Category Archives: Science

Innovative Technology and Engineering Education

The Laboratory for Innovative Technology and Engineering Education (LITEE) at Auburn University is funded by the NSF: National Dissemination of MultiMedia Case Studies that Bring Real-World Issues Into Engineering Classrooms.

The mission statement is: Develop and disseminate innovative instructional materials that bring real-world issues into classrooms, using multi-media information technologies and cross-disciplinary teams.

One of the results of their efforts is the Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education (STEM).

The mission seems like a worthy goal. Like other such NSF funded efforts though I wish the web sites offered much more for students and teachers. I think NSF (or others interested in funding such efforts) needs to look at the gap between the potential to use the internet to meet such goals and what has been done to date. I think there is a huge gap between what could be done effectively, and for a reasonable price (for NSF or whoever funds the creation of the material), and what I have been able to find online.

To me these materials should be available for download online without a fee and targeted for teachers and students. That is a feasible goal and a method that most completely meets the mission.

The NSF is funding many excellent concepts with good results (see examples below). Still the opportunity is there for these efforts to be much more effective with a better use of the internet in my opinion. I think there would be great benefit to funding several grants that would then serve as advisers and provide technical support to creating a much richer result for teachers and students. There are obviously challenges with how to do this and how to coordinate the efforts but the potential benefits are huge.

If I were allocating funds I would set this up in a way that the primary grants (projects like LITTE and those listed below) included funds that was to be used for services from these “technical support and advisers.” Then those getting the primary grants could chose which of the providers they wanted to use to provide the service (they should essentially work for those getting the primary grants). In order to use those funds in any other way they would have to demonstrate they were effectively using the internet already (and the expectations would be for a much better use than any I have seen thus far for this NSF grants).

Previous posts about similar NSF funded efforts:

Avian Flu

Photo of the Bird Flu virus, courtesy of 3DScience.com.

Avian Flu (site broke link so I removed it), World Health Organization Meeting to Discuss Avian Flu Pandemic as Bird Flu Continues to Spread Through Europe

World Health Organization officials are meeting in Geneva to consider the possibility of a global human bird flu pandemic as the deadly H5N1 strain continues to spread rapidly in birds.

Top influenza official Margaret Chan said the outbreak in poultry is historically unprecedented. She said the deadly virus presents a greater challenge to the world than any other emerging infectious disease.

The meeting was called to plan a response in case the bird flu virus mutates into a widespread human flu virus.

Hottest Temperature on Earth

Record set for hottest temperature on Earth – Scientists produce gas more than 100 times hotter than the sun

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don’t know how they did it.
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Thermonuclear explosions are estimated to reach only tens to hundreds of millions of degrees Kelvin; other nuclear fusion experiments have achieved temperatures of about 500 million degrees Kelvin, said a spokesperson at the lab.

Solar Storms

Photo: Solar Storm Causes X-Ray Aurora, On April 7, the SOHO spacecraft spotted a Solar Storm ejecting a cloud of energetic particles toward planet Earth. The plasma cloud’s center missed Earth, but high energy particles swept up by Earth’s magnetosphere still created a geomagnetic storm! Read more, from NASA.

Stronger Solar Storms Predicted; Blackouts May Result, John Roach for National Geographic News

“This prediction of an active solar cycle suggests we are potentially looking at more communication and navigation disruptions, more satellite failures, possible disruption of electric grids and blackouts, more dangerous conditions for astronauts—all these things,” Behnke said during the briefing.

New Model Predicts Severe Solar Activity

Drinking Soda and Obesity

Scientists in food fight over soda (bozos at CNN deleted the webpage):

Biologically, the calories from sugar-sweetened beverages are fundamentally different in the body than those from food.

The main sweetener in soda — high-fructose corn syrup — can increase fats in the blood called triglycerides, which raises the risk of heart problems, diabetes and other health woes.

This sweetener also doesn’t spur production of insulin to make the body “process” calories, nor does it spur leptin, a substance that tamps down appetite, as other carbohydrates do, explained Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“There’s a lack of fullness or satiety. The brain just seems to add it on,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, a Weill-Cornell Medical College doctor who is president of the Obesity Society.

