DIY science is the perfect way to use your creative skills and learn something new. With the right supplies, some determination, and a curious mind, you can create amazing experiments that open up a whole world of possibilities. At home-made laboratories or tech workshops, makers from all backgrounds can explore new ideas by finding ways to study their environment in novel ways – allowing them to make breathtaking discoveries!
Science Friday’s “Science Through Graphic Novels”… Great interview(s)! Using graphic novels to teach science… In this segment, we’ll take a look at two graphic novels that approach science from a different direction. One tackles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ while the other deals with the life and ideas of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. Michael Keller […]
Last week I wrote about how to construct a simple sheet metal “bridge,” which, in combination with an ice cube bucket and a jelly jar, makes an effective pneumatic trough for collecting gas samples over water. This week I’m going to show you how to use this apparatus to generate and collect pure oxygen, and how to use that oxygen to observe the brilliant blue flame of sulfur oxidation.
Olympus BioScapes competition winners, amazing photos!
Wow, rad physics experiment in which FIRE is used to visualize sound. Don’t try it at home, unless you’re a physics teacher, in which case please show this to your students. [Thanks, Tyler!]
The glass is aligned to concentrate the sun’s rays, lighting the cannon’s fuse at high noon. More pics here, and a very detailed .pdf from the British Sundial Society on so-called “noon cannons” here. [via Neatorama]
Those of you who know me will know I’m slightly biased toward chemistry, the discipline in which I’m trained, and it’s hard for me to resist the natural temptation to focus on gifts that I might like for myself. So if you astronomers, physicists, biologists, geologists, mathematicians, ecologists, computer scientists (and anybody else I may have accidentally left out) have suggestions for those in your own disciplines, please feel free to submit them in the comments!
Among the hairier of my hare-brained schemes involves formulating a safe-to-drink chemiluminescent cocktail. I think the first person to do it will become a very wealthy laughingstock, which, as I understand it, is the very definition of The American Dream.
So I got really excited when I first saw this post over on TheDieline.com, because I thought somebody had pulled it off. Unfortunately, it’s just the labels that are glowing, not the booze itself, but still it’s pretty cool. If you ignore the crass commercialism, the shameless marketing, the horrors of alcoholism, drunk driving, etc., etc. [via Geekologie]
