Popsci.com has an article on what to do with the miles of junk floating in the Pacific. It’s called, “Plastic-Eating Drone Could Swallow Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” An electric boat would tow a net to scoop the debris. We haven’t gotten to the part yet, where something comes along to scoop up the nets.
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Exploratorium.edu/snacks/ Lots of science project ideas, these from the science museum inSan Francisco. (Yes: Snacks.) Check out the neat science kits in the museum gift shop.
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Your skin can vibrate when a call comes in, if Nokia’s patent on “smart tattoos” becomes a commercial reality. You can program different vibrations for different callers. A printed circuit that reacts to the magnetic field produced by incoming calls can be worn as a stick-on or tattooed directly on someone’s skin, using ferro-magnetic ink. (We think we saw this movie.)
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Getting people to pitch in and fund a new project is commonplace, but here’s something new. Using crowd funding to develop a scientific breakthrough.
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“Encyclopedia of Electronic Components, Vol. 1,” by Charles Platt; $25, oreilly.com.
This book is an education. We thought it would be just a long list of parts and what they’re called, but it is an explanation of the major pieces used in making electronic equipment. For instance, we’ve all heard of diodes, but the book explains eight kinds, what they do and what they’re used for. It even explains what to do if something goes wrong
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Why watch the TV show when you can solve your local neighborhood crimes with your own forensic analysis?
“The Illustrated Guide to Home Forensic Science Experiments,” by Thompson and Thompson, $30 from oreilly.com, teaches you how to discover and lift fingerprints that are invisible to the naked eye, distinguish a person’s physical characteristics from examining a single hair, and — the ultimate – examining and comparing DNA. (Gotcha!)
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NationalGeographic.com sells a $200 DNA-testing kit. It lets you learn about the migration path of your ancestors, find out if you have Neanderthal or Denisovan ancestry, and share your story with other participants.
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EarthSky.org shows you where to look for planets and star formations visible with the naked eye. Jupiter and Venus are visible in the eastern sky this month. Jupiter will be visible right through December. We were amazed by how bright it is. Bob thought it was an approaching comet, but Google saved him from panicking. Venus is most visible around dawn. (Are they watching Earth?)
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When Marcin Jakubowski’s tractor broke down, the physics-trained PhD in fusion energy didn’t go out and buy a new one, he built one. Then he decided to put together simple plans for 50 machines any group might need.
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KhanAcademy’s free educational videos have been viewed 178 million times on YouTube. Now they’ve launched a “Computer Science” program that teaches kids and adults how to handle JavaScript; that’s the computer language that dominates the Web.
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