Botanical print by Anna Atkins, courtesy of The New York Public Library, www.nypl.org

These days of mid-March as Spring approaches have been unusually sunny here in the Bay Area. Short sleeves. Sunglasses. Sunscreen. The quest for a bit of shade.

The rain and fog may be just around the corner, but a sunny afternoon is a great time to explore the colorful composition of light, the filtering properties of various colors, and a light-activated chemical reaction--all while making cool photographic prints without the use of a camera.

The process of "sunprinting" involves using special light-sensitive paper. You place an object on the page to "block" the sunlight. After a few minutes, you remove the object and rinse the paper. The negative space (which had been exposed directly to sunlight) will show up blue. (It's not just any blue, either. It's Prussian Blue, or ferric ferrocyanide, a permanent shade of blue dye created as a result of a chemical reaction between sunlight and the special paper.) In sharp contrast to the appearance of the blue, the positive space will show up in white, x-ray style in appearance. How bright the image is depends on what you use to block the light and what color you use to block the light.

What you end up with is a photogram, a photograph created through the use of paper and light. In 1843, Anna Atkins released portions of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book illustrated with photographs. Atkins' botanical images, like the one shown above, were all created as cyanotype photograms.

The great thing about sunprinting is that is offers a wonderful chemistry demonstration for a wide range of ages. Even the youngest of students can enjoy the "craft" of sunprinting and learn a bit about the science behind the print they take home. Couple sunprinting with a nature walk, and students can print leaves or flower petals. Older students can explore the effectiveness of various colors as filters, evaluate the importance of ultraviolet light in this printing process, or try one of the other variations noted in the project idea:

• Colorful Chemistry Creations: Make Your Own Sun Print with Color and Sunlight! (Science Buddies Difficulty Level: 3-5)

For classes and families, this project can be a lot of fun. Plus, it combines art and science!

I love puzzles of all sorts. Word puzzles. Number puzzles. Mazes. Codes. Brain teasers.

Not surprisingly, I passed on my willingness to tinker with a pencil and paper in an attempt to solve this or that challenge to my kids. Years ago, we spent countless hours poring over the pages of I Spy, Where's Waldo, and various spin-offs on the "can you find it hidden on this page" concept. In addition to the regular I Spy titles, the Can You See What I See? books by Walter Wick (one of the best-known photographers for the I Spy series) are wonderful and beautifully photographed.

I Spy-type books have recently made a huge comeback in my house, and the reality is that some are harder than others. We love Pokemon, but with kids ages 6 and 9, the seek-and-find Pokemon series ended up being too easy. It was fun to find our favorite characters, but it didn't take long to spot all the targets and whiz right on through an entire book (and then bemoan the cost of a hardback book that is so quickly "done"). Where's Waldo, by comparison, tends to be much more difficult and time-consuming.

What makes one seek-and-find harder than the next?

You probably can make some educated guesses about what's going on and how seek-and-finds can be configured for a variety of age ranges and difficulty levels. Scientifically speaking, much of the "challenge factor" can be boiled down to the degree of interference presented in the picture or photograph.

Brain on a Quest

As you look for the target item, you are doing a visual search, sorting and sifting through and weeding out the things that are "not right" as you seek the exact match for your target. How many things are "not right," and what they look like, what color they are, and how close they appear to each other and to the target all contribute to the difficulty of a seek-and-find.

For example, in the following three illustrations, the "orange upright 5" is quite easy to spot in the first image. It's a bit more difficult in the second image. In the third image, the number of distracters has increased and the distracters are the same color as the target. Both of these factors add to the challenge involved in quickly locating the target.

A Range of Variables

Which feature of the distracter is more important? Is it the color? Or the shape (and the similarity to the shape of the target)? Is it the number of distracters?

Curious?

If you love a good puzzle, you might enjoy putting these questions to the test with the Science Buddies The Brains Behind 'Where's Waldo?' project idea. Using an online application, you can set up your own basic "seek-and-find" pages and put test them with a set of volunteers.

Once you understand the science behind what is going on, the sky's the limit in terms of what real-world simulations you might set up and photograph. You might just have your own line of seek-and-find titles lurking inside you!

We know the immediate and visible devastation earthquakes can cause, and last month, after the earthquake in Haiti, we posted a set of projects that offer good background material and talking points for discussion of earthquakes and plate tectonics. What students may not realize is that the impact of a big shake does more than cause structural damage.

