Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

Image of me on sea ice near Cape Royds Antarctica by Chaz Firestone- Thanks Chaz!

One of the main reasons the NSF took Ann Posegate and I to the bottom of the world was to foster student interest in science. This was fine with me because it is one of the main reasons I write this journal and the Wild Wild Weather Page.

I’ve just finished putting together a 5 minute slideshow with embedded video about my January trip to Antarctica and the South Pole. I edited it using iMovie  on my Mac and added in some of the TV version along with some pics and more audio.  This is part one of 4. I used some of the first TV special we did along with some extra pics. The video is also on the Wild Wild Weather Page which is aimed at the younger crowd from age 9-14.

Hopefully it gives a good idea of what it was like to travel down to the ice. Ann is working on a similar presentation and I am working on part two now!

Teachers can get the file here. Classroom use only please, email me for any other use.

While in New Zealand waiting for the weather to clear in Antarctica, I met a gentleman named Mike Davis. We got to talking while looking at the view from the top of the Christchurch Gondola. It turns out that he is a Chicago college prof who did something really cool. Something right up my alley!

He constructed the world’s LARGEST PERIODIC TABLE!

World's Largest Periodic Table on the Daley Center in Chicago 2006.

Mike Davis sporting his Periodic Tattoo. The element Zinc of course!

Turns out that Mike made a promise. If his students could raise enough money to get the table installed, he would get a tattoo of one of the elements!

Did he keep his promise??

Yes indeed he did. (To his wife’s dismay she told me!)

There is another periodic table available that is totally cool. All you need is a computer to use it.

This comes under the category of why didn’t someone think of this before??

The site is

http://www.ptable.com/

Click the link and check it out!

Micahel Tobis, over at Only In It For The Gold, is always a worthy read. Today, he had the image below in a post:

Image courtesy of Only In It For The Gold. Click to go there.

For a much more detailed answer, the go to person is Michael Pollan. Here are two article Dr. Pollan wrote for the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html

The second one is best but much longer. It will make your jaw drop.

Open Letter to President Elect Obama

from tiffany jones

Today would be his 75th birthday.

Tomorrow marks the first annual Carl Sagan Day. It will be held at Broward College in the Miami area of Florida. It will be celebrated by people around the world however, by simply pausing to reflect on the life of a man who brought the wonders of Science to millions.

Sagan worried a lot about scientific literacy.  To have a functioning society, where the public makes thoughtful decisions on everything from environmental policy, to the funding of research and exploration, it’s a necessity.

Mouse the image to go to the website.

Science education is not just for those who plan on studying science in college, or going into a field of research!

It’s needed for everyone.

Carl Sagan would be unhappy with the state of science literacy today. Particularly here in America, where large numbers of people believe that solid scientific foundations underpinning evolutionary biology and climate change are wrong.

Where books are published with almost laughable explanations of why these basic theories are supposedly wrong.

A public that has little or no scientific understanding, will not have the ability to recognize when they are being fed a load of political propaganda dressed up to resemble science.

I have written several times about Carl Sagan on these pages. His books and the famous TV series COSMOS are still watched and read by millions. The Pale Blue Dot is simply fabulous.

If you read just one book of his, then buy The Demon Haunted World.

After I published this post today, a viewer sent me a link to this. Feynman playing the Bongos!, Neil De Grasse Tyson, and of course Sagan.

Pause and remember Carl Sagan on Monday. He would have been 75. The world still needs him.

Later,

Dan