Chemical Biologist, nature lover, mom and teacher. The cicada in my hand is just a cicada, but he has big plans, I’m sure.
Somehow I totally missed that I was posted on ”This is what a scientist looks like. ” Neato!
Library Services in the Digital Age
Latest from Pew Internet:
- Online research services allowing patrons to pose questions and get answers from librarians: 37% of Americans ages 16 and older would “very likely” use an “ask a librarian” type of service, and another 36% say they would be “somewhat likely” to do so.
- Apps-based access to library materials and programs: 35% of Americans ages 16 and older would “very likely” use that service and another 28% say they would be “somewhat likely” to do so.
- Access to technology “petting zoos” to try out new devices: 35% of Americans ages 16 and older would “very likely” use that service and another 34% say they would be “somewhat likely” to do so.
- GPS-navigation apps to help patrons locate material inside library buildings: 34% of Americans ages 16 and older would “very likely” use that service and another 28% say they would be “somewhat likely” to do so.
- “Redbox”-style lending machines or kiosks located throughout the community where people can check out books, movies or music without having to go to the library itself: 33% of Americans ages 16 and older would “very likely” use that service and another 30% say they would be “somewhat likely” to do so.
- “Amazon”-style customized book/audio/video recommendation schemes that are based on patrons’ prior library behavior: 29% of Americans ages 16 and older would “very likely” use that service and another 35% say they would be “somewhat likely” to do so.
Interesting information about how we use libraries and how we may use them in the future.
Logarithmic Astronomy
What a photo! If you looked to the skies last night (January 21st), you may have noticed a bright point of light nearly on top of the Moon. That was Jupiter! Last night was the closest they will come (an event called “conjunction”) until 2026.
Their nearly intersecting “paths” through the sky are only due to our Earthly perspective, of course. Many things in the night sky will appear next to each other if we just wait long enough. What’s especially cool about this photograph is that it captures three levels of astronomical complexity in one image.
First we have our terrestrial satellite, Luna, with the “terminator” line of day/night stretched across a large, dark volcanic plain known as the “Ocean of Storms”, which is an awesome name for a volcanic plain. The next brightest image is Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet/failed star. And those dots around Jupiter? Those are three of its Galilean moons! The photographer’s Facebook page says there’s four moons of Jupiter in this shot, but I only see three. If we are seeing them in their increasing distance from Jupiter (and that’s a big if, since perspective can play tricks on us), they are probably Io, Europa, and Ganymede.
It’s like peeling back the layers of an astronomical onion, in a single photo. Great work by Chris Levitan, check out his Facebook page.
Map of the supercontinent Pangaea in the Triassic period, when “first appeared beasties of fur and feather”.
The Tethys Ocean looks like it would have had nice beaches to lounge around on, hunting for nautilus shells, sipping Diño Coladas.
(by Richard Morden on Redbubble, available as a poster there if you’d like one!)
Great visual.
(via from-student-to-teacher)
Why can’t trees grow taller than 100 metres?
Kaare Jensen of Harvard University and Maciej Zwieniecki of the University of California, Davis, compared 1925 tree species, with leaves ranging from a few millimetres to over 1 metre long, and found that leaf size varied most in relatively short trees.
Jensen thinks the explanation lies in the plant’s circulatory system. Sugars produced in leaves diffuse through a network of tube-shaped cells called the phloem. Sugars accelerate as they move, so the bigger the leaves the faster they reach the rest of the plant. But the phloem in stems, branches and the trunk acts as a bottleneck.
There comes a point when it becomes a waste of energy for leaves to grow any bigger. Tall trees hit this limit when their leaves are still small, because sugars have to move through so much trunk to get to the roots, creating a bigger bottleneck.
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Students have asked me this before. Now I can read up and have a proper answer.
(via bbglasses)
Col. Chris Hadfield
Arguably the coolest blog ever… an astronaut posts from space. Awesome stuff!
“Quite simply, being well-read or educated, to most of us, doesn’t mean that you understand basic physics; it just means you are relatively well-versed in the arts. The question is, is this a bad thing?”
via sciencepopularis:
Why Does Being Well-Read Mean Shakespeare and Not Science?
A really interesting read from Sylvia McLain - Why is it that culturally, we don’t expect scientific literacy, despite it being the heart of many aspects of modern life? What do you think? Personally I think that everyone should stop banging on about Brian Cox.
Teacher vs. CEO Accountability
Critics like to point to the difference between how teachers in public schools and chief executive officers in the private sector are treated as prima facie evidence of the hopelessness of reform. Their argument is that when CEOs don’t perform, they are fired. In contrast, when teachers don’t perform, there are no consequences. I’d like to examine this assertion more closely.
How Stress Hampers Learning
Students’ ability to learn depends not just on the quality of their textbooks and teachers, but also on the comfort and safety they feel at school and the strength of their relationships with adults and peers there.
