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More free reads

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College PhysicsIf you are curious about the physical universe this free introductory College Physics textbook from OpenStax College may be just the thing you need.  It is peer-reviewed by educators and has the look and feel of a classic illustrated textbook but with a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.  It can be downloaded, edited, customized, and reused, or you can just go ahead and dedicate some time to expanding your mind with conceptual questions, problems and exercises online.

You may also be interested in Introduction to Sociology, and there are more titles to come.

Happy learning!

Image from OpenStax College 

Water catchment in Bermuda

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I learned something interesting about Bermuda on a recent trip there. They have beautiful pink sand beaches but no fresh water on the islands. To supply their homes with safe water for drinking and washing they make good use of their roofs.

In the photo here you can see a pyramid-like shape to the roof, used to catch rainwater and direct it to a pipe running alongside the building. Instead of basements they build their homes on top of huge water tanks. Bermuda is relatively free of pollution but the roofs are treated with a limestone wash that purifies the water.

Note also in this photo that the shutters open upwards to allow the fresh air in while providing protection from the sun.

Image by April Colosimo

Podcasts and rhythmic power

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Podcasts are a great way to pass the time while commuting to campus and an opportunity to learn something new.  I admit that I got hooked on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast and fell a little behind on my sci/tech favourites, but yesterday I caught up with Quirks & Quarks from CBC Radio. In the last episode of the season, Bob McDonald interviews McGill’s famous cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Daniel Levitin, who discusses how a 1/f power law can be used to predict musical rhythms across genres and composers. You can read Dr. Levitin’s paper in PNAS.

There are so many podcasts to explore from CBC and NPR alone but let me know if you have favourites to recommend.

Image from Quirks & Quarks

Not the scary kind of spider

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I received a box of promotional items at the library from Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Publishing and it served as a reminder to write a few words about ChemSpider.

ChemSpider is a free database that really is easy to use. You may not see yourself as a chemical searcher but I promise that you’ll find interesting facts about chemicals you use everyday. Continue reading →

This is your mouse on drugs

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I love exploring online learning tools and Mouse Party is a fun one from learn.genetics at the University of Utah. It demonstrates how drugs alter the brain’s reward pathway.

With the researcher’s arm in your control, select a subject from the mice under the effects of different drugs to get a look inside their brain and the mechanisms of drug action.

Oh, and make sure your sound is on…

Image from Genetic Science Learning Center

Olympic fever

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Science of the Summer OlympicsThe new video series, Science of the Summer Olympics: Engineering In Sports, is just what I needed to assuage my anticipation for the start of the London Olympic Games (just days away!).

This partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation and NBC brings athletes and engineers together to share their experiences and perspectives. For example, you can learn about the biomechanics of 6 ft. 5 in. sprinter, Usain Bolt, or the design of the pool at the London Aquatic Centre that promises to maximize speed and minimize waves.

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While in Newfoundland last week I stumbled upon this cable station and learned the story of a man who’s dream it was to run a cable clear across the Atlantic.

The Heart’s Content Cable Station is a provincial historic site, where, after a few mishaps, Cyrus Field’s telegraph cable reached out to Valencia, Ireland. Cables were already in place across America, which allowed for messages to be spelled out in Morse code (a series of dots and dashes) by telegraph, but before 1866 you would have had to wait patiently for weeks for messages to travel to Europe and back by sea (gasp!).

Learn more about the transatlantic cable and the mammoth ship that carried it, the Great Eastern, from PBS or Wikipedia.

Image by April Colosimo

Putting Scientific Information to Work in 1972

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I love this cartoon about the exchange of information between scientists, from word of mouth and written letters, to the first scientific journals and, some time later, information overload. Forty years after this was created we are still plagued with a growing number of science and technology journals and are challenged with making full use of the literature.

One of the strategies in the 1960s from the mind of Eugene Garfield and the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was to cover a selective but important portion of the world’s journals.

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Technology review – Google glasses

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If you too dream of Google glasses – check out the latest issue of Technology review, published by MIT, and the “You Will Want Google Goggles” article. Farhad Manjoo interviews Thad Starner about Google’s Project Glass:

“One of the key points here,” Starner says, “is that we’re trying to make mobile systems that help the user pay more attention to the real world as opposed to retreating from it.”

Image from: Google mobile