The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the British Library, along with eight other participating countries, have opened an online global gateway to science information from 15 national portals. The gateway, WorldWideScience.org, gives citizens, researchers and anyone interested in science the capability to search science portals not easily accessible through popular search technology such as that deployed by Google, Yahoo! and many other commercial search engines.
Results cover a wide range of resources and currently there is no linking to Drexel holdings. However, for picking up that rare item that just could fit the bill, this resource is worth keeping in mind.
From the NY Times
by George Johnson
In the summer of 1889, when this was still an analog world, a young astronomer named Solon I. Bailey carefully packed two crates of glass photographic plates taken at his outpost in the Peruvian Andes for shipment to Harvard College Observatory. Carried down the mountain on muleback and across a suspension bridge to the village of Chosica, the fragile load was put on a train bound for Lima and the long voyage to Boston Harbor.
For nearly 18 months the data stream continued — more than 2,500 plates from what Mr. Bailey had quaintly named Mount Harvard — followed in the coming years by tens of thousands more from a second Peruvian station in Arequipa. Over the decades more streams came from Chile, South Africa and New Zealand, joining the growing piles produced by telescopes in Massachusetts.
The accumulated result weighs heavily on its keepers on Observatory Hill, just up Garden Street from Harvard Square: more than half a million images constituting humanity’s only record of a century’s worth of sky.
Read more about the exciting plans for digitizing this amazing collection…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/science/10astro.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Last week’s issue of Science devoted much of it’s content to The World of Undergraduate Education
A sampling of some of the articles:
Keeping Score
This map offers basic information on five important components of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in the countries profiled in this special issue.
AUSTRALIA:
‘A Crisis in Student Quantity and Quality’
John Bohannon
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA–Kath Handasyde enlists native species, assertive Americans, and anything else on hand to rekindle a passion for science among undergrads.
UNITED STATES:
‘This Is the Front Line … Where I Can Really Make a Difference’
Elizabeth Culotta
AKRON, OHIO–Lisa Park and her colleagues take on creationism and other antiscientific attitudes in the classroom–and in the voting booth.
UNITED KINGDOM:
‘Much of What We Were Doing Didn’t Work’
Daniel Clery
LEICESTER, U.K.–Derek Raine sees integrated sciences as a potential savior for disciplines facing declining student interest and a dwindling number of departments.
FRANCE:
Opening Up to the Rest of the World
Martin Enserink
BORDEAUX, FRANCE–Antoine de Daruvar injects the real world into his bioinformatics classroom in an attempt to reinvigorate higher education.
BRAZIL:
‘I Do Not Make a Distinction Between Teaching and Research’
Marcelo Leite
RECIFE, BRAZIL–Antônio Carlos Pavão combines the ideal with the practical to bring science to the masses and create the next generation of scientists.
and more can be found at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol317/issue5834/news-summaries.dtl
The Einstein Theory of Relativity is a silent film released in 1923 by Fleischer Studios. In August 1922 Scientific American published an article explaining their position that a silent film would be unsuccessful in presenting relativity to the general public.
The Fleischers released their relativity film, produced in collaboration with Garrett Serviss to accompany his book on the same topic. Two versions of the Fleischer film are reported to exist – a shorter two-reel (20 minute) edit intended for general theater audiences, and a longer five-reel version intended for educational use.
To view and download the 20 minute version, go to:
http://www.vintagetooncast.com/2006/11/einstein-theory-of-relativity.html
It really is kind of neat!
