Science Cheerleader

Finally, you can add that very special member to your online social network—your houseplant.

Why would a plant want to join your network? To let you know when it’s thirsty, of course. Also to regularly report on its moisture level and to periodically thank you for watering it.

The network we’re talking about is Twitter, a group-oriented “microblogging” tool. This Web service keeps networks of friends, colleagues, businesses, and total strangers in contact through barrages of short messages known as “tweets.” And everybody from Barack Obama to the New York Times to my niece seems to be Twittering these days.

So why not Phil, the wilting philodendron that lives in your bedroom?

All you need is a clever do-it-yourself kit from a company called Botanicalls (cost: $89.95). With it you can build an electronic moisture-sensing system that enables one lucky houseplant to join your Twitter group. (Have a look at one houseplant’s tweets.)

This is a fairly geeky project, involving circuit boards, capacitors, ethernet cables, and a soldering iron, among other special equipment. But the kit’s instructions look clear, deliberate, and user-friendly. For a preview, see the company’s getting started and assembly page.

FYI, Botanicalls started out several years ago with a kit that enabled your plant to contact you by telephone, which they now call the Classic kit. If you need a break while you’re building the Twitter kit, I recommend you periodically watch the hilarious video that explained the Classic. It’s at the end of this post.

And, check out this scifi short story inspired by this Science Cheerleader blog post!

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

> Topics: Biology, plants, computers, electronics.
> Location: At home, or anywhere you have a plant.
> Duration: About 20 steps to assembly, then installation and testing. Maybe one long session or several separate sessions of a few hours each.
> Cost: $89.95 for the kit, which includes the required electronic components.
> Gear: Basic tools for assembling electronics such as needle-nose pliers, soldering iron, wire snips, etc. A computer with Internet access is also needed.
> Level of difficulty: Pretty technical.

Botanicalls “Classic Kit” Video (a hoot)

Want to gaze at stunning astronomical photographs and help astronomers do their research at the same time? Meet, GalaxyZoo.org, a Web site that enables amateur galaxy analyzers to work from the comfort of their computers.

You don’t need any specialized knowledge. After going through a brief tutorial and qualifying test, you can head to the Galaxy Analysis portion of the site and start reviewing images that need to be cataloged. Just look over each object’s shape and label it with the proper “profile”: spiral galaxy, elliptical galaxy, star, or don’t know.

Volunteers have turned out millions of galaxy classifications, which affiliated scientists will be including in upcoming journal articles. The site reports that last year, its “armchair astronomers” discovered more than “500 overlapping galaxies in the local universe when astronomers had previously only known of 20 such systems.”

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

> Topics: Astronomy, computers.
> Location: At home, office, or anywhere you can get to a computer.
> Duration: As short or as long as you like. It only takes a moment to classify each galaxy.
> Cost: Free.
> Gear: Computer with Internet access.
> Level of difficulty: Easy (after you do the tutorial).

The latest issue of Make magazine (number 15) is devoted to build-them-yourself, high-tech musical instruments. And the coolest of the bunch is this laser harp, at right, being played by its inventor, tech musician Stephen Hobley.

You coax out the computer-generated sounds by waving your hands to break the light beams and change their lengths.

To build a laser harp, you’ll need to be familiar with and fearless about such things as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology, circuit boards, photo cells, voltage regulators, and computers. If you’re not a serious music technology geek who’s been tinkering for years in the garage, you’ll need to buy or scare up a significant amount of hardware and software.

Stephen’s article in Make does include a simpler project—a single-beam “laser theremin,” as opposed to the six-beam laser harp. But even that’s still a pretty complex gizmo.

Whether or not you dive into this project, we’re sure you’ll appreciate the sights and sounds of the harp in action. Check out Stephen’s video demo, below.

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

> Topics: Computers, electronics, music, light, sound.
> Location: At home, or in your secret laboratory.
> Cost: $19 for the plans and schematics; order from Stephen Hobley’s Web site. Significant additional cost for parts and equipment.
> Gear: Computer, MIDI utility software, software synthesizer, USB-MIDI interface, soldering equipment, insulated wire, wire cutters and strippers, multimeter, alligator leads, saw, drill, vise and clamps.
> Level of difficulty: Pretty technical.

Today is launch day for a new wing of the Science Cheerleader blog: the Project Finder!

In a nutshell, the Project Finder is where we’ll point to projects and activities that will give regular folks the chance to participate in scientific research.

That’s right, we’re broadening the Cheerleader’s focus. We’ll continue to cover the important issue of involving the public in discussions and decisions about science policy. But we also want to help you actually do science.

Starting today, we’ll be writing regular profiles and recommendations of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of citizen science programs and projects that are out there waiting for you. Everything from counting fireflies to sorting through stardust, from archeological digs to kitchen counter-top chemistry, from food testing to earthquake monitoring.

We’ll organize it all into categories that you can browse through based on your areas of interest. We’ll also “tag” these postings so that you’ll be able to zero in on activities that line up with certain personal preferences you may have: For instance, can the project be done close to home, is it indoors or outdoors, does it involve travel, is it free or do you have to pay to take part, will you need any special equipment, and will you be working with a professional scientist?

Project X: Coming Soon

We’ll let you in on a secret: This new wing of the Cheerleader blog is really just a little preview of a much larger Web site that’s in the works. That upcoming site, Science For Citizens, will be a one-stop shop where people can learn about, get hooked by, and take part in scientific research and related activities. Rather than re-invent a big wheel that already exists out there, Science For Citizens will aggregate, classify, point to, and help you choose among all that great citizen science material–activity-based Web sites, citizen science blogs, opportunities tied to government and academic projects, and all the rest.

