In a little under 12 hours as I write this post, one of the most exciting celestial missions will come to a dramatic climax. At 10:31pm PDT (6:31am in the UK) Mars Curiosity Rover will crash through the Martian atmosphere, in an event experts are dubbing "7 minutes of terror". You can watch the whole thing play out live on the mission website, where you can also follow the robots mission as it spends one Martian year on the planet's surface.
There is something so peaceful about gazing up into the heavens at night – but actually the sky is littered with excitement & intrigue – and this software package helps you to unravel the clues left by the Universe. Star gazers with a curiosity about the universe can download a free open source planetarium at stellarium.org. Available for windows, mac & several flavors of linux the planetarium shows the sky in real time from any location you specify. Don’t expect the landscape to be what’s outside your door – but there are a few styles to choose from. There’s so much to this package you’ll have to explore it on your own – just don’t get lost out there among the stars.
When I was at achool the periodic table was one of those cumbersome things that you just had to learn if you wanted to do well at science. But how can one get enthusiastic about a bunch of nonsensical letters laid out in a grid? Take a look at periodicvideos.com. The crazy academics at the University of Nottingham have put this site together. There's a video explanation including cool scientific experiments, for each of the chemical elements in the periodic table. Far from being boring and nonsensical, these guys make learning about science look fun – and more than a little dangerous!
DON'T try this at home!
The search for extra-terrestrial life goes into overdrive with the launch of a new crowd source project, Seti Live, which asks netizens to classify radio frequency signals picked up by the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array. Collaborating on the project are citizen science experts, Zooniverse.
Science meets art at wondermind.tate.org.uk, where in parallel with an exhibition at Tate Liverpool, the gallery has crafted a beautiful and creative learning experience about the science of the brain. The website uses Alice in Wonderland as inspiration and a backdrop for the games & interactive videos. It’s a brilliantly cunning way to deliver an education, and hats off to the Tate who have really delivered on this count. The videos are well produced, and whilst my school days are admittedly long gone, I don’t think they were too patronising, although they did teeter on the edge occasionally. But all together a great contribution to the ‘school of world wide web’ – isn’t it amazing how much more you can learn when you really go tumbling down the rabbit hole?
They say you don’t get something for nothing, but in the case of non-profit website, khanacademy.org they are wrong, because here you’ll find a wealth of knowledge parcelled up in easily digestible videos & exercises completely free of charge. The library has over 2,600 videos covering everything from algebra to venture capital, plus more than 200 practise exercises to help it sink in. As well as the videos there are practise exercises and resources for educators to help them inspire their students. You’ll need to log in with either a Google or Facebook account, and then you can save and track any progress made as well. You can watch the videos without logging in, but students who do can also save their completed activities and post questions & comments against the articles. Most of the content is aimed at middle or upper school students, with a spattering of subjects, such as adding and subtracting, geared towards younger children too.
The Mars Curiosity, which took off from NASA’s launch pad in November 2011, is the biggest vehicle ever to attempt landing on anything other than earth. If you want to keep an eye on its progress it is tweeting as it travels, so make sure you follow @MarsCuriosity. And there are more details, including launch videos, technical information & a countdown timer to it's arrival on Mars available on the NASA mission website.
Why not pass some time reading ancient papyrus? Ancientlives.org is the home of a crowd sourced scientific project where participants are asked to help translate fragments of papyri that belong to the Egypt Exploration Society. This is another Zooniverse project. They’ve got quite a lot of projects running in various fields, so if you want a great excuse to sit in front of the computer, this is probably a good site to bookmark. Like all the zooniverse projects, the interface is intuitive & well designed, but it still feels like you’re contributing to a serious scientific project – which of course, you are.
What’s the point in having a smartphone if you can’t use it to help improve your smarts? Neurons is a free app for Windows Phone 7 that does exactly that, by streaming to your handset some of the most mind-expanding content the online world has to offer. The streaming content comes from TED Talks, the RSA (including the RSA Animate series), FORA.tv and Science Dump. They’re truly enlightening talks by some of the world’s biggest thinkers, and should certainly get your grey matter nicely lubricated. The interface makes great use of the phone’s UI styling & the video is really good quality, streaming beautifully over a decent wifi connection. If you’re using the app on your mobile connection be aware of how much data video eats up. And if you tap and hold a thumbnail there are plenty of options for sharing any gems you find with your social networks.
The Science Museum is still one of my favourite places in London. If you get the chance over the Christmas holidays drag your kids down there and enjoy the interactive seasonal activities - like robot building family workshops - even if the kids hate it you'll have an incredible day!
If you live too far away to enjoy what goes on all through the year at the museum, they have an amazing online section too, stuffed with games, digital exhibitions, teaching aids and loads more.