In fact, an earthquake can alter the tilt of the Earth to such a degree that the length of time in a "day" changes. The change is very small—we are talking seconds broken into millions—so small that our timekeeping methods of hours and days isn't effected. It is still fascinating to realize, however, that earthquakes can alter the tilt of the planet and that the amount of seconds in a day is not absolute.

Science Daily reported this week that research suggests that the February 27, 8.8 earthquake in Chili may have shifted the Earth's axis and shortened the day. With a projected change in axis of "2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches)," scientists have determined that the earthquake may have "shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second)."

The following project ideas can help students talk about and visualize the importance of the degree of "tilt" of the Earth by examining the change of "seasons" on Earth:

• The Reasons for the Seasons (Science Buddies difficulty level: 4-5)
• A Matter of Degrees: How Does the Tilt of Earth's Axis Affect the Seasons? (Science Buddies difficulty level: 7-8)

Have you ever noticed how many kinds and brands and flavors of lip balm appear in the cosmetics department at your favorite store? Why are there so many variations? Which one do you like most? Why do you like it? What kinds of differences do you notice between types?

It might surprise you to discover that lip balm is something you can make at home. In fact, just like mixing up a batch of cookies, making lip balm follows a basic recipe. And, just as there are many recipes for cookies and many ways to alter the basic "formula" for making cookies, there are many ways you can alter and customize the "formula" (or "recipe") for making your own lip balm.

What's On the Inside

A look at the ingredients list on the side of your favorite tube of lip balm might show a number of ingredients. "What" goes into each formula and "how much" of each ingredient is used changes the consistency, scent, flavor, creaminess, and emollience.

The ingredients list on the lip balm I have in front of me reads this way:

Beeswax, coconut oil, sunflower oil, tocopheryl acetate & tocopherol (vitamin E), lanolin, peppermint oil, comfrey root extract, rosemary extract.

This is a lip balm manufactured by a well-known company that creates "natural" lotions, soaps, and balms, and yet I see in this list the basic ingredients of any lip balm... an oil and a wax.

This company has come up with its own combination of ingredients and made choices about which oil and which wax to use in its custom blend of balm. I like the choices the company has made. You might like something creamier. Or you might prefer something without a mint. Or, you might find that you like lip balms best that use a different wax or a different oil. Each ingredient contributes to the way the balm feels, tastes, spreads, and lasts.

Kitchen Chemistry

Do you know what emulsifiers are? Do you know what an emollient is? Maybe not. But when you mix up your own lip balm, these concepts come into play. Making lip balm can be fun and practical, but it's also chemistry.

In the Potions and Lotions: Lessons in Cosmetic Chemistry Science Buddies science project, you can try a few basic recipes for lip balm and then do some product testing with a group of friends or volunteers to see which ones are most popular. Or you might evaluate which blend lasts longest or spreads most easily.

After you try a few basic recipes, you can experiment with other ingredients, change percentages, or combinations of ingredients, and expand your research to come up with your very own blend of lip balm—your perfect formula.

If your lip balms are a hit, you might also consider making your own lotions or even your own perfumes. These two project ideas can help get you started on a fun science fair project or on your own line of lotions and balms to give away or to sell!

• Potions and Lotions: Lessons in Cosmetic Chemistry (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 5-8)
• Scintillating Scents: The Science of Making Perfume (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)
  

Note: This month's "Scientist's Pick" is from Science Buddies' staff scientist, Kristin Strong. Kristin presented this project to the Science Buddies' team in February. It's got an icy, winter theme! ~ Science Buddies' Editorial Staff

Project: No Pain, Lots of Game
Scientist: Kristin Strong
Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 4

My favorite project of recent ones I've worked on is the Science Buddies project, No Pain, Lots of Game, a project that looks at the relationship between video gaming and pain management.

Personal Connection

This project grew out of personal experience with my oldest daughter. When she was five years old, we discovered that she had a birth defect requiring chest and abdominal surgery. During her hospital stay, her pain was managed primarily with morphine, but during painful procedures, the surgeon advised us to put on a movie and to get her engaged in that before starting the procedure. During her months of recovery at home, my daughter would often wake up in pain, and again I used a combination of medication and videos to help her get through the night.

In 2008, when Science Buddies opened up a new interest area section on computer and video games, I wondered if any research was being done on using computer or video games to manage pain. I learned that indeed, throughout the country, studies are being done to see if video games and virtual reality games like Snow World can help alleviate pain in patients suffering from burns. Burn units were chosen for these studies because burns are some of the most painful kinds of injuries that people must endure, sometimes requiring months of daily wound care. I decided to try and write a science fair project for students that would parallel this real-world research.

Putting It All Together

An "ice bath" was used to create a painful circumstance for volunteers. We were then able to test to see if playing a video game helped reduce awareness of pain (or increase the ability to withstand and block pain).

The question that we're trying to answer with this video game science fair project is: Can video games be included in the repertoire of pain management strategies?

To try and answer this question, I decided to use an "ice bath" as a way to create pain without causing lasting injury. To test the project, brave volunteers were seated in a chair and asked to put the front part of one foot in the ice water, a situation that is uncomfortable and "painful." We asked each volunteer to leave his or her foot in as long as possible, and we measured and recorded the amount of time.

To test our theory about video games, we then had each volunteer play a video or computer game for 5 min, and, while the volunteer continued to play the game, the other forefoot was submerged in ice water for as long as the volunteer could stand that.
The data was then analyzed to see if the video games made a difference in how long the volunteers were able to endure the ice bath.

Real-World Results

I like this project because it can be done with things that many families have on hand, like ice, bowls, a stopwatch or way to count seconds, and computer or video games. In just a few minutes, you can set up an experiment that parallels research being done at big universities and medical schools. I think students will find it interesting to discover that there is great individual variation in sensitivity to pain—and in the ability of games to reduce or "dial down" pain.

Plus, there's a lot of room to extend and customize this project. One variation to the main project is to test various types of games to see if the "kind" of game or media source alters the outcome. Is Donkey Kong better than Dragon Warrior for helping block pain? Is TV just as good as a video game?

With an ice water bath and some brave volunteers, kids can find out.

~Kristin

For similar project ideas, explore the Video & Computer Games interest area, sponsored by AMD, in the Science Buddies Project Directory.

"Science Mom" Courtney Corda appeared live on View from the Bay today to demonstrate the way enzymes and proteins interact when you mix various fruits with gelatin. For Courtney, the kitchen is the perfect place for parents to get hands-on with kids about science and can be a wonderful way to explore chemistry and to relate scientific principles to everyday activities.

• Which Fruits Can Ruin Your Gelatin Dessert? (Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 4-6)

There are two birthdays coming up in my house, two boys who thought it would be funny to wrap their births (quite symmetrically) right around Valentine's Day so that the middle of February will always be a conglomeration of treats and presents for them.

Despite the fact that they are siblings, they probably don't think too much (yet) about the ways in which that shows up in their appearance, likes, dislikes, and personalities. That several years separate them is maybe more noticeable to them than the ways in which strands of DNA mark them as unmistakably and indisputably related.

In browsing Project Ideas in the Science Buddies' library last week, I ran into a study on fingerprints that I find quite intriguing. We all know that fingerprints are unique. You may not have realized that the development of epidermal ridges that become fingerprints begins between weeks 10 and 24 of gestation. But you most likely know that no two sets of fingerprints are identical.

Similarly, while our fingerprints stretch as we age, they don't "change" in pattern or shape. The individual and permanent nature of fingerprints has, of course, led to them being used as a rapid source of visual identification and even to the exploration of fingerprint readers as a component of various forms of "biosecurity" or "biometric" security systems. (You may have even read science fiction books or mysteries in which biometric systems come into play.)

Because our fingerprints stem from our DNA, there is the possibility that the fingerprints of siblings will exhibit similar patterns when classified according to the three primary categories of fingerprint patterns: loops, arches, and whorls.

The "Are Fingerprint Patterns Inherited?" project idea offers a science fair project based on this premise. The project takes only a few days, so if you are curious about the patterns that can be detected from prints within a family and within classroom settings, grab an ink pad and some paper, and get to work.

While the project calls for a black ink pad, there's no reason you can't have some color-based fun with your prints. (Note: Black ink may make the prints easier to see and study. For a formal science fair project, stick with black.)

• Are Fingerprint Patterns Inherited? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)

If you try it out, let us know what you discover! Do you have sets of twins in your family or classroom? Great! That adds an additional twist to the project and to the kinds of results you may see.

Interested in other project ideas like this one? Check our Genetics and Genomics interest area.

Like most of us, I would be lost without my cell phone. It's not that I talk on the phone all the time. It's not even that I spend endless time sending texts. Cell phones have just become a seemingly indispensible part of our culture. At 3PM, I know that a certain cell phone will start ringing on the schoolyard where we hang out after school. I've got three wake-up alarms set for my mornings, every half hour, each with a different ringtone. I see cell phones on the teachers' desks. Like many of you, I use my phone to Tweet, to Facebook, and to snap and share photos.

