Unfortunately, on the other side, there are probably even more young people who have never been given the opportunity to explore their visions and the young geniuses in them simply died.

Therefore, in order to help young scientists with the interesting projects, Google has launched the first-ever global online science fair, allowing any student from anywhere in the world to participate in the competition.

“Science fairs help students to explore their vision and curiosity through science,” said Google’s Tom Oliveri. “Our company was founded on an experiment. We firmly believe that science can change the world.”

The competition is open to students aged 13-18 years old and all they need, beside their ideas for a scientific experiments, is an Internet connection and a Google account, as their projects will be submitted through Google Sites. Competitors can choose to work on their own or in a team of two or three. And of course, they are allowed to use the panoply of Google products to record and share their work.

All entries are due April 4, 2011 and judging will occur in July 2011. Entries will be judged on eight core criteria, which include the student’s presentation, question, hypothesis, research, experiment, data, observations, and conclusion presented in either a two-minute video or a 20-slide presentation.

As Google explained, there will be three finalist winners, one in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18), and one of the finalist winners will be named the Grand Prize winner. In partnership with Lego, CERN, Scientific American and National Geographic, Google prepared fantastic prizes for the winners. The prizes include scholarships that are intended to be used towards the finalists’ further education, visits to major research institutions, Scientific American subscriptions, and LEGO products. The Grand Prize winner will win a trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions, a $50,000 scholarship from Google and an experience at a sponsoring organization.

For more information about entering the competition, judges, judging criteria and prizes, visit Google Science Fair website or watch video below

sponsored post

Interesting Parking

.

.

.

The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” said Michael Strano, MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, who was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings.

Like a collection of flotsam propelled along the surface by waves traveling across the ocean, it turns out that a thermal wave — a moving pulse of heat — traveling along a microscopic wire can drive electrons along, creating an electrical current. The key ingredient in the recipe is carbon nanotubes — submicroscopic hollow tubes made of a chicken-wire-like lattice of carbon atoms.

In the new experiments, each of these electrically and thermally conductive nanotubes was coated with a layer of a highly reactive fuel that can produce heat by decomposing.

This fuel was then ignited at one end of the nanotube using either a laser beam or a high-voltage spark, and the result was a fast-moving thermal wave travelling along the length of the carbon nanotube like a flame speeding along the length of a lit fuse.

According to Strano, in the group’s initial experiments, when they wired up the carbon nanotubes with their fuel coating in order to study the reaction, “lo and behold, we were really surprised by the size of the resulting voltage peak” that propagated along the wire.

After further development, the system now puts out energy, in proportion to its weight, about 100 times greater than an equivalent weight of lithium-ion battery.

While many semiconductor materials can produce an electric potential when heated, through something called the Seebeck effect, that effect is very weak in carbon.

“There’s something else happening here. We call it electron entrainment since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity,” Strano said.

The thermal wave appears to be entraining the electrical charge carriers (either electrons or electron holes) just as an ocean wave can pick up and carry a collection of debris along the surface, he explained.

“This important property is responsible for the high power produced by the system,” Strano said.

Strano suggests that one possible application would be in enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices.

Or it could lead to “environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air,” he said.

ANI

The finding was made by Brown University physicist Vesna Mitrovic and colleagues at Brown and in France.

At the quantum level, the forces of magnetism and superconductivity exist in an uneasy relationship.

Superconducting materials repel a magnetic field, so to create a superconducting current, the magnetic forces must be strong enough to overcome the natural repulsion and penetrate the body of the superconductor. This relationship is pretty well known. But why it is so remains mysterious. Now, physicists at Brown University have documented for the first time a quantum-level phenomenon that occurs to electrons subjected to magnetism in a superconducting material.

They report that at under certain conditions, electrons in superconducting material form odd, fluctuating magnetic waves.
Apply a little more magnetic force, and those fluctuations cease. The electronic magnets form repeated wave-like patterns promoted by superconductivity.

The discovery may help scientists understand more fully the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity at the quantum level.

The insight also may help advance research into superconducting magnets, which are used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a host of other applications.

When a magnetic field is applied to a superconducting material, vortices measured in nanometers (1 billionth of a meter) pop up.

These vortices, like super-miniature tornadoes, are areas where the magnetic field has overpowered the superconducting field state, essentially suppressing it.

Crank up the magnetic field and more vortices appear.

At some point, the vortices are so widespread the material loses its superconducting ability altogether.

At an even more basic level, sets of electrons called Cooper pairs form superconductivity. But, scientists believe there also are other electrons that are magnetically oriented and spin on their own axes like little globes.

These electrons are tilted at various angles on their imaginary axes and move in a repeating, linear pattern that resembles waves, Mitrovic and her colleagues have observed.

“These funny waves most likely appear because of superconductivity, but the reason why is still unsettled,” Mitrovic said. The researchers saw that the waves fluctuated under certain conditions.

Mitrovic and her colleagues also observed that when more magnetic energy is added, the fluctuations disappear and the waves resume their repeating, linear patterns.

