Year: 2009

Today I am at jury duty here in King’s County.  That means, for now anyway, that I’m waiting for my name to be called while the machinations of justice do their thing somewhere else in the building.  But the court system has moved into the modern age, at least in some ways, like providing free …

Science Resources for TeachersRead More

The national Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevad Site Office has made available a number of historically important videos for nuclear tests from the 1940s through the 1960s.  Apart from our common morbid fascination with things that go boom, you can always think of splicing these in as special effects for your next July 4th videos…. Videos …

Historical Videos of Nuclear TestsRead More

Oobleck is actually more than just a made-up name for the stuff in the Dr. Seuss book, it’s the name now applied to a whole class of fluids which display what is called "shear thickening."  That just means that when they have a sudden force applied, include of splashing to the side, the perversely get …

Oobleck – It’s not just for Dr. Seuss AnymoreRead More

Recent, is of course, relative to the timescale involved.  In the case of planetary collisions and their aftermath, that can be a very long time, like, tens of millions of years.  So while very interesting, this isn’t a train wreck (or planetary wreck) in progress, but the aftermath of one that is still settling. Physics …

“Recent” Planetary Collision around nearby StarRead More

Okay, this is not just for you, but so I won’t forget about it.  NASA has put together a guide for learning about the moon.  Looking for something to occupy your kids (ahem, that applies whether you are a teacher or a parent), then this might be interesting. I was recently at Borders Books store …

Exploring the Moon Educator GuideRead More

Somehow this didn’t hit any of the news feeds I link to, but the International Dark Sky Association is hosting a star party/star gazing session for middle school students on October 7.  The press release can be found here: http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/updates/499/.  Time to update those feeds….

Not that you’re likely to notice.  For the most part, accessing web pages is limited by my DSL upload speed which is merely 768k.  Funny how things change.  Remember when 1/2 a T1 connection was considered fast?  Hard to believe the work "merely" can go in the same sentence.

Well, okay, I made that up.  But the first two weeks of October, say Oct 4-17 will be a great time to be up early to view Saturn, Mercury, and Venus as they dance around the early morning sky during the morning twilight.  Saturn will actually be the faintest of the bunch.  On Oct 16, …

Saturn WeekRead More

Today’s full moon is also called the harvest moon.

The moons of Jupiter periodically cast shadows on Jupiter which are visible in telescopes from Earth.  However, today one of its moons will cast a shadow onto another of the moons.  But you’ll have to be an early riser to see this one!