Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Education and inspiration via underwater robot

A great book and the primary resource we use for our rov kit student projects!

http://www.gizmag.com/book-teaches-kids-to-build-rovs/17371/


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Friday, December 24, 2010

German university has awesome slides of maximum efficiency

How awesomely green and fun!
starMAKE Magazine
December 23, 2010 4:00 PM
by Matt Mets

German university has awesome slides of maximum efficiency

parabolic_slide.jpg

These giant parabolic slides, or Parabelrutsche are located in the Mathematik/Informatik building of the Technical University of Munich, Garching campus. The preferred method for riding them appears to be on boring carpet squares, however a quick search shows that more daring methods have also been tried. [thanks, Grace!]

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Digg this!


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Earth Observer

This mobile app is great!!! Get it now before they starry charging for it.
Thanks Kurt and Monica for the headsup on this.

http://www.earth-observer.org/


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study

starSlashdot
December 22, 2010 8:09 PM
by samzenpus

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study

flintmecha writes "A group of British schoolchildren may be the youngest scientists ever to have their work published in a peer-reviewed journal. In a new paper in Biology Letters, children from Blackawton Primary School report that buff-tailed bumblebees can learn to recognize nourishing flowers based on colors and patterns. The paper itself is well worth reading. It's written entirely in the kids' voices, complete with sound effects (part of the Methods section is subtitled, ''the puzzle'duh duh duuuhhh') and figures drawn by hand in colored pencil."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



science


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

One-Fourth of DNA Born by 2.8 Billion Years Ago | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/dna-life-fossils/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Acidifying Oceans Could Upset Life’s Nitrogen Cycles | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/ocean-nitrification/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Huge iPhone display made using 56 iPads

Dear Santa...

starMAKE Magazine
December 21, 2010 7:00 AM
by Adam Flaherty

Huge iPhone display made using 56 iPads

ipad-iphone.jpg

For around $30k you, too, could have your very own iPhone display built using 56 iPads. Though comprised of interactive displays, I'd be surprised if the display itself was interactive. Now I'm just curious how many of these it would take to build a ginormous iPod Nano display. [via CrunchGear]

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in iPhone | Digg this!
iPhone


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Monday, December 13, 2010

How to correct your poster on the fly with an iPad

Step 1: create poster
Step 2: discover you have new results to show AFTER poster is printed.
Step 3: hang iPad on poster to show new results

Ok so maybe hanging iPad is a bad idea but you can show it to people on the fly.

Kelly Lake Poster @ AGU

Pavilion Lake poster @ AGU meeting

Here is Jonathan in front of his poster in the novel applications of multibeam session.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Iron-Eating Bug Is Gobbling Up the Titanic

First the toredo snails now this...

starSlashdot
December 10, 2010 8:50 AM
by kdawson

Iron-Eating Bug Is Gobbling Up the Titanic

gambit3 writes "A newly discovered microbe dubbed Halomonas titanicae is chewing its way through the wreck of the Titanic and leaving little behind except a fine dust, researchers report in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 'In 1995, I was predicting that Titanic had another 30 years,' said Henrietta Mann, a civil engineering adjunct professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. 'It's deteriorating much faster than that now.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



bug


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

A Lost Civilization Beneath the Persian Gulf?

Anothr Noah's flood case?!?!?

starSlashdot
December 10, 2010 5:42 PM
by kdawson

A Lost Civilization Beneath the Persian Gulf?

Phoghat sends news of a new theory that a once-fertile landmass beneath the Persian Gulf may have supported some of the earliest humans outside of Africa. "Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago... These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



science


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Friday, December 10, 2010

Entire James Burke Connections series streaming free

One of my all time favorite science series...I even own the books that accompany it.  Best glasses of any science host- period.

starMAKE Magazine
December 10, 2010 7:30 PM
by Sean Michael Ragan

Entire James Burke Connections series streaming free

If I were going to be a super hero, it would be hard to choose between Carl Sagan Man and James Burke Man. I love this show, and now I can watch it to my heart's content, for free. All three Connections series are available, as well as The Day The Universe Changed. [via adafruit]

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Education | Digg this!
Education


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Sunday, December 5, 2010

sea mammals as autonomous oceanography instruments...again.

Again, using tagged sea mammals as Autonomous underwater explorers in polar regions. Very cool.
I vote we convert the lab into a tank for one of these guys.


