Mathematical Brooding over an Egg

André Heck is a project manager at the Faculty of Science of the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and he recently contributed this thoughtful article to the "Loci" project at the Mathematical Sciences Digital Library. In this piece, Heck explores the topic of mathematical modeling by asking, "What is the volume and surface area of a hen's egg?". The article goes on to discuss how mathematical techniques, digital images, and dynamic geometry can be applied to a variety of real-world solutions, like determining the volume and surface area of a hen's egg. In addition, throughout the piece Heck talks about how various software programs can be applied as a modeling tool.

http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/23/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=2842
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Science at a Distance: E-Learning Modules

Professor John Blamire has crafted this very fine set of online learning modules for students interested in learning about everything from the properties of proteins to Mendelian genetics. First-time visitors should take a look at the video introduction created by Professor Blamire. This introduction tells visitors about the layout of the site and the resources they will find here. Each of the twelve instructional resources on the site contains a brief overview of the topic, and then a "Research Investigation" assignment. Students can complete these investigations using the materials within each lesson, and they can also take a look at some additional readings which explain key concepts. The site also contains a "Words of Science" section, which provides concise definitions of basic terms, such as entropy and glucose.

http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/bc/ahp/Modules/Modules_HP.html
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

SciTopics

SciTopics is a free online expert-generated knowledge sharing service for the research community to quickly offer scientific, technical and medical knowledge on a variety of subjects. It provides distilled, authoritative and up-to-date, information for researchers.

http://www.scitopics.com/

Pictures of Science: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration

Brought together originally in 1999 for an exhibition held at the New York Public Library's Gottesman Exhibition Hall, this set of intriguing images covers the fields of astronomy, chemistry, geology, medicine, and physics taken from different engravings, lithographs, and manuscript illuminations. The images here range from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and they are culled from works such as the 1798 volume "Elemens de la philosophie de Neuton" and the important 1830 volume "Principles of Geology" written by geologist Sir Charles Lyell. All told, visitors can browse through ten crucial texts in their entirety, and they are all wonderful meditations on the skills and talents of unique scientists (and artists) throughout the ages. Finally, visitors looking for specific materials can also search through the entire collection, or even click on the "See all Images" button.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/?collection=SeeingIsBelieving700&col_id=197

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Biology: Online Labs

Like many other academic publishers, McGraw Hill often creates supplementary online materials to be used in conjunction with their various publications. This particular collection of online materials is meant to be used with one of their recent biology textbooks, but they can certainly be used as stand-alone educational resources for persons interested in the biological sciences. This particular site contains 31 virtual labs that cover topics like evolution,  regulatory genes, iron stress in diatoms, and gene technology. These labs are recreations of actual scientific  experiments, and visitors are given background information on a topic, an explanation of the researcher's observation, and an overview of how they set up their experiment. The goal of these labs is to help make students  and others more comfortable working with primary sources. Finally, the site also includes interviews with principal investigators from the University of Michigan, the University of Albert, and Auburn University.

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072437316/student_view0/online_labs.html
From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Climate change, water and food security

One of a series of technical background documents for the FAO High Level Conference on Food Security in 2008, this report provides an assessment of a report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. It includes information on climate change and water management; climate change impacts and mitigation measures in relation to food security. Possible national, regional and international technical and policy responses are given, as are the main findings and recommendations. Graphs, tables and diagrams are included as well as a list of references
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/meeting/013/ai783e.pdf
Copyright © 2006- 2009

Parasitology image library

This educational website provides images of parasitic protozoa and helminths (worms), the latter including nematodes (round worms), cestodes (tape worms), and termatodes (flukes). The images are arranged by species, and are either light microscope images (protozoa) or images of the whole organism, eggs or light microscope sections of the organism (helminths). The site has been produced by Dr Ian E. Crandall of the Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
http://microbiology.mtsinai.on.ca/pig/index.shtml
Copyright © 2006- 2009