As with so much life science the “answers” are not clear (Medical Study Results Questioned – Why Most Published Research Findings Are False). The article presents arguments from those who disagree about the link between drinking soda and the dramatic rise in obesity in the USA.

Another article on the topic: Cutting Sugary Drinks at Home Helped Teens Shed Pounds by Judith Groch.

Proposed Legislation on Science and Education

“Protecting America’s Competitive Edge” Legislation Proposal

Proposals include:

Each year, up to 10,000 bright students would receive a 4-year scholarship to earn a bachelor’s degree in science, engineering or math, while concurrently earning teacher certification. In exchange for these scholarships, they would be expected to serve for at least four years as a math or science teacher.
Each year, up to 25,000 bright young Americans would receive a 4-year competitive scholarship to earn a bachelor’s degree in science, engineering or math, so that our brightest students pursue studies in these fields which are so critical to our economic growth. Up to 5,000 students who have already earned their bachelor’s degree, would compete to receive graduate research fellowships to cover education costs and provide a stipend.

Better Way To Desalinate Water

NJIT Professor Discovers Better Way To Desalinate Water – NJIT broke the link to their press release so I removed it 🙁 A university breaking news release web link, sigh. At least far fewer web sites are run by pointy haired bosses that don’t understand extremely basic rules like web pages must live forever.

Chemical engineer Kamalesh Sirkar, PhD, a distinguished professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and an expert in membrane separation technology, is leading a team of researchers to develop a breakthrough method to desalinate water. Sirkar, who holds more than 20 patents in the field of membrane separation, said that using his technology, engineers will be able to recover water from brines with the highest salt concentrations.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci drawings including a larger version of the image above.

Math and the Mona Lisa : The Art and Science of Leonardo da Vinci is an excellent book exploring the visionary science of Leonardo da Vinci. More excellent science books that we recommend.

An excellent site for learning more about Leonardo – Museum of Science Leonardo web site (includes classroom activities):

Leonardo da Vinci may seem an unusual topic to study in science. But the more you learn about this remarkable Renaissance man, the more you will realize that he was a terrific role model for applying the scientific method creatively in every aspect of life including art and music. Although he is best known for his dramatic and expressive artwork, Leonardo also conducted dozens of carefully thought out experiments and created futuristic inventions in a time before modern science and invention had really begun.

Leonardo: Master Draftsman exhibit at the Met

$1 Billion for Indian Research University

Anil Agarwal donates $1 billion to set up university

Anil Agarwal, chairman, Vedanta Resources Plc, is keen to establish a world class, multi-disciplinary university in India, with a vision to developing India’s education and research infrastructure.

To be established with an endowment of up to $1 billion, Vedanta University will be of the calibre of institutes like Harvard, Stanford and Oxford, a Vedanta media statement said on Thursday.

Based on a ‘not-for-profit’ philosophy, the university will strive to impart world-class education and drive a cutting-edge research agenda, with an envisaged student population of more than 100,000 in the long term.
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Stanford University’s Research Park has spawned more than 1,200 companies in the Silicon valley, with a combined market capitalisation of more than $300 billion: the vision of Vedanta University is to aspire to be a similar enabler for India, said the Vedanta statement.

It will be interesting to see how much money is actually donated and how effective this effort is.

How Things Work

How Things Work from the University of Virgina explains the scientific reason behind what we experience everyday:

What happens when sheets of paper, long rolled up into a tube, are unrolled but simply won’t ever lie flat again?

Paper consists mostly of cellulose, a natural polymer (i.e. plastic) built by stringing together thousands of individual sugar molecules into vast chains. Like the sugars from which it’s constructed, cellulose’s molecular pieces cling tightly to one another at room temperature and make it rather stiff and brittle. Moreover, cellulose’s chains are so entangled with one another that it couldn’t pull apart even if its molecular pieces didn’t cling so tightly. These effects are why it’s so hard to reshape cellulose and why wood or paper don’t melt; they burn or decompose instead. In contrast, chicle — the polymer in chewing gum — can be reshaped easily at room temperature.