Category Archives: Education

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World

20 Scientists Who Have Helped Shape Our World (pdf document) from the National Science Resources Center

Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist”–Father of the Green Revolution”
…
The results of Dr. Borlaug’s work are encouraging: India, for example, harvests six times more wheat today than it did only 40 years ago. This increase in wheat production in poor countries has been called the “Green Revolution.” It has been written about Dr. Borlaug that he has saved more lives than anyone else who ever lived.

For his scientific achievements, Dr. Borlaug was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Today, at age 90, Dr. Borlaug remains active in science as a distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University

Others include:

  • Tim Berners-Lee, Computer Scientist—Inventor of the World Wide Web
  • George Washington Carver, Inventor/Chemist (1861−1943)—Saving Agriculture in the South
  • Ayanna Howard, Engineer—Robotics Pioneer, and

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    Sea “Spiders” Suck on Prey

    Vampire sea spiders suck on prey

    Weird spider-like creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean and use a ‘straw’ to suck on their prey are baffling scientists.

    These sea spiders, some of which are blind, are defying scientific classification.
    …
    She has been using DNA and morphology to construct a family tree, using 60 species of sea spiders from all over the world.

    Interesting stuff. Related posts: Ocean Life – Photos of Live Deep-Sea Giant – Incredible Insects – Cat Family Tree – Evolution in Darwin’s Finches – Two Butterfly Species Evolved Into Third

    Science Opportunities for Students

    Girls in Science camping trip photo

    The Girls In Science blog documents a program for Roosevelt Middle School students in San Diego. It provides a great example of what can been done:

    Wow, what a year it’s been for our Girls In Science (GIS) program! In the span of one short school year, we met with 30 different presenters, covering topics from veterinary pathology to behavioral research to visual communication in primates to cytogenetics… We met sea lions, nearly extinct golden frogs, carnivorous plants, marsh birds, Mei Sheng the giant panda, Mexican gray wolves, and a black tarantula named Vivica. We dabbled in exotic animal nutrition, GPS mapping, and poop sampling. And we spent a glorious day at the La Brea Tar Pits learning about Southern California as it was during the last Ice Age!

    Virtually all of the scientists we met with were women, but we tossed a couple of males into the mix just for variety’s sake. One of them, Michael Puzzo, is a field biologist who tracks mountain lions throughout Southern California.

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    Engineering at Home

    Home made air conditioner

    Kevin Kelly has started a new blog: Street Use. Street Use highlights home engineered technology solutions. Interesting stuff, and given the Kevin Kelly’s great ideas this blog should be interesting.

    Photo: Fan Hack:

    A guy takes copper tubing wrapped in a spiral around both sides of an electric fan. The tubing is connected (via cable ties) to an aquarium pump which circulates ice water held in a plastic storage bin beneath the fan. The fan then dispenses the cold into the room. A full set of pictures can be seen on the guy’s Flickr set.

    Similar posts:

    The Make blog (and magazine) would be of interest to those that like Street Use.

    Robots Wrestling, Students Learning

    Robots Wrestling, Students Learning by Jessica Marks:

    Building motorized robots and making them sumo wrestle is more than just fun – it’s also a way for high school and college students to get interested in engineering, and David Martinez, engineering department chair at College of the Canyons in Valencia, is dedicated to doing just that.
    …
    And it has been exciting for many of the students who took Martinez’s class over the summer – a class that was designed to give students an introduction to robotics and engineering.

    These students spent a majority of their 9-week class building a “Boe-bot” – a small “brain with wheels,” which the students modified – putting light sensors on them to detect shadows and “whiskers” to detect hard objects – so they could perform tasks, most of which were pretty complex.

    One group of students filed down part of the aluminum legs and made the Boe-bot creep around like a spider. It was able to climb the steep dirt embankment outside the class.
    …
    And while the students were having fun, they were actually learning high-end scientific and mathematical concepts.

    College of the Canyons is part of the California Regional Consortium for Engineering Advances in Technological Education (CREATE) project is a joint effort between seven community colleges and over 30 large high tech engineering/technology employers.

    Poincaré Conjecture

    The Poincaré Conjecture in simple terms “states that the three-sphere is the only type of bounded three-dimensional space possible that contains no holes. This conjecture was first proposed in 1904 by H. Poincaré” – Mathworld

    Elusive Proof, Elusive Prover: A New Mathematical Mystery:

    But at the moment of his putative triumph, Dr. Perelman is nowhere in sight. He is an odds-on favorite to win a Fields Medal, math’s version of the Nobel Prize, when the International Mathematics Union convenes in Madrid next Tuesday. But there is no indication whether he will show up.

    Also left hanging, for now, is $1 million offered by the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., for the first published proof of the conjecture, one of seven outstanding questions for which they offered a ransom back at the beginning of the millennium.

    The Clay Math Institute site has more on the Poincar̩ Conjecture. Read about the rest of their Millennium Problems Р6 more problems each with a $1 million prize.

    USA Governors Promote the Value of Science Education

    National Governors Association – Science Education. On their web site the associates pledges to:

    • host regional learning labs and workshops to help states improve education in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math; and
    • create new science and math academies to improve student achievement and grow a workforce in emerging occupations.

    This is a very small step but at least they are discussing the topic. And some action is being taken, for example: Excellence in K-12 Mathematics and Science Teaching – Texas Invests in Science Higher Education – R&D Spending in USA Universities. More, could, and should, be done.

    Feed your Newborn Neurons

    New Neurons Need Signals to Survive:

    The human brain continues to produce new nerve cells throughout its life and these neurons may be key to learning new information. But many of these novice neurons wither and die before joining the vast signaling network of their mature peers. Now new research seems to show that the presence or absence of new information–represented by the neurotransmitter glutamate–may determine a young neuron’s survive.

    So save your new neuron’s and read the Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog every day 🙂

    The Reinvention of the Self by Jonah Lehrer (on neurogenesis – the creation of new brain cells):

    Beginning in 1962, a researcher at MIT named Joseph Altman published several papers claiming that adult rats, cats, and guinea pigs all formed new neurons. Although Altman used the same technique that Rakic would later use in monkey brains—the injection of radioactive thymidine—his results were at first ridiculed, then ignored, and soon forgotten.

    As a result, the field of neurogenesis vanished before it began. It would be another decade before Michael Kaplan, at the University of New Mexico, would use an electron microscope to image neurons giving birth. Kaplan discovered new neurons everywhere in the mammalian brain, including the cortex. Yet even with this visual evidence, science remained stubbornly devoted to its doctrine. Kaplan remembers Rakic telling him that “Those [cells] may look like neurons in New Mexico, but they don’t in New Haven.” Faced with this debilitating criticism, Kaplan, like Altman before him, abandoned the field of neurogenesis.

    An example of the difficulty getting new scientific ideas accepted.

    Electrical Engineering Student

    I ran across Christian Montoya’s web site today, he is:

    a 20 year old Electrical Engineering student at Cornell University. I will graduate in May of 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. My main focus is digital circuit design and I am also interested in networks and statistical analysis.
    …
    I am currently looking for a job, preferably in Europe. I am studying in the U.S. and I am a U.S. citizen so finding overseas employment isn’t easy.

    I like the use of the blog to aid in finding employment. We see many warnings about how internet posting is going to harm students careers – but blogging can help your career. He also has a series of posts on life at Cornell, including: