23 April 2004

Wanderings

Ralph J. Coppola
r_j_coppola@hotmail.com

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Wanderings

Do you have a science related web site? Please don’t be shy. Let us know your URL so that I can post it in Wanderings. If you took the time and effort to produce a site, then you deserve to have it listed. Hay! I even have one, or I should say, "HAY". I no longer subscribe to this SP but they never closed out my site. It’s there, but I can’t edit it. My Map, Compass & GPS Resources page was set up to support a course that I teach now and then.

David Saum shows us how to build a simple VLF radio receiver that can detect sudden ionospheric disturbances (SID) caused by x-rays from solar flares or gamma ray bursts (GRB).

Another one of David Saum ‘s pages details a DIY seismometer that can detect earthquakes worldwide. This inexpensive design is based microprocessors and newer chips.

The VLF/ELF working group at the University of Otago, NZ, is an international group of scientists that is studying the behaviour of the magnetosphere and ionosphere by means of ELF (300 Hz - 3 kHz) and VLF (3-30 kHz) radio waves

Radio Waves below 22kHz explores natural radio signals and strange emissions at very low frequencies.

The Altair site presents an exploration of the electromagnetic spectrum plus a few other odds and ends.

Wind Stuff Now offers projects and resources for the DIY wind power experimenter.

The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory are able to construct giant, lightweight telescope mirrors of unprecedented power.

Theodore Gray’s article, in the May ’04 issue of Popular Science, shows that the eBay, on line auction house, offers an amazing collection of gear, supplies, and chemicals for the DIY experimenter.

Brooke Clarke’s web site contains many topic pages that are sure to be of interest to the amateur. Have a look, especially, at his Sensor page.

Ken Rinaldo’s Technical Links For Artist Using Science And Technology is a nice collection of links to suppliers of various technical items.

Welcome to the Franz-Josef Elmer’s Pendulum Lab! where you can do hands-on experiments at rigid pendula.

Here is another nice Java pendulum demo.

Galileo is perhaps the father of all pendula --- have a look at some of his pendulum experiments.

Does the earth rotate? A Foucault pendulum can prove that it does.

Richard B. Firestone’s Exploring the Table of Isotopes should be an excellent tool for those of us interested in Nuclear Science.

Spectrogram Version 9A, by Richard Horne, is a shareware program that turns your PC’s sound card into an audio spectrum analyser.

Science On Line, a web page of The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ran a piece in their The Mystery of Music feature about the collaboration between physicists and medical imaging specialists who are researching the acoustics of the didjeridu.

The Kids Room

Hands On Physics is a National Science Foundation (US) sponsored program representing a novel approach to science education. One unit covers the investigation of the amount of haze in the atmosphere, a topic that is dear to Forrest Mims.

The Lane Library Science Fair Zone contains several dozen links to k12 resources, science fair ideas and tips.

Harvard University has a nice selection of physics demonstrations.

Motion Mountain is an on-line physics textbook offering "A hike through and beyond space and time following the concepts of modern physics."

The US National Parks Service offers a program for middle schools related to the introduction of invasive plant species to the National Parks.

There seems to be quite a few sites devoted to DIY genetics appearing on the web. Christine Terry’s Citizen Scientist page has a link to the University of Utah’s Genetic Science Learning Center’s activity page.

Dr Jamie Love has uploaded the second part of his free four part self-learning course in genetics. This quarter covers "Mendelian Genetics". It introduces basic terms (like genes, alleles, etc.), teaches Mendel’s laws, how to do monohybrid, dihybrid and test crosses, Punnett squares and (importantly) chi-square analysis.

Access Excellence is a US educational program that provides health, biology and life science teachers’ access to their colleagues, scientists, and critical sources of new scientific information via the World Wide Web.

The Phun Physics web site has a collection of hands on physics demonstrations.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a page of games and science activities to keep you occupied.

On The Lighter Side

Characterization of Organic Illumination Systems --- Experiments indicate that pickles are a form of incandescent lamp. In this light, it is useful to consider the historical development of such devices.

Send someone you love a sciencey e-card.