While I use the phone all the time, the phone doesn't really ring all that often. When a call does come in, chances are that it's one I need to take... it's someone that needs to reach me. Which brings us to the "ring"... in an age of customization and digitization, ringtones are highly personal things.

Your "Cell" Style

You might have a cool skin for your phone. You might have rubber bumpers for your edges. You might protect your touch screen with a clear overlay. You might have a cool case. You might have custom wallpaper for your display. There are many ways to customize your phone to fit your own personality.

But it goes without saying that your ringtone will be noticed.

(You know what you think when you hear a ho-hum, status quo, oh-so-not-original ringtone, right? One of the canned tones that every user of this or that network seems to have? What ringtone does your mom use? What ringtone does your teacher or colleague use? Have you ever noticed?)

Using What you Have

I've got a pretty big digital music collection, and I spend my share of time on the Pandora and iTunes sites setting up playlists, finding new tracks, and otherwise creating the musical backdrop that underwrites my days. Oddly enough, however, I have never spent time searching for (and buying) ringtones. (Okay, I really don't want to buy ringtones even if they do cost less than a bag of chips or a cup of coffee, and I am really not a fan of the thousand-and-one gimmicky feeling ringtone sites.)

When I got my current phone, however, it came with a really small set of canned choices, none of which I liked. Unwilling to settle on any of the ones available, I did some poking around to see if I could use a song I already own as a ringtone for my phone. Bingo!

An Online Interface

While I've got a good bit of experience using Audacity for audio recording, I was happy to find an easy-to-use and efficient online resource for selecting a portion of a song and saving it as an MP3 for use on my phone. A simple enough process: upload the file, find the segment you want, export it as an MP3, download it, email it to your MMS-enabled phone. Voila!

I set up two ringtones, tagging one for general calls and one for work-related calls. Unfortunately, while it was created from a favorite song, not all songs are suited for ringtones. The one I'd set up as my "work-related" ringtone simply wasn't loud enough to be heard over the general buzz of the day. Repeatedly, I missed calls simply because I didn't hear the phone ring, even with the volume all the way up.

This week, I decided I'd missed one call too many calls, and so I took a few minutes and headed back out to create something louder, something likeable but impossible to miss, something I could live with. In my library, I found the perfect upbeat tune, something those of you with an affinity for Shrek would immediately recognize.

I had the perfect song, and yet as I went through the steps for converting the file, I ran into the one "gotcha" that comes into play when you make your own ringtones.

Size matters.

How Small Can You Go?

Each phone will have a different size limitation for ringtones. (To find out yours, check your user's manual or do an online search for the "maximum ringtone size" for your phone.) You might, for example, find that your phone can only use a ringtone that is less than 200K. To put that in perspective, a single minute of a CD-quality song is approximately 10 megabytes (MB)!

In practical terms, this means you have to choose between quality and quantity. You might be able to get a few more seconds of ringtone in at a lower quality. But, what kind of variation in quality will you see as you lower the bitrate (Kbit/sec)? The slider on the application I used goes all the way from a high of 320 Kbit/sec to a low of 32 Kbit/sec. That's obviously a huge range. As you might expect, where your ringtone falls in that range can have a dramatic impact on the quality of sound.

The Science of Compression

There's a great short-term project in the Science Buddies' library of Project Ideas that can help reveal the ways in which compression, MP3 algorithms, and bitrate come into play. How low is too low? Does the threshold change depending on the type or genre of song? Can you get by with something even lower for a ringtone?

To get started sampling your own tracks, mixing your own ringtones, and finding your own levels of acceptable degradation, take a look at this project:

• MP3 Squeeze: How Much Compression is Too Much? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)

Favorite Sound

What's your favorite ringtone ever? Head over to Facebook and let me know, or leave a comment here.

The 2010 Winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver February 12-28. With a list of sporting events that includes Alpine Skiing, Bobsleigh, Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, Ice Hockey, Luge, Skeleton, Ski Jumping, Snowboard, and Speed Skating, you know the snow and ice will be flying as athletes dazzle audiences and challenge the laws of physics with various rotations, jumps, loops, spins, twists, and turns.

