reputation of the publication or media? Can the claim be supported through other information sources? Be careful of anything that claims secret knowledge — real science is open to the public.

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Worst Hurricane in Decades?

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Hurricane Irene, currently a category 3 with 120 mph winds and pressure of 954mb, is anticipated to strengthen. Traveling over warm waters above 85 degrees F, with low upper level wind shear and abundant atmospheric moisture, it should become a very large cat 4 system probably sometime tomorrow.

Image Source: WeatherUnderground.com

The projected path for Irene which shows unprecedented model agreement takes it sufficiently east of Florida to only have moderate impacts on this state but tracks along the highly populated east coast and into New England. This could be one of the strongest storms for this part of the U.S. in decades. States are preparing for storm surge, high winds and flooding. Evacuations of some areas are anticipated but over 55 million people live in the path of this storm.

This may be a long weekend for many as the storm is anticipated to pass the North Carolina coast on Saturday and make its way to Maine by Monday.  Discuss the storm here and look for updates.

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How Do You Read?

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I read a book this summer titled “Macrowikinomics” by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, but that’s not really important, at least for what I want to discuss here. What I want to talk about is how I read the book, or more so, what I found myself doing while reading the book.

At 432 pages and just published in the fall of last year you would imagine it to be fairly complete and current. Yet I found myself wondering what the author thought about some events that have taken place since the book was published. So with the book on my lap I grabbed my iPhone and started reading the author’s blog online.

When a section in the book discussed a new online community that was developing free software to help with the logistics of disaster relief (how to get supplies to where they are needed most) I was again using my phone to to peer into this community.

What does this say about books, about how we interact with them? Will I want to do the same when reading other books? What about students reading a textbook?

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