11 June 2004

Wanderings

Ralph J. Coppola

r_j_coppola@hotmail.com

SAS Disclaimer

Come join us on the Wanderings Chat Room. --- ( See info and instructions )

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Last weekend I had to rent a U-Haul truck to help my daughter move. There was a bit of trivia posted on the side of the truck about The Manson Impact Structure , which is one of the largest known meteorite craters in the continental United States. U-Haul has a number of interesting science topics displayed on their trucks. Check out the list in their Venture Across America Series .

The Sudbury Structure in Ontario, Canada, is an impact feature that was formed 1.85 billion years ago by a meteorite about 10 km across. The resulting impact basin is an oval structure about 60 km by 27 km, but the original structure was over 200 km in diameter. This is the second largest Earth impact crater discovered to date.

Calvin J. Hamilton's solarviews.com is a huge resource for information on the solar system and its components. See their piece on Terrestrial Impact Craters .

Lionel Oliver's Backyard Metal Casting covers all facets of DIY metal casting.

In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing is an effect that causes different continuous signals to become indistinguishable (or aliases of one another) when sampled.

David Eppstein‘s Geometry Junkyard contains usenet clippings, web pointers, lecture notes, research excerpts, papers, abstracts, programs, problems, and other stuff related to discrete and computational geometry.

QuData 3D Plotter allows one to build 3D plots of a function dependent on two variables, x and y.

EngineSim is the beta 1.6e version of NASA's online jet engine simulation program.

ePower-Propulsion is a specialty web portal designed to serve as a resource for anyone interested in the areas of propulsion, power, and combustion.

The International Development Research Centre ( IDRC) is a Canadian public corporation that works in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies. The Small Scale Desalination For Remote Areas Of Botswana --- is an example of an IDRC project.

Thefreecountry.com --- offers a collection of free programming resources.

Thesitewizard.com --- is another collection of resources on web site design, domain registration, promotion, programming and revenue making.

Miracle C is a shareware C that runs under Windows (95… to … XP).

AlanTuring.net --- The Turing Archive for the History of Computing.

Faces from the Ice Age --- Are these the oldest lifelike drawings of human faces ever discovered or a hoax?

Is this a magnetic monopole? --- Not quite, but you can use a Halbach Array to build a one-sided frig magnet!

Mel Bartels will show you how to automate your telescope .

Terry Ritter's cryptography web site, Ciphers by Ritter , contains an extensive collection of encryption resources and technologies. For example, have a look at the discussion of Producing Random Numbers from a Sound Card and Random Noise Sources .

This site offers a look at Code Breaking and the Secret Weapons in WWII .

The Kids Room

Web resources for kids, teachers and parents.

The results of the 54th Intel International Science and Engineering Fair have been posted.

The Resource Area for Teachers (RAFT) provides thousands of Bay Area teachers with a wide range of interactive learning materials for enhancing math, science, technology and art programs. Please see their Idea Sheets .

Paul Doherty has a collection of draft science activities on his Scientific Explorations Page.

The site run by The Association for Science Education (ASE) , a major partner in the delivery of the Science Year Program into UK schools, contains many interesting projects. It would be well worth your time to have a good look here. A few examples of their activities are:

• Quorum Sensing ? Quorum sensing is a method of bacterial communication.
• Planet 10 is an exciting interactive resource that provides a virtual model of our Solar System. Explore the planets, comets and asteroids on an interactive virtual fly-through. Think you could create the perfect World? Here's your chance to try. With World Builder, you call the shots.

EOA Scientific designs, develops, produces and sells software and VHS videos that satisfy national, state and provincial K-12 learning standards in all science topics. See the All About Maps demo on their Science Fair Resources page.

The JASON Project is a multi-disciplinary program that sparks the imagination of students and enhances the classroom experience.

Project Dragonfly provides children with opportunities for inquiry based learning in various areas of science.

Would you like to investigate acoustics with a unique musical instrument? Try a DIY Didjeridoo . Once you make one you'll have to learn to play it .

Dimdima Kids is an online children's magazine from India. This kids' portal provides children a fun highway to science, sports, history, travel and ecology.

Do you like puzzles? If so, be sure to check out The Ultimate Puzzle Site .

Suppliers

Being listed here does not constitute an endorsement by SAS or me of any information, product or service.

Aware Electronics Corp is the maker of PC-based and stand alone Geiger counters, radiation-radon monitors, and other monitors for use with PCs. They also offer easy-to-use software for those interested in the quantum side of nature. Have a good look around this site as there is a lot here. See, for example, their User's Page.

From The Far Side

The U.S. Department of the Interior has included Edward Leedskalnin's Coral Castle on their Registry of historic Places. You can visit the Coral Castle on-line in lieu of traveling to Homestead, Florida. Interested in finding out more? Do a Google search on --- < coral castle + Florida >.

Dr Rainer Kuehne thinks that satellite images may show that Plato's fabled utopia, Atlantis, may be an area of southern Spain.