The researchers next want to understand why these fluctuations occur and whether they crop up in other superconducting material.

ANI

Unearthed at a site in western Greenland, the hair provides a vivid portrait of a man who died four millennia ago and overturns a mainstream theory about how humans colonised the Arctic New World, they said.

Greenland’s first known settlers were not Inuit or Native Americans as widely believed, but the direct descendants of Siberians who somehow crossed the Bering Strait to Alaska and then headed east, according to their report, published by Nature.

The tuft of hair and four pieces of bone, uncovered at Qeqertasussuk, are the only human remains ever found of Saqqaq culture, an enigmatic coastal-dwelling community that lived in western Greenland for some 1,700 years.

Living on harp seals and fish and other marine food, the culture petered out around 800 BC, although the dates are uncertain.

University of Copenhagen researcher Eske Willerslev led a team that exhaustively analysed the precious Qeqertasussuk find.

They teased out nearly 80 percent of the genetic code and identified 353,151 single variations in DNA that are telltale signs of body characteristics.

“What we can see from the genomic data is a number of traits,” Willerslev told journalists in a teleconference.

“For example, we can see the guy had most likely brown eyes, brown skin, he had shovel-form front teeth and he had dry earwax, which increased the chance of getting infection in the ear,” said Willerslev.

“We can also see that he had a tendency to baldness and because we found quite a lot of hair from this guy we presume he actually died quite young, and we can see he was genetically adapted to cold temperatures, living in the Arctic.”

Yet the most surprising find came when the man’s genome was matched against those of people alive today.

His closest contemporaries are from Arctic eastern Siberia: ethnic groups called the Chukchis, the Koryaks and Naganasans — a finding also bolstered by a similar A+ blood group.

Anthropologists have long surmised that the first settlers to North America had either walked across the strait while it was iced over during the winter months, or crossed it by boat, perhaps using the Aleutian Islands as stepping stones.

These pioneers then headed south, with their descendants eventually arriving in the southern tip of South America thousands of years later.

Until now, Greenland was believed to have been settled by populations that headed there after prolonged settlement in the New World, such as Na-Dene people of North America, or the Inuit of the Arctic.

Willerslev, though, said that the Saqqaq man could be traced to Siberian peoples who had lived 200 generations before.

“It suggests an independent migration or expansion, if you wish, into the New World from the Old World some 5,500 years ago,” he said.

As to why the group should head towards Greenland, where it is permanently cold, rather than balmier climes farther south “is a good question,” he said.

PTI

This traditional portrait of Athanasius Kircher gives his age as 76. The engraver has emphasized the energy in Kircher’s inquiring eyes. A professor of eloquence in Rome added the flowery inscription: “The painter or poet would declare only in error: ‘This is the man.’ But the farthest Antipodes know his name and face.”

Above, a detail from a page in Athanasius Kircher’s “Musurgia Universalis,” printed in 1650. A large part of the book is devoted to the history of instrumentation, including the anatomy of voice and hearing, and an extensive theory on acoustics entitled ‘Magia Phonocamptica, sive de Echo’, in which he described sound as ‘the ape of light.’

Invented device for the deaf and a megaphone. Described the phosphorescence and fluorescence. Designed magnetic watch.

Made some music of hydraulic machines.  Has constructed the prototype of the synthesizer, which it was possible to obtain different timbres of wind, string instruments and noise, as well as programmed melodies within the scale tool.

The first used a microscope to examine the blood of patients with plague, and came to the conclusion that the disease is caused by microorganisms.  He also suggested that effective measures to combat the disease – isolation, quarantine, burning clothes and diseased wearing protective masks.

Descended into the crater of the volcano Etna on Sicily. Created the theory of volcanism and water circulation within the body of the Earth.

Invented the world’s first projector, and includes a light source, and a slide, and an optical system, and the screen .

To study the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs taught Syriac, Chaldean, Arabic and Coptic.

In fact, opened for Christian Kabbalah – presenting an image kabbalah  sefirot of the tree is in the form in which it would be accessible and understandable to Christian readers.

Released the “Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Chinese Empire,” which summarized all the information known about China – Kircher was in correspondence with more than 760 scientists.

Created the “machine metaphor”.

Calculated that if the Tower of Babel reach the sky, she would have turned the Earth. Calculated the size of Noah’s Ark .

During the 30-year war against the Protestants fled first to Avignon, and then to Rome. Has published 40 books: arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, the theory of logarithms, Astronomy, Chronograph, geography, acoustics, and anaclastics catoptrics, mechanics, statics, hydrology, hydraulic engineering, pyrotechnics, cryptography, fortification, topography, chemistry, architecture, construction mechanics , music, telescopes, microscopes, magnets and their properties, fluid bodies, machines, pneumatic machines, diving bells, military tactics and strategy, and so on.

The trading vessel was carrying an extremely valuable cargo of tin and hundreds of copper ingots from the Continent when it sank.

Experts say the ”incredibly exciting” discovery provides new evidence about the extent and sophistication of Britain’s links with Europe in the Bronze Age, and reveals the remarkable seafaring abilities of the people during the period.

