Science Blogs

I'm Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine. I wrote The Long Tail, which first appeared in Wired in October 2004 and will become a book, published by Hyperion, in early 2006.

Of all the science stories and weblinks that were posted to the Element List website this past year, none were nearly as popular with readers as our post in November on the MIT graduate student article "On the Effectiveness of Aluminum Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study," by Ali Rahimi, Ben Recht, Jason Taylor, and Noah Vawter. Looking through the lead author's website, Rahimi has a curious collection of alternative research articles, or hacks as they're more popularly known. Previous hacks by Rahimi include "How to Eat Muffins: Heuristic Considerations" and a traditional telephone handset attachment for cell phones. When he's not doing science, he apparently moonlights as the campus pimp. Just amazing. How does this busybody find time to spend with his girlfriend?

Imagine a world in which every child has a laptop that can connect with, among other things, the world's major news organizations, libraries, and universities? What could that child do? Better yet, what could they not do? In a new program led by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab, children in developing countries such as Africa and China may finally have laptops of their own at a cost of under $100 per laptop. The laptops, scheduled to be distributed by late 2006 or early 2007, will be contain a 500MHz processor running the Linux operating system, 1GB of RAM, and a 1Megapixel color display. Costs will be kept down in part by redesigning the display to use a rear projection image or electionic ink, also developed at the MIT Media Lab. The laptops will be marketed directly to ministries of education particularly in Africa and China in bundles on the order of millions of units and distributed like textbooks, where larger orders will keep per-unit costs down. The laptops will have Wi-Fi wireless connectivity and will connect with each other in a peer-to-peer network "right out of the box". The only real limitation of the $100 laptops compared to more expensive models is that they will lack large amounts of hard disk space. The project is being supported by a consortium of companies including Google, Advanced Micro Devices, and News Corp.

An international team of scientists led by Dr. Ron Elsner of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center report that NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite imaged low-energy (0.1 - 10 kilo electron volts) X-rays created by auroral activity, or 'northern lights,' above Earth's northern polar region over a four-month period in 2004, shown as the rainbow false-color images above a simulated Earth image. The colors represent X-ray brightness, with maximum brightness shown in red. Previous satellites had only revealed high-energy X-rays. According to NASA, "Auroras are produced by solar storms that eject clouds of energetic charged particles. These particles are deflected when they encounter the Earth's magnetic field, but in the process large electric voltages are created. Electrons trapped in the Earth's magnetic field are accelerated by these voltages and spiral along the magnetic field into the polar regions. There they collide with atoms high in the atmosphere and emit X-rays." Chandra was launched and deployed by the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1999 to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as remnants of exploded stars.

If you only read Element FYI, the Element List blog, you're missing out on about 90% of the website. Element List subdirectories contain links to scientific research labs, educational websites, online data sources, science news sources, science jobs, weblogs, and more. To help you skim what's new in the various categories, we've reprogrammed the homepage to show the lastest posts in each main category. So scroll down and see what's new. As always, you can find the latest ten posts as well as the ten most popular posts from the entire Element List website on the left-hand sidebar. If you have a cool science website suggestion or if you've designed a science website or blog of your own, you can either post it yourself or email it to us. We only accept non-commercial websites for the directory with the exception of science magazines. If you want to help support the site, click our advertisers - that'll encourage them to support the site so you don't have to.

A one-year-old male hippo calf was found in the Indian Ocean off Malindi on December 27, 2004 after the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami devastated the region. The calf, named Owen, was then placed in Haller Park wildlife santuary in Kenya, where he met a giant male toroise named Mzee. According to Snopes.com, Mzee "was not immediately taken with the brash newcomer he turned and hissed, forcing the hippo to back away. Yet Owen persisted in following the tortoise around the park (and even into a pool), and within days the pair had forged a friendship, eating and sleeping together. Owen has even been seen to lick the tortoise, whom he regards as his new mother." Wildlife experts speculate that Owen was attracted to Mzee because his body shape and color are similar to that of an adult hippo. As of December 2005, Owen and Mzee are still together one year later.

Solar Austin, a non-profit organization devoted to the promotion of solar and other renewable forms of energy, is organizing the first Energy Freedom Challenge competition for the title "Clean Energy Capital of the U.S." The group received a $45,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in August to host the contest in its first year. The objective is to challenge U.S. cities to rely upon renewable energy sources for at least 50 percent of their energy consumption by 2025. Potential alternative energy sources include wind, solar, geothermal, methane, and biomass power. The Union of Concerned Scientists will be responsible for establishing the rules, metrics, and qualifications for the contest. Austin city officials see the contest and the "Clean Energy Capital" title as a way to create positive publicity and attract new businesses and residents. (via alt-e blog)

One of my favorite words is dodecahedron. If you've ever taken a mineralogy class, you should know that garnets are natural dodecahedrons. The name refers to the number of faces, twelve, which also happens to be the number of months in a year. How conveeeeeenient. Ole Arntzen at the Institutt for Informatikk in Norway has created a website that shows you how to make your own dodecahedron calendar. Just type in the year, language, your preference for the week start day, and either PDF or PostScript format. You even have a choice of a regular dodecahedron or a rhombic dodecahedron. Then follow the instructions on the website for folding your print out origami-style into a perfect little dodecahedron. (Hint: You might want to use extra stiff paper.)