~Ashley

NASA Unveils Arsenic Life Form | Wired Science | Wired.com

http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nasa-finds-arsenic-life-form/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Science Funding for the Little Guys | Magazine

http://m.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/st_sciencekickstart/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Graduate Students Being Warned Away From Leaked Cables

starSlashdot
December 3, 2010 7:01 PM
by timothy

Graduate Students Being Warned Away From Leaked Cables

IamTheRealMike writes "The US State Department has started to warn potential recruits from universities not to read leaked cables, lest it jeopardize their chances of getting a job. They're also showing warnings to troops who access news websites and the Library of Congress and Department of Education have blocked WikiLeaks on their own networks. Quite what happens when these employees go home is an open question." Update: 12/04 17:48 GMT by T : The friendly warning to students specifically cautioned them not to comment online or otherwise indicate that they'd read any of the leaked information; reading them quietly wasn't specifically named as a deal-breaker.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



censorship


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Top 10: Robots doing stuff that scares the &$#! out of me

starMAKE Magazine
December 2, 2010 10:30 PM
by Sean Michael Ragan

Top 10: Robots doing stuff that scares the &$#! out of me

In truth, I regard the "robot uprising" meme with about the same level of seriousness as the "zombie apocalypse" meme. I suppose robots becoming sentient, independent, organized, and uncontrollably violent is at least plausible, but on the scale of plausible apocalypses, "robot revolution" is nowhere near the top of the list. More likely, in 100 years, robots will be tending to us like primates in a zoo.

So, in the spirit of fun, here's a collection of videos showing the mad, mad foolishness that roboticists have been up to equipping our future overlords with their tools of power. Or, in a more realistic vein: Look at all the amazing stuff robots can do these days!

#10

Child-stealing swarm-bots

#9

Tentacle-bot

#8

High speed flexpicker sorting-bot

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!
Robotics


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Friday, December 3, 2010

Sorted bedforms on the inner shelf off northeastern New Zealand

The paper examining the shallow near-surface sedimentologic nature of sorted bedforms from our field study off the Coromandel Peninsula is now available online at Springerlink.

http://www.springerlink.com.proxy.nss.udel.edu/content/7p037661q4115g12/

Thursday, December 2, 2010

NASA announcement: Arsenic-based life form discovered on Earth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR2010120204183.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

Take your own aerial photos with the Swinglet CAM

From Google Earth
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/kx9dpZq_wyA/take_your_own_aerial_photos_with_th.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

NOAA, Spain Announce Cooperative Arrangement to Preserve Maritime Underwater Heritage

starNOAA News Releases
December 1, 2010 12:38 PM

NOAA, Spain Announce Cooperative Arrangement to Preserve Maritime Underwater Heritage

NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and Spain's Ministry of Culture announced today the signing of a memorandum of understanding outlining a framework to jointly identify, protect, manage and preserve underwater cultural resources of mutual interest within their respective areas of responsibility.
spain, noaa, conservation


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A new communication tool for autonomous underwater vehicles : University of Delaware

http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/dec/communications-underwater-120110.html


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu

NASA Funds Nationwide High School Student Robotics Program with $20m

starMAKE Magazine
December 1, 2010 11:00 PM
by Phillip Torrone

NASA Funds Nationwide High School Student Robotics Program with $20m

Pt 10624

While this news will not hit the radars of folks tuned to Groupon acquisitions and Facebook IPOs - I think this is a really good investment...

NASA is providing up to $20 million over the next five years to support a national program to inspire student interest in science, technology and mathematics with a focus on robotic technology.

The funding is part of a cooperative agreement with the Foundation For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a nonprofit organization in Manchester, N.H. FIRST provides students the opportunity to engage with government, industry and university experts for hands-on, realistic exposure to engineering and technical professions.

"This is the largest NASA-funded student program geared toward robotics activities," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "For the next five years, approximately 25,000 students across the country will not only learn from our nation's best and brightest, but also compete and have fun at the same time."



My only suggestion is that I'd like to see FIRST adopt open source hardware and public / private wikis - there's a lot of information sharing that could be happening (more) across the country and that too could be share with a larger group outside the world of FIRST. There are some efforts to make this happen that I've seen, so perhaps with this funding we'll see more of it soon!


Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!
Robotics


Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware