Science Projects | Science Buddies Blog (Page 65)

47-Million-Year-Old Fossil

June 9, 2009 11:50 AM

Last month, CNN and National Geographic reported on a 47-million-year-old fossil discovered in the Messel Pit in Germany, in 1983. The fossil, described as small-cat sized, was of something that has been pinpointed as a predecessor of humans and primates, an animal they've determined would have grown to the size of a lemur. Though the initial discovery happened more than two decades ago, the fossil has been privately held. Last month's report in PLosOne followed two years of intensive… Read more

Up, Up, and Away!

May 29, 2009 8:57 AM

Box office sales over the weekend will tell the story, but the hype around Disney/Pixar's newest release, UP (opens May 29), has been "floating around" for months. For movie-goers of all ages, there's a certain level of enchantment to the idea of a man who ties enough balloons to his house to turn it into a giant balloon and sets off on a Helium-powered adventure. That's exactly what the 78-year-old retired balloon salesman at the heart of UPdoes. With thousands of balloons attached to… Read more

The Science of Bridges

May 27, 2009 10:34 AM

May 27, 1937 marked the initial celebrations of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, a project that was started in January of 1933 and cost more than 35 million dollars. (Source: Wikipedia) A popular Magic School Bus episode involves making a bridge out of materials found in the bathroom in order to cross the bathtub, in which an alligator is lurking. DragonFly TV has on online episode called the "Bridge Building Club" which follows a middle-school team's… Read more

Mockingbirds Recognize Humans

May 22, 2009 11:10 AM

Image source: Wikipedia Commons Driving to my son's preschool this week, I spotted a bird on a wire as it lifted up into the air, wings fluttering, and then settled back down. Seeing the white patches in the outspread wings and knowing this was a bird I hadn't seen before, I pulled over to take a closer look with the binocular we keep in the car for precisely that... bird watching. When I rolled down my window, I was amazed by the… Read more

The Power of Forensics

May 21, 2009 10:54 AM

Popular prime time TV like CSI (in all its variations) shows have imbued forensics labs with glamour and intrigue, but beyond the lights, camera, and action of the stories we see unfold on TV, the world of real-life forensics offers drama all its own. Advancements in forensics science in the last several years has transformed the way evidence is treated, evaluated, and taken into account during investigations. As happened just this month with Paul House, there have been many trial… Read more

Gearing Up for Pedal Power

May 13, 2009 11:17 AM

The month of May is national "Bike to Work" month, and this week the League of American Bicyclists is encouraging people to leave their cars parked and get on a bike for the morning commute to work or to school! The environmental and energy benefits of a pedal-powered commute are obvious, and you might save a few dollars when you puts your pedals to work instead of your engine. There is, of course, a bit of a trade-off in terms of speed. You'll need to allow a little extra time, depending… Read more

A Closer Look at Saturn's Rings

May 11, 2009 3:47 PM

The May 11 successful launch of the space shuttle Atlantis marks NASA's fifth repair trip to the Hubble Space Telescope. This trip is listed as Atlantis's final servicing trip for Hubble, and slated repairs and upgrades include installation of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, which will enable observation of "light put out by extremely faint, far-away quasars and see how that light changes as it passes through the intervening gas between distant galaxies." The Hubble's wide-field camera… Read more

Smart Hand Washing

May 5, 2009 11:09 AM

It's no secret that good hand washing is important in stemming the flow of germs and reducing the transmission of viruses and bacteria. My preschooler knows that the first thing he's supposed to do when he gets to school is wash his hands. That rule was adopted last year in response to a stomach virus that almost shut the school down at one point in the winter. Kids are particularly prone to touching things they shouldn't and putting fingers where they shouldn't, but all of us pick up and carry… Read more

Renewable Energy

April 30, 2009 10:45 AM

PG&E recently asked the state of California to approve plans to turn to space-based solar systems as a source of clean energy. With plans for the satellite which would relay the solar energy to be designed and completed by Solaren Corp by 2016, it sounds far off, but, as reported by Scientific American, the promises of such a near-constant source of renewable energy are abundant. Analysis of renewable energy sources takes center-stage in the Science Buddies science fair project idea: Free… Read more

Swine Flu: BLASTing viruses

April 28, 2009 10:31 AM

No matter what you open, turn on, or tune into, chances are you'll catch a headline about swine flu. The outbreak can be tracked at HealthMap or with their newly launched Twitter stream, which, according to Discovery News, was created in response to swine flu to enable more frequent updates than the hourly ones on the official HealthMap website. A respiratory illness once limited to pigs, with occasional transmission to humans, the strain of swine flu that has appeared today and in cases… Read more

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