If you're looking to waste even more time during this sleepy work week between Christmas and New Years, enjoy hours of mindless fun with Cellular Automata. Based on four simple rules of cell behavior - loneliness, overcrowding, reproduction, and statis - the game simulates how an apparently complex organic system can be created from a simple set of instructions. You design the initial conditions and watch how the cells grow, multiply, and die. The cells and groups of cells could represent anything from microscopic biological systems to ant colonies to cities. Grant Robinson, web designer and creator of the site, says he was inspired to create the site by the book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson.

Climate system model results from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) indicate that increasing global temperatures may thaw the top 10 feet or more of permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere. Permafrost is defined as soil that remains frozen through the summer months over a period of at least two years. As reported in the December 17 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, over half of the total area covered by permafrost could be thawed by 2050. The NCAR study is the first to include the state of permafrost in a global computer climate simulation model. According to NCAR, "Recent warming has degraded large sections of permafrost across central Alaska, with pockets of soil collapsing as the ice within it melts. The results include buckled highways, destabilized houses, and "drunken forests"--trees that lean at wild angles. In Siberia, some industrial facilities have reported significant damage. Further loss of permafrost could threaten migration patterns of animals such as reindeer and caribou." Melting permafrost could also contribute to rising sea levels. The map at right shows how little permafrost may be left (dark blue color) in 75 years from now.

Now that the trains are running again, if you happen to be in NYC, you can hop on the subway and pick up a Magic Christmas Tree from extra groovy design store Mxyplyzyk (no, that's not a typo). Just add the "special magic liquid" into the little petri dish at the base of the tree and watch the crystal branches grow before your very eyes. Oooh. The tree package comes with sparkly tinsel, red garland, and a fancy gold star. And it's only $6 at Mxyplyzyk. You can also order it online, but probably not before, um, next Christmas. (via A Brooklyn Life) [Ed.:Enjoy a Pilsner while you're at it. ]

A Circle for Assessiing Science as it Enters the Realm of Politics. The Circle of Scientific Assessment webring was established to promote scientific and technological progress, hold policy-makers accountable for abuses and distortions of science, and expose pseudo-science in society.

A science blog about characterizing extrasolar planetary systems.

While folks in Kansas are debating whether to teach evolution to schoolkids, biologists around the world have been steaming ahead, making scientific breakthroughs by leaps and bounds using genome data in a world where evolution is an everyday fact of life. Now Science magazine has named 'Evolution in Action' the Breakthrough of the Year for 2005 in the December 23 issue. From the magazine: "2005 stands out as a banner year for uncovering the intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds. Concrete genome data allowed researchers to start pinning down the molecular modifications that drive evolutionary change in organisms from viruses to primates. Painstaking field observations shed new light on how populations diverge to form new species--the mystery of mysteries that baffled Darwin himself. Ironically, also this year some segments of American society fought to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of evolution. With all this in mind, Science has decided to put Darwin in the spotlight by saluting several dramatic discoveries, each of which reveals the laws of evolution in action." The Science special section on evolution is available online without a subscription and contains links to influential papers published this year in evolutionary biology, while ScienceCareers contains several articles on careers in evolutionary science. If you want to know how far intelligent design will get you, try comparing the number of jobs in evolutionary biology and genetics to the number of jobs in intelligent design.

The disgusting hipster magazine that started it all.

The adventures of a science teacher in a small public middle school in the Bronx. Apologies to Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen, creators of the Magic School Bus series and the original Ms. Frizzle.

Regret The Error reports on corrections, retractions, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the media.

Online community management, internet law and research of life online.

A new Off-Broadway comedy based on the true stories of five prospective parents called "Infertility: The Musical That's Hard to Conceive" is playing now through December 31 at New York City's Dillon's Theatre. From the website: "Based on true-life stories, five would-be parents search for the "perfect" embryo, sperm donor, and adoption agency in a stranger-than-fiction odyssey that's not quite the bundle-of-joy a new baby brings to mind.... A new musical that lifts the taboo on a condition that affects one in seven." You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll ask, "Is this going to be on the exam?"