Science Blogs

The Well-Timed Period covers the intersection of medical fact and fiction in women's health.

If you're ever in need of a geeky gift, Think Geek is the place to go - online, of course. They have more geeky t-shirts and gadgets than you can shake a mouse at. One of their cooler gadgets to come out lately is the water powered clock. The 6-inch high digital clock uses an internal converter that extracts electrons from water or any electrolytic fluid, creating an electric current that acts as a fuel cell to power the clock. The clock provides the time and date as soon as the reservoir is filled and also makes for a cute little flower vase. The clock runs for months on a single fill-up. Flowers not included. If you want something extra geeky, try the water powered multifunction alarm clock, which has a clock, alarm, timer, and thermometer all in one.

I became convinced that science - rather than business school - was for me when my geology professor took the class to a popular watering hole next to campus to review for the final exam. Sure, lots of professors might take their students out for drinks, but how many professors keep the local bar stocked with Geology Honor Society beer steins! That's all fine if you're 'in the club', but how can ordinary people meet and interact with scientists in a friendly and informal way? Musicians and poets have open mic night. Writers have readings. Artists have openings. Now, scientists have Cafe Scientifique. The trend, which reportedly began in Europe, gained national attention last week with a NY Times article that reported on one recent gathering of geeks and coffee in Denver. The idea behind Cafe Scientifique, and its many variants, is to bring together scientists and non-scientists to mingle, hear a light science lecture, and discuss science. The official Cafe Scientifique website has a list of meeting locations around the world. There are currently only a couple of dozen gatherings around the U.S., but you can start your own cafe with assistance from the Cafe Scientifique organization or even watch a live broadcast of Cafe Scientifique San Diego.

The Nature Newsblog is a forum providing readers with the opportunity to comment on stories published on news@nature.com, Natures news site.

An international team of scientists has reported in the journal Nature that rising carbon dioxide (CO2) in the oceans is making the ocean waters more acidic and corrosive to the shells of tiny marine organisms. One major effect could be to threaten the food chain by damaging the shells of pteropods. "The demise of polar pteropods could provoke a chain reaction of events through complex ocean ecosystems," says a report released by the Max Planck Institute for Meterology. "It is known for instance that pteropods are eaten by organisms ranging in size from zooplankton to whales and including fish. For instance, North Pacific salmon include pteropods as part of their diet." The scientists compiled global ocean carbon data and input the data into numerical models to predict changes in ocean CO2 as the ocean absorbs excess CO2 from the atmosphere. Yes, your drive to work in the morning is not only a threat to pteropods, but to that grilled filet of salmon that you like so much. The lead author of the Nature article, Dr. James Orr, said, "Basic chemistry tells us that many folks alive today will live to see the polar oceans becoming inhospitable to key organisms, and unlike climate predictions, the uncertainties here are small."

Every year, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) sponsors a Holiday Lecture Series on science which is made available on the web via streaming video. The 2005 series entitled Evolution: Constant Change and Common Threads examines how "Darwin's concept of a living world changing over time through natural selection has become biology's major unifying framework." The lectures are presented by Sean B. Carroll, HHMI investigator and professor of genetics and molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and David M. Kingsley, HHMI investigator and professor of developmental biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. The series consists of four 60 minute lectures and one 70 minute student discussion session on reconciling religion and evolution. You can find summaries of the lectures here.

The British science journal Nature has created a newsblog that is meant to operate as a forum for readers to comment on news@nature.com items published in the online journal. At the bottom of each news article is a link that takes you to the blog, which in fact is a bit of a misnomer since it seems to be little more than an RSS feed of the news articles that happens to be published with Moveable Type. There does not seem to be a link that goes directly from the Nature homepage to the blog, rather it seems that one must go through each news article or a personal bookmark. Readers will be glad to know that the blog and stories are accessible without a subscription. Note, however, that the blog only covers news items written by the Nature staff, not other items such as peer-reviewed articles or letters written by contributing scientists - but perhaps that is not too far away.

