Category Archives: Science

Science Education in India

Science panic in India by Bruce Einhorn:

Mayank Vahia, professor of Astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the other day came out with a story in DNA India that tried to be upbeat about India’s potential. But Vahia also couldn’t help but point out that “What is of immediate concern is the status of education and research in Indian universities. They are riddled with mediocrity and excessive bureaucratic stranglehold. Unwarranted political interference and endemic corruption in the system are other serious problems.”

Read Mayank Vahia’s article.

Also check out a Google tech webcast of Leveraging India As India Stands Up by Ashok Jhunjhunwala

Many countries are striving for science and technology improvements. Each country has its own challenges to those desires. How well each country does in this area will have a large impact on how well they do economically. The Future is Engineering.

Math and Science Teacher Shortage

Lack of math, science teachers prompts U.S. alarm by Ledyard King:

The lack of certified science and math teachers is a growing quandary for schools around the nation, particularly those in poor neighborhoods. Lawmakers in Washington are proposing to spend billions over the next several years to encourage more teachers to enter those subject fields.
…
Government money could help replicate programs like the University of Pennsylvania Science Teachers Institute, which — at no cost — gives current science teachers an intensive, 26-month course to give them a deeper understanding of science and improve their delivery to students.

This article (from January of this year) is not new information – the shortage of qualified teachers has been a problem for quite some time.

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 (1861âˆ’1943)—Saving Agriculture in the South

Ayanna Howard, Engineer—Robotics Pioneer, and

Continue reading →

Brain Development Gene is Evolving the Fastest

Fastest-evolving human gene linked to brain boost by Gaia Vince

A study of differences between the human and chimp genomes has identified a gene associated with neural growth in the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain involved in processing thoughts and learning – as having undergone “accelerated evolutionary change”.

Katherine Pollard and colleagues at the University of California Santa Cruz, US, suggest that the fast-changing gene may help explain the dramatic expansion of this part of the brain during the evolution of humans.
…
There are only two changes in the 118 letters of DNA code that make up HAR1 between the genomes of chimps and chickens. But chimps and humans are 18 letter-changes apart. And those mutations occurred in just five million years, as we evolved from our shared ancestor.

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Promoting Science and Engineering

Sexing Up Science (broken link deleted) by Mac Margolis and Karla Bruning

Another article discussing the need to focus on science and engineering education in the USA and the United Kingdom. It is nice to see the Duke study has worked its way into most recent articles.

Being in the field “teaches you to be flexible and ruthlessly creative,” says Pearson. Indeed, Richard K. Miller, president of Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, which graduated its first class in May, says it’s crucial to get students to think “outside the box” and work in teams. “Our future doesn’t depend on producing more engineers than China. [We] need more innovators,” he says. “Engineering is about invention.”

Van Gogh Painted Perfect Turbulence

Photo by John Hunter of Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh seems to be the only painter able to render turbulence with such mathematical precision. “We have examined other apparently turbulent paintings of several artists and find no evidence of Kolmogorov scaling,” says Aragon.

Partially this article, Van Gogh painted perfect turbulence, discusses some interesting science:

Scientists have struggled for centuries to describe turbulent flow — some are said to have considered the problem harder than quantum mechanics. It is still unsolved, but one of the foundations of the modern theory of turbulence was laid by the Soviet scientist Andrei Kolmogorov in the 1940s.

He predicted a particular mathematical relationship between the fluctuations in a flow’s speed and the rate at which it dissipates energy as friction. Kolmogorov’s work led to equations describing the probability of finding a particular velocity difference between any two points in the fluid. These relationships are called Kolmogorov scaling.

But really it just gave me an excuse to post the photo I took of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night on a recent trip to New York City. More photos of Vincent van Gogh paintings: Van Gogh self portrait (Musee d’Orsay) – Irises (the Met, NYC) . NYC travel photos: (the photos from the most recent trip are not posted yet): Metropolitan Museum of Art – Central Park – Brooklyn Bridge and the Staten Island Children’s Museum
.

Math and Science Challenges for the USA

Panel says U.S. is losing ground in math, science by Bruce Lieberman

The United States may dominate many sectors of science and technology, but other countries are moving rapidly to take its place, said Griffin and other national leaders during the West Coast Competitiveness Summit at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

The summit was the latest of several meetings designed to explore how the United States can recommit to building an economic future based on scientific and technological innovation.

Numerous studies since the mid-1980s have reported on threats to the nation’s stature in science and technology, and many of them focused on improving education as a key challenge.