Archaeologists have described the vessel, which is thought to date back to about 900BC, as being a ”bulk carrier” of its age. The copper and tin would have been used for making bronze, the primary product of the period which was used in the manufacture of weapons, tools, jewellery, ornaments and other items.

It is believed that the copper – and possibly the tin – were being imported into Britain and originated in a number of different countries throughout Europe, rather than from a single source, demonstrating the existence of a complex network of trade routes across the Continent. It is the first time tin ingots from this period have ever been found in Britain, a discovery which may support theories that the metal was being mined in the south-west at this time. If the tin was not produced in Britain, it is likely it would have come from the Iberian Peninsula or Germany.

The wreck was found in between eight and 10 metres of water in a bay near Salcombe, south Devon, by a team of amateur marine archaeologists from the South West Maritime Archaeological Group. In total, 295 artefacts have so far been recovered, weighing more than 84 kilograms.

The cargo recovered includes 259 copper ingots and 27 tin ingots. Also found was a bronze leaf sword, two stone artefacts that could have been slingshots, and three gold wrist torcs, or bracelets.

The team has yet to uncover any of the vessel’s structure, which is likely to have eroded away. But experts believe it would have been up to 12 metres long and up to 1.8 metres wide.

The artefacts are to be handed over to the British Museum next week. They will be independently valued and the museum will pay the team for the items.

ANI

A lot of time and money has been put in developing these electric cars and make them more lucrative to the buyer.

UK is coming up with a Electric car which will be a four seater, can run up to 70 miles without bothering to be recharged. It’s a Citroen C1 based car, which is joint venture by Peugeot, Toyota and Citroen. It shall take only six to seven hours to charge and can be charged in a 13a normal socket. Subsidies are also being discussed with British government to encourage people to go in for a Citroen C1. By 2011 Citroen C1will hit the market.

Up till now the designs of any of the previous launched electric cars have not tempted most of them to buy one. They are expensive no fancy features or designs and they could not accommodate large families either. Hope fully the scenario will change in the near future.

Another such product, which is with an electric motor running on three wheels, is an Aptera. It’s quite pleasing to eyes and pollution free.

Aptera 2e is originally manufactured in California, USA. Mostly to be launched by the end of 2009. Aptera 2e can run 100 miles without bothering to be recharged. This is a two seater car with comfortable space for luggage. A Navigation system, an air conditioner, Side and front airbags, Power locks and electric windows are few features of the Aptera2. You can go 0 to 60 in less than 10 seconds which is commendable for an electric car. Such features are not present in any of its present counterparts. You can plug it in to any normal outlet of about 110v which will be cost you about 50c. A test drive of the Aptera 2e shall be an experience you had been waiting for.

Aptera 2e will be launched in California initially then Florida followed by Texas. Only by 2010 or2011 it will be available in other parts of the US. With all the state of art facilities, saving a lot of your hard earned money on fuel and being an eco friendly vehicle it will surely be a treat to drive.

Our future lies in these cars. They only do well to the environment and also to your pockets. You might feel it on an expensive side initially but the amount of money you shall be saving on fuel in the long run is remarkable.

[ source ]

A week before Christmas, Magnus Bladh of the Ottenby bird station, located on Öland’s southern cape, was strolling along the beach with a colleague when he saw something he’d never seen before.

“Temperatures were below freezing and there was a light wind, but it was very cold! In the seaweed we noticed at least 200 large ice balls,” he said in a report to Swedish meteorological agency SMHI.

“The balls varied in size but the biggest ones were quite large, some larger than a football.”

What mystified Bladh was that the balls were resting on the west side of a bed of seaweed, even though the prevailing winds were from the east.

When Bladh and his colleagues later broke open one of the ice balls, they discovered that it consisted of a 2 to 5 centimetre thick shell of ice, which covered a core of soft, wet snow.

According to SMHI, the ice balls likely form when rolls of light snow are blown from the shore into water which is at or just below freezing, but fails to form uniform ice due to strong winds.

The rolls of snow are then tossed about in the chilly waters, where wave action eventually shapes them into balls of ice.

“It’s hard to say just how common ice balls are, since we are reliant on witness reports,” SMHI spokeswoman Alexandra Ohlsson told The Local.

A review by SMHI of weather conditions on southern Öland in the days leading up to Bladh’s ice ball discovery revealed that temperatures in the area were generally below freezing, with snowfall, and winds from the north and northeast averaging 50 kilometres per hour.

According to SMHI, it was possible that rolls of snow near the shore remained soft due to warmth emanating up from the ground, which could have then been blown into the water by the strong winds.

Once formed, the balls likely came back to shore and, rather than floating out to open water, remained there due to a change in sea conditions in the days before the ice balls were discovered. Water levels sunk several decimetres between December 17th and December 18th when Bladh and his colleagues found the ice balls lying on the shore.

Beside’s Bladh’s discovery, SMHI’s website only mentions two other reported instances of ice balls being discovered in Sweden since the 1950s.

thelocal.se