At Science For Citizens, the Project Finder will be a powerful, comprehensive, database-driven matching tool. Think of it as a cross between Craigslist and Match.com for people who want to do science. We think it will be pretty cool.

We’ll have a lot more to say in the coming months about the mission and plans for our larger site. Meanwhile, we invite you to get involved in doing science here using the blog-based version of our Project Finder. Please tell us what you think of this new effort, let us know about your own citizen science pursuits, and help us add to our listings by suggesting a project.

Who’s We?

Lastly, you may be wondering who this “we” is. I’m happy to introduce to you Michael Gold, who has been helping the Science Cheerleader behind the scenes since its debut. Michael will be joining me in writing the citizen science project postings and building out the Project Finder. He is also my partner in dreaming up and launching the big shiny new Science For Citizens site.

Michael has always been in touch with his inner researcher, first as a telescoping-toting teenager, then as an aspiring astronaut, and then as a science journalist at various newspapers and national magazines. Since 1994, he has run a consulting firm (West Gold Editorial) that helps publishers invent, launch, and improve Web sites and magazines. He’s really the perfect co-conspirator.

So let’s all get into our lab coats (break out our butterfly nets, fire up the multi-testers, grab our pick axes…) and have some fun.

Clear skies are beckoning you! Through Monday, November 3rd, the Great World Wide Star Count invites you to join in this international event that “encourages everyone to go outside, look skywards after dark, count the stars they see in certain constellations and report what they see online.”

These folks make is super easy to  determine which constellation you will observe, what to look for and how to record your observations.  Let me know if you decide to give it a shot!

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

> Topics: Space, Astronomy
> Location: Near home, outside.
> Duration: About 10 minutes to review website, determine constellations and download activity guide; another 10 minutes to gaze and 10 minutes to enter data.
> Cost: $0.
> Gear: Nothing but the naked eye!
> Level of difficulty: Pretty simple.

I’m back from Minneapolis where I had the pleasure of being a presenter at Innovation 2008, the brainchild of Science Debate 2008 and the University of Minnesota.

Here’s a post I wrote for Discover Magazine.com

Or, click the links below and watch the webcast at your leisure.  As Science Debate CEO Shawn Otto put it “Whether you’re faculty, student, researcher, blogger, or concerned citizen there’s something you’re going to value in these remarkable and educational sessions.  Get Smart!”

SESSIONS (90 min each)
1. Innovation – Some of America’s leading science policy experts discuss the current challenges and opportunities
2. Education – Evolution versus creationism is just one snippet of the politics of renewing STEM in America
3. Health – A deeply spirited and stimulating discussion of public health, pandemics, and science policy
4. News & Culture – A sizzling hot look at the problems we uncovered in American science policy reporting  (this is where you will find my presentation)
5. Energy – What’s missing from the current energy debate?  A look at sustainability issues.
6. Peter Agre on the human side of science – A Nobel laureate’s inspirational talk on crisis and innovation
7. Ira Flatow on science in America today – An outstanding discussion – coming soon!

Cheers!

I met many fascinating people in Minneapolis at Innovation 2008.  One of them is Lynn Fellman, an artist who creates personalized portraits–and I do mean personalized. Her portraits are based on DNA sequences and mutation markers.

I’m ordering one–choosing to ignore that nagging inner voice cautioning me against this. “Do you REALLY want your DNA information to end up in the hands of scientists, insurance agents, future employers or worse–marketers!?”  Lynn assures me my DNA will be kept top secret and remain nameless.

Hey, a couple of weeks ago, ten super smart people volunteered to donate their DNA to science. More from Scientific American: (more…)

Red enhances men’s attraction to women. Two University of Rochester psychologists just published their proof that men are attracted to women in red.

Sent in by Science Cheerleader subscriber Brian Krueger, a graduate student at the University of Iowa, and creator of LabSpaces.net.

“…women shown wearing red were rated significantly more attractive and sexually desirable by men than the exact same women shown with other colors. When wearing red, the woman was also more likely to score an invitation to the prom and to be treated to a more expensive outing. ”

Research has shown that nonhuman male primates are particularly attracted to females displaying red. Female baboons and chimpanzees, for example, redden conspicuously when nearing ovulation, sending a clear sexual signal designed to attract males. 

As much as men might like to think that they respond to women in a thoughtful, sophisticated manner, it appears that at least to some degree, their preferences and predilections are, in a word, primitive.” 

Really?!  :)

Aw, I’m blushing. See Penn and Teller and watch as the Science Cheerleader wins her court case against the Status Quo to bring science to the PEOPLE!

Sent to us from Jacquie:

“Hey Science Cheerleader–better wear your lead apron when you scotch-tape your press clippings from Innovations2008 to the wall: Scotch tape and X rays!”

NEW YORK (AP): It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.

Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study co-author says.

“We were very surprised,” said Juan Escobar. “The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous.”

Escobar, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports the work with UCLA colleagues in Thursday’s issue of the journal  Nature.

DIY: Peel Scotch tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber at about 1.2 inches per second. Rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, will emerge from very close to where the tape comes off the roll.

That’s where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, a journey of about two-thousandths of an inch, Escobar said. When those electrons struck the sticky side they slowed down, and that slowing made them emit X-rays.

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