How might 9/11 have been different if people inside the twin towers of the World Trade Center could have safely evacuated along the exterior of the buildings? Jonathan "Yoni" Shimshoni and his team at Escape Rescue Systems Ltd. ("Escape") have invented a high-rise evacuation system that is essentially an elevator that lowers a series of expandable cabins along a building's exterior to bring fire and rescue personnel to floors in distress and to lower building inhabitants safely to the ground. The five cabins can evacuate up to 30 people each, for a total of 150 people in a single deployment cycle. The company website has a video of the system in operation. Escape was founded in 2002 in response to the 9/11 attacks, and the first prototype was installed on a 21 story building in Israel in 2004. Escape won a Department of Homeland Security designation as a Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology, yet the company has been blocked from testing a prototype in NYC by the city's Office of Emergency Management, which reportedly called the project "unworthy of the necessary building permits." According to an AP/CNN report, "Among the city's concerns: there would be confusion over who would operate the system during an emergency; using windows as escape routes can help a fire spread; passengers in the cabins risk passing floors immersed in flames; and the system would be prone to the Titanic effect -- chaos over who would be first in line for a limited number of spots in each cabin. Shimshoni acknowledges the city's concerns are legitimate, but "if you want to be sure how to address them, there should be a pilot program," he said."

The 11th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest for high school students will be held this Friday, February 24. The contest is named after Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Reuben Lucius Goldberg, who is famous for his "Invention" satirical cartoon drawings of exceptionally complex machines built to perform simple, everday tasks. The national 2006 challenge is to build a machine that can individually cut or shred five sheets of 8 1/2 inch by 11 inch, 20-pound paper and place the shredded paper into a recycle bin in at least 20 steps. The competition between up to 12 high school teams will be held at the Chicago Children's Museum Navy Pier. The winning team will win a number of goodies, including a traveling trophy to display until 2007 and the opportunity to display their machine at the national collegiate Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University on April 1. You can see a video from 2005 high school contest here. The high school Rube Goldberg competition is being sponsored by Argonne National Laboratory.

Zoo Weblogs are written by contributors throughout the San Diego Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and CRES.

I am an astronomer, writer, and skeptic. I like reality the way it is, and I aims to keep it that way. My real name is Phil Plait, and I run the Bad Astronomy website.

Tornados, hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes, and the occasional volcano - these are just some of the natural disasters that humans have to contend with throughout the world. The National Science Foundation has created an interactive special report on natural disasters that describes efforts by scientists to understand the factors that cause natural disasters as well as efforts to prepare for and respond to the human toll that such disasters take. The site has numerous videos and computer simulations of developing weather patterns developed at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Scientists at SUNY Buffalo have developed 3-D flow models from satellite data of volcanoes to estimate the risks to residents living near volcanos in Hawaii, the Northwest, and Yellowstone National Park. The site also considers cybersecurity, terrorist attacks, and contains an amazing video simulation of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. Reponding to distasters - natural or man-made - is a science itself. This page considers the immediate response to distasters such as 9/11, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina. The site highlights many of the disaster research programs supported by NSF.

I'm a Canadian ex-pat studying in Sweden. I'm currently working on my Ph.D. that concerns the evolution of lobe-finned fish, the ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates (including ourselves).

Red-State Serbian Jewish atheist liberal PhD student with Thesis-writing block and severe blogorrhea trying to understand US politics by making strange connections between science, religion, brain, language and sex.

robert skipper's blog on history & philosophy of biology, etc. @ the university of cincinnati

As if you didn't have enough MP3 players or iPods already given that they seem to come out with a new one every week, here's one you probably don't have. It's the SwiMP3 headset by Overtons that consists of an MP3 player attached to a pair of swimming goggles. What's extra special about this MP3 player, however, is that it doesn't send sound through your eardrums but through your cheek bones to your inner ear, which allows you to actually hear your music under water. Alternatively, however, it does not sound as good in air. The SwiMP3 features a 4 hour rechargeable battery and 128 Mb of memory good enough for 30+ songs. (via Cool Tools)

I've been collecting unusual objects for quite a few years and have just recently started posting them on this site as puzzles for visitors to figure out what they are. Most of the items are mine but a few belong to others, if you aren't interested in tools there are plenty of other type objects that have also been posted.

ReadyMade is a bimonthly print magazine for people who like to make stuff, who see the flicker of invention in everyday objects -- the perfectly round yolk in the mundane egg.