Even from the couch, I can't pinpoint a perfect triple lutz a crisp Alley Oop or a flawless Backside 720. And the thought of hurtling down the Whistler track at speeds nearing 135 km/m on my stomach (skeleton) or on my back (luge) or hunkered down in a bobsleigh makes my head spin. This doesn't mean, of course, that I can't marvel at successfully landed moves and groan with the rest of the viewing audience when something goes wrong.

I'll be watching. And in between events, I'll be thinking a bit about sports science, about balance and dizziness and equilibrium, about speed and wind and friction, and about the many ways in which differences in equipment can be a determining factor.

A Balancing Act

While success in many winter sports boils down to gathering and maintaining and not disrupting accumulated "speed," many of these sports also require a good grip on balance. Torquing too far one way or another can send even the most seasoned athlete tumbling. For a look at what's going on, check out these Science Buddies science project ideas:

• Twirls, Whirls, Spins, & Turns: The Science & Reflexes of Dizziness (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6-8)
• Tightening the Turns in Speed Skating: Lessons in Centripetal Force & Balance (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 7-8)
• Balancing Act: Finding Your Center of Gravity(Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6-8)

A Wheel in Motion...

Dive a bit deeper into issues that effect speed and accuracy in these project ideas:

• Slippery Slopes and Sticking Surfaces: Explore the Forces of Friction (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6-8)
• Speed Quest (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 4)
• She Shoots, She Scores! How Does Hockey Stick Flex Affect Accuracy and Speed? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 5-6)

On and Off the Ice

The following abbreviated project ideas offer concepts related to winter sports that can be expanded and crafted to create a unique and individual science fair project or study. As the Olympic games get underway, spending time as a class or group talking about the kinds of questions raised in these project ideas encourages creative and scientific collaborative thinking and problem-solving.

• How Fast Can You Shoot a Hockey Puck?* (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 5)
• Aerodynamics and Ice Hockey* (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 7-8)
• Skiing and Friction: How Does Ski Wax Affect the Sliding Friction of Skis?* (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6-8)
• Skating and Angular Momentum* (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 8)

For other sports-related project ideas, visit our Sports Science section.

Note: This month's "Scientist's Pick" is from Science Buddies' staff scientist, David Whyte. David presented this project to the Science Buddies' team last fall. It's very cool! ~ Science Buddies' Editorial Staff

Project: Smarter Than Your Average Slime: Maze-solving by an Amoeboid Organism
Scientist: David Whyte
Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 7-9

I was doing some background research on simple organisms that might be used in science projects when I came across an article entitled "Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism." The article contained just what I had been looking for—the basis for a novel project that was both cutting-edge science and also well within the reach of the kitchen scientist.

Materials Tip!

Kits for growing the organism, Physarum polycephalum, can be purchased from several science supply stores online.

The basic finding of the research presented in the article was that Physarum, a common inhabitant of wooded areas around the world, can find the shortest path through a maze set up on an agar plate. Physarum, also called slime mold, typically forms a large amoeba-like mass that moves over dead leaves and rotting logs looking for organic matter to consume.

Announcing their findings in the journal Nature, the researchers said they believe the organism changed its shape to maximize its foraging efficiency and therefore its chances of survival. They went on to claim that "This remarkable process of cellular computation implies that cellular materials can show a primitive intelligence."

In the lab, Physarum can be grown in Petri dishes that have a layer of agar on the bottom, so I decided to put Physarum to the test at home.

Conducting the Experiment

To set up the experiment, I placed pieces of slime mold in a 30-square-centimeter (five-square-inch) maze on an agar plate. On that same plate, I strategically placed a food source at two spots in the maze.

What happened?

The pieces of slime mold coalesced, and the organism condensed its entire body to form a mass that stretched between the two food sources and connected them. In each trial, the slime mold showed its ability to both solve the maze and find the food. Each time, it adopted the shortest possible route, effectively solving the puzzle.

The project idea I created for Science Buddies lets you devise your own maze to see for yourself how the slime mold behaves. You'll have to decide for yourself—is the slime mold "intelligent"? Are there limits to its intelligence?

Other questions you might ask as you work with the Physarum include:

• What environmental cues is it using and how does it process information in ways that allow it to adapt?
• What other tests can be devised to further explore how these remarkable creatures respond to the world as their senses experience it?

For me, any project that involves "cellular computation" and "primitive intelligence" in an amoeboid organism has lots of potential. In this project, what I discovered is that Physarum is a simple organism - one that you can experiment with at home—but it is not really so "simple" after all.

David

If this project sounds like fun, you might want to explore other Project Ideas in our Zoology section.