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 Portrait of a Doe and Her Fawn
Joe Wolf
It's interesting
to watch the interplay of does with fawns and the foxes. The does make little charges at the foxes
to keep them away from the fawns. The foxes move around and move in from different locations
and angles to get to their snacks.
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A Revolution in DIY Engineering
How to Build With Grid Beam. A Fast, Easy, and Affordable System for Constructing Almost Anything by Phil Jergenson, Richard Jergenson and Wilma Keppel. New Society Publishers, 2008. ISBN 978-0-86571-613-1. Available online at www.newsociety.com.
Reviewed by Sheldon Greaves, Ph.D.
How to Build With Grid Beam is a guide to a clever and flexible system of construction for a wide range of home-built projects, from storage units to work spaces to furniture, vehicles, and structures. The system relies on the use of “sticks” or beams of square tube steel or aluminum or wood with holes placed at regular intervals along the length of each stick.
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Axial Segregation: Self-Organization + Sand
Reginald Smith
In the last couple of decades, a new field variously called “complexity” or “self-organization” has arisen. Since I have a background in physics, I would call it a subfield of the nonlinear physics field, but, in general, it is an interdisciplinary area of research that cuts across physics, chemistry, biology, and even some of the social sciences. The ideas of self-organization stretch back to economists and biologists earlier in the 20th century; only recently has it become a field in its own right.
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Poorman's Space Program
Testing BalloonSats (Part 1)
Paul Verhage
The near space environment and flight into near space are difficult at times, and the BalloonSat must function properly in this environment without losing parts or being difficult to launch. The six performance tests described in this chapter simulate many of the aspects of the near space mission. By successfully completing them, the BalloonSat Program Manager can be confident that each BalloonSats will be successful.
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Poorman's Space Program
A BalloonSat Update
Paul Verhage's series on near space experiments using BalloonSats is among the most important collection of amateur science articles to appear in The Citizen Scientist. Paul will eventually publish the series as a book. Meanwhile, be sure to stay tuned to Paul's latest installments in the series.
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This Week at Hilton Pond
Bill Hilton Jr.
Executive Director
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
York, South Carolina 29745 USA
Goldfinch Mystery (22-30 September 2008)
We had lots more American goldfinches than usual last winter at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History, and we were further surprised to have what seemed like lots of goldfinches lingering throughout the breeding season. This presented a "Goldfinch Mystery" of sorts because we don't usually have many of these birds in summer. "This Week at Hilton Pond" we've finally had time to analyze our goldfinch banding data for the middle of 2008 and--sure enough--we banded a record number of adults AND juveniles. |
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Amateur Scientist David Gowen Discovers Two New Plant Species
Amateur botanist David Gowen (see "Editorial" in this installment of The Citizen Scientist), is a retired carpenter who recently discovered two new species of plants never before described by science. Gowen's discovery is all the more remarkable, for he found the plants at Lime Ridge Open Space near downtown Walnut Creek, California. On 12 June 2008 Save Mount Diablo posted an article and a media release about Gowen's discovery on the organizations web site. This discovery is so important that most of the media release is posted verbatim here. Editor.
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