GOODBYE 2013! January 1, 2014

Another big year for science in 2013 including new species that was discovered.

 Climate change still caused the unrelenting damages though Uber Typhoon Haiyan,

the spacecraft Voyager which was launched in 1977 exited into interstellar space,

the meteor shower that was caught on dashboard cameras when  a meteor exploded over Russia’s Chelyabinsk region,

and with the leaps and bounds in genetics testing, new discoveries and the advances in biogenetics, I found it reassuring that the US Supreme Court in April 2013 ruled against private companies who could hold a patent on DNA (the risk for breast cancer held by a biotech company Myriad).

CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT 2014 WILL GIVE US!  HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

 

Cosmic Question- What are we made of? August 25, 2012

One of the reasons I love science is that it answers all the big questions that often seem that are the same ones we all struggle to understand?  Where does life come from and where did the universe come from.  Where have we been and where are we going?    One of the major ROCK STARS of science right now is  Neil DeGrasse Tyson and he often tweets the great questions of the day include taking on the most explosive topic, CREATIONISM which I may or may not introduce to you at a later time.  One of my recent favorites is “if aliens did visit us, I’d be embarrassed to tell them we still dig up fossil fuels from the ground as a source of energy.”  He begs the question to think BIGGER, to think SMARTER. You too can follow him on twitter  @neiltyson.  To find out more about this cool cat who is the ultimate SCIENCE teacher, visit his web site http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/  or just start typing Neil into your google search and it probably will pop up as one of your first choices.

He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 he has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS and has been a frequent guest onThe Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Jeopardy!. It was announced on August 5, 2011, that Tyson will be hosting a new sequel toCarl Sagan‘s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage television series.^{[2]     >>>>>>> source: Wikipedia} 

Who is Carl Sagan? August 21, 2012

Well, I am glad you asked.  One of my students recently reminded me that I must be older than I think I really am when she did not know who the Beatles were.  I mean I was actually a child of the 70’s.   I thought about the fact that despite the fact that you can practically find anything out about on any subject as long as you have an internet connection, and some cultural icons have no meaning if they are not reintroduced to the next generation.

This video clip is kind of mind-blowing, it really gives you an idea of why Carl Sagan was such a science icon, he really thought about the big questions of what is the universe and who are we.   Also, who doesn’t love a cool synthesized voice set to corny music?

Some things are timeless, like the Beatles,  I will post my favorite Beatles songs later…  But Carl Sagan and the great science fiction book CONTACT which became a cult film and precursor of all the ideas we have about Aliens and extraterrestrials. He was involved in all the U.S. Space missions as an advisor NASA from the very beginning.