Category Archives: Science

Misleading headline of the week

But armed with an author name, Christine Born, I could do a Google search, and found many more articles — for example, this one from the Washington Post. Of course, I still want to know more about the study, which brings me to another pet peeve of mine: mainstream media reports on research that hasn’t yet been peer reviewed. This article doesn’t appear to have been published, just presented at a conference. We don’t know how the group defines “better-known” brands, or even what brands were used. We don’t even know if this research is actually publishable.

There is a conflict between publishing news and properly vetting the science (this conflict is pretty simple to manage I believe but exists nonetheless). I wish, at least, news stories made it clearer when the ideas are speculation, when they are very early research with some evidence in support of the contentions… And online news site should link to original research, more information, related information… That is one big problem with non-open access material. No simple way to share the material online. Links provide a big step toward providing an easy way for the reader to learn more themselves.

Commercial Carbon Nanotubes

Method Could Help Carbon Nanotubes Become Commercially Viable:

Researchers worldwide are striving to apply these nanostructures in electronics, high-resolution displays, high-strength composites and biosensors. A fundamental problem relating to their synthesis, however, has limited their widespread use.

Current methods for synthesizing carbon nanotubes produce mixtures of tubes that differ in their diameter and twist. Variations in electronic properties arise from these structural differences, resulting in carbon nanotubes that are unsuitable for most proposed applications.
…
carbon nanotubes first are encapsulated in water by soap-like molecules called surfactants. Next, the surfactant-coated nanotubes are sorted in density gradients which are spun at tens of thousands of rotations per minute in an ultracentrifuge. By carefully choosing the surfactants utilized during ultracentrifugation, the researchers found that carbon nanotubes could be sorted by diameter and electronic structure.

Ancient Greek Technology 1,000 Years Early

Antikythera Mechanism - Ancient Greece

Ancient Moon ‘computer’ revisited

Although its origins are uncertain, the new studies of the inscriptions suggest it would have been constructed around 100-150 BC…

Writing in Nature, the team says that the mechanism was “technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards”.
…
the Moon sometimes moves slightly faster in the sky than at others because of the satellite’s elliptic orbit. To overcome this, the designer of the calculator used a “pin-and-slot” mechanism to connect two gear-wheels that introduced the necessary variations.

“When you see it your jaw just drops and you think: ‘bloody hell, that’s clever’. It’s a brilliant technical design,” said Professor Mike Edmunds.

Larger image via Hellenic Ministry of Culture

Designed Experiments

One-Factor-at-a-Time Versus Designed Experiments by Veronica Czitrom:

The advantages of designed experiments over [One Factor at a Time] OFAT experiments are illustrated using three real engineering OFAT experiments, and showing how in each case a designed experiment would have been better. This topic is important because many scientists and engineers continue to perform OFAT experiments.

I still remember, as a child, asking what my father was going to be teaching the company he was going to consult with for a few days. He said he was going to teach them about using designed factorial experiments. I said, but you explained that to me and I am just a kid? How can you be teaching adults that? Didn’t they learn it in school? The paper provides some examples showing why OFAT experimentation is not as effective as designed multi-factor experiments.

NSF: Girls in Science and Engineering

via: Girls in Science and Engineering – NSF book. The 2003 book from NSF on Girls in Science and Engineering offers advice on improving k-12 engineering education for girls.

Girls who are overly protected in the lab or on the playground have few chances to assess risks and solve problems on their own. In SMART classes, once-dreaded mistakes become hypotheses. Girls are urged to go back to the drawing board to figure out why their newly assembled electric door alarm doesn’t work or why their water filter gets clogged. Supported by adults instead of rescued, girls learn to embrace their curiosity, face their fear, and trust their own judgment.

I must admit most of the advice I read for how to improve education for girls is really about doing a better job of science and engineering education for anyone. There is also some good advice (in this booklet and elsewhere) that is specifically about how to improve education for girls. And those practices have been shown to lead to increased desire by girls to to pursue more education, and and achieve future success, in science and engineering fields.

Improving Elementary Science Education

Experts Combine Efforts to Improve Elementary Science:

“We want to address ways to make science education more interesting for the students, and incorporating engineering and technology into elementary science programs often motivates the students to learn the science,” explains Tufts University Professor of Mechanical Engineering Chris Rogers, who is also the director of CEEO. Research on how people learn suggests that weaving engineering and technology into basic science curricula can deepen students’ understanding of and interest in science, which can be especially critical for young girls.

Good advice.

Improvements compared with conventional instruction Researchers expect that including engineering in science instruction in this way will help students deepen their understanding of the material. The curriculum design will also be informed by the “theory of triarchic intelligence,” developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts and director of the PACE Center. Sternberg’s work indicates that course instruction that builds a combination of analytical, practical and creative skills to improve student achievement compared with conventional instruction.

13 things that do not make sense

13 things that do not make sense by Michael Brooks discusses such things as dark matter, the horizon problem and the placebo effect:

Don’t try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

NSF Undergraduate STEM Scholarships

NSF Undergraduate Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM).

“This program makes grants to institutions of higher education to support scholarships for academically talented, financially needy students, enabling them to enter the workforce following completion of an associate, baccalaureate, or graduate level degree in science and engineering disciplines. Grantee institutions are responsible for selecting scholarship recipients, reporting demographic information about student scholars, and managing the S-STEM project at the institution.” Students apply directly to the school.

Related: July post on this program (applications are taken each semester) – More science and engineering fellowships and grants

Report on Use of Online Science Resources

The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (pdf) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

“40 million Americans rely on the internet as their primary source for news and information about science,” second to TV.

Another interesting piece of data: “59% of Americans have been to some sort of science museum in
the past year.” I find this unlikely but… That rises to79% for those that have visited a science website.

The respondents also reported extremely positives views of science, such as (see page 26-28):
To be a strong society, the United States needs to be competitive in science 39% strongly agree 50% agree 8% disagree 1% strongly disagree
Developments in science help make society better 31% 58% 8% 1%
Scientific research is essential to improving the quality of human lives 35% 56% 7% 1%
Science creates more problems than solutions for us and our planet 3% 19% 52% 19%

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

The National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) pays the fellow’s full tuition and required fees (not to include room and board). In addition, fellows receive a stipend for 12-month tenures. The stipend levels for each of the 12-month tenures are as follows:
Period First Year Second Year Third Year
Amount $30,500 $31,000 $31,500

From 2003 to 2006, 656 awards were granted out of 10,593 applications. Applicaitons must be submitted by January 8, 2007.

Awards provided to applicants who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or closely related to (see web site for full list):

* Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
* Chemical Engineering
* Computer and Computational Sciences
* Electrical Engineering
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics
* Mechanical Engineering
* Oceanography
* Physics