It's a Show...It's an Education...It's Dinner

In keeping with my easily distracted interest in cooking, let me speak of the Culinary Training Studio.
It looks like a kitchen surrounded by a bar. It has been described as being part of your own cooking show. You might call it a cooking class where you don't have to work and get to eat the food. Or you might call it a six hour dinner, with entertainment in the form of food talk.

Global Warming From a Sunnier Globe

What if pollution makes the planet cooler? That's what made the most sense to me when I first thought about the issue. (I think it was grade 2 that I had noticed that clouds make it cooler and my teacher told me that pollution causes clouds.). You'd think someone would have looked into this earlier.

It turns out that pollution does block the sun. The planet's mid-century cooling (from the 50's to the 70's) is explained by the blockage of the sun. The late century rise in temperatures is explained by pollution reductions.


Plus, clarity from the comments:

"If i get this right, industrial pollution masked the natural warming from the Little Ice Age and the clean air initiatives caused the earth temperatures to rebound to normal levels." - Lawrence Todd

Environment Leaping Forward, If...

The earth's natural environment keeps getting better at supporting life, especially human life.Thanks to new technology we are about to make major progress in carbon emissions, medical science and relief for the poor. The progress would be felt first on this continent. Then, once the technology is common and established, it will be practical for the third world as well.

The problem is that there is an entrenched group of influential and politically connected people who, fearing a loss in their current privilege, obstruct progress.

Life on Mars Confirmed!

Well, life on Mars very likely, anyway...but it is probably dead by now...and we brought it.

Meteor Shower Tonight

That is, just after midnight, Friday, May 23 (aka early morning May 24) There will be a meteor shower called Camelopardalids. Look north. The meteors will appear to originate from just north of Polaris (the North Star).

Bridge Contest Spring 2014

Liam and Tkia achieved bridge glory, effectively tied by Michael.

Science of Color

Studies on color and tests of people's reactions have intriguing results:

For instance, the study into the psychological effects of pink, mentioned above, was carried out by Alexander Schauss in the Seventies. It showed that of 153 male prisoners put in cells painted pink, 98.7 per cent were weaker after being in the pink cells for only 15 minutes

Of course, there is the practical application, selling people stuff:

...a paper in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, ... White is “purity, cleanness, simplicity, hygiene, clarity and peace”; black is “sophistication, glamour, status, elegance, richness and dignity”. Purple is status, pink is femininity, and, of course, blue suggests competence while red is exciting.

and speculation on why we humans see color at all:

...developed the ability to detect the colour red because of a common characteristic: bare-skinned faces. Suddenly, we could “read” the all-important expressions of anger, dominance and sexual readiness on the faces of those around us.

Questions to Ask a University

Universities have a reputation as havens of expanded minds and stimulating thinking. They can be. They can also be among the most closed, fearful places in contemporary North America. If you are interested in your university getting these issues right, here are some questions to ask.
(Aug'15) Now that you about to go, tips from the Factual Feminist.

Making a Lush, Green Planet

Increased CO2 is helping plants grow around the planet. It seems that there are two effects at play. CO2 is good for plants, a type of fertilizer. CO2 also helps plants use water more efficiently. A third effect of CO2 is on rainfall. This one is so far unresolved: many models (and nearly all the press) predict that a hotter planet will be dry. Others (and the evidence so far) say that warmer means wetter. Beyond dispute, is that so far the increase in carbon has correlated to a greener planet.

Update (Nov23'14) Test are coming in improved photosynthesis mechanisms. Cyanobacteria are related to C4. I'm not sure about the High Yield Rice.

Math of Improbable Events

A one-in-14 million lottery draws the same set of numbers twice? It had to happen.

Walking on Oobleck

Why didn't I think of this?

What's the Weather?

Click to see it live

That's Not an Explosion...

There is a supernova happening in the neighborhood. Actually, it happened about 12 million years ago but we get to see it now, for a couple of weeks. It seems like a busy neighborhood.

Cheap Digital Microscope

Instructables.com has plans for a lens and stand that lets you use your smartphone as a digital microscope. They claim up to 175x magnification (with two lenses, up to 375x!) That is enough to look at onion cells. This is a maple seed pod at only 60x.

Project cost: $10

Brown Dwarfs Detected

A brown dwarf is not like a white dwarf: on the death march of a real star. A brown dwarf is a star too small to kickstart full fusion, too small to emit light, but big enough to emit energy (as infrared) for billions of years and fantastic enough to have liquid iron falling from the sky as rain. A Canadian team is using the Spitzer IR Space Telescope to study them.

Bridge Contest Fall 2013

Many will try. Who will survive?

Video Analysis

If you can take a video, you can use that video to measure speeds and accelerations. The tool involved is called "video analysis software" and there are free versions that seem to work pretty well. After looking at a few, I have comments on a smaller few:

1. Tracker: My favorite so far. It is free, computer-based, open-source and looks transparent and powerful, for example:

• Fixed or time-varying coordinate system scale, origin and tilt.
• Multiple calibration options: tape, stick, calibration points and/or offset origin.
• Switch easily to center of mass and other reference frames.
• Protractors and tape measures provide easy distance and angle measurements.
• Define custom variables for plotting and analysis.

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/
http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/help/frameset.html

2. Kinovea: a free, open-source sports analysis software with some good analysis tool including video magnification, slo-mo, data export to spreadsheets. The output looks beautiful
http://www.kinovea.org/

3. Vernier Physics: a $5 app for iPhone & iPad. Vernier is popular and looks convenient for people who already use iPhones. But it requires you to:
1. not move the camera and
2. mark each frame manually.
3. You can't export your info to a spreadsheet. 
http://www.vernier.com/products/software/video-physics/

Update(Jan'15)-Destin from Smarter Every Day shows how to analyse a grasshopper using Tracker. If that was a little fast, watch his tutorial. (Destin has linked all you need in the "show more" box of the first video.  When I tried repeating his work, the windows version of Tracker wouldn't work on every computer but the ".jar" file did. On some computers Destin's You-tube video (step #3) worked. On others, only Quicktime worked. Try stuff.

Space Mysteries

A few things we don't understand.

Antarctic =/= Arctic

If you, like me, always assumed that the Antarctic was pretty much like the arctic but with penguins instead of polar bears, Dr. Kyla would like to set you straight.

What Do the Boys Like?

A 2009 study "asked teachers and students to 'narrate clearly and objectively an instructional activity that is especially, perhaps unusually, effective in heightening boys’ learning.' The responses–2,500 in all–revealed eight categories of instruction that succeeded in teaching boys.":

• Lessons that result in an end product–a booklet, a catapult, a poem, or a comic strip, for example.

• Lessons that are structured as competitive games.

• Lessons requiring motor activity.

• Lessons requiring boys to assume responsibility for the learning of others.

• Lessons that require boys to address open questions or unsolved problems.

• Lessons that require a combination of competition and teamwork.

• Lessons that focus on independent, personal discovery and realization.

• Lessons that introduce drama in the form of novelty or surprise.

Actually, lessons that include this kind of stuff tend to get praise from the girls too.
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