Science Buddies Blog

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… 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

Video Contest for Gamers

May 19, 2009 10:55 AM

AMD and the Learning Games Network have teamed up to run a cool contest for video gamers who can turn on a video camera and capture in digital frames the educational underpinnings of video gaming. Sure, video games can be lots of fun, but with the contest, AMD and the Learning Games Network hope to underscore the ways in which connections are made, educational skills advanced and put into action, and learning continued... while playing. With entries being accepted in both the "My 'Aha'… Read more

Symantec Supports Clever Scientists

May 19, 2009 9:20 AM

Science Buddies continues to team up with science and tech companies to recognize and support innovative science and what can be created, observed, tested, and discovered with ordinary materials put to creative use in the name of science. After viewing entries yesterday, Science Buddies' Sandra Slutz is at the California State Science Fair today with Northrop Grumman's Wen Phan to select winners of the Science Buddies Clever Scientist Awards from the over 1000 participants representing over… 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

Recognizing Clever Scientists

May 7, 2009 11:11 AM

This year, Seagate and Science Buddies teamed up to sponsor and award the Seagate-Science Buddies Clever Scientist Award at various science fairs. At each fair, the "Clever Scientist" award honored the two most innovative science fair projects which used low-cost experimental techniques to answer challenging scientific or engineering questions. "Doing more with less is one of the classic measures of creativity," says Science Buddies founder and CEO Ken Hess. The following projects were… 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

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