mama’s sewing circus » science

things that fall through the night while you sleep

Admin — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:47:19 +0000

A few years ago I blogged about the NASA Asteroid Watch mailing list. Those bright guys at NASA would email you when an Asteroid or space debris came within sight of the Earth. Yeah, this ranks up there with the antigravity pen in terms of ideas to come out of NASA that weren’t so brilliant. (I’d prefer sirens.)

Anyway, now there’s an app for that.

But if you’d rather hear the news via email, at least this newsletter seems more complete.

great science site

Admin — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:15:12 +0000

For the science geeks out there:
http://sciencetoymaker.org/

We’re in the market for good child sized safety glasses after child A almost blinded child B when child A, distracted from the bottle rocket construction momentarily, tried to find out what happens when you apply forced air to sibling’s eye-socket.

For the scientists in the room wondering just that – a lot of Homer Simpson style yelling, much crying by child B, a little squirt of blood Horney Toad style, frantic googling and consulting of emergency personnel, cold compress, dilation confirmation, vision confirmation (thank god for early readers!), and a little Tylenol for all parties involved.

save a life, spot a drowning

Admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:30:22 +0000

My public service for the day – tips for spotting a drowning. May you never need to know this, but just in case you do.

if you escape the ice floe, the hot lava is certain death

Admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:59:54 +0000

If only to be a fly on the wall when these things get introduced on the preschool playground. If the dangers my children are avoiding in their play are any indication, the preschool playground is a heady science convention. Gone are the days of cowboys and indians. My children, instead, spend hours working together to navigate the treacherous ice floes, avoiding the hot lava running out from underneath their beds, and escaping that hungry black hole. The latest to cameo in their play is the evil tsunami.

Is it the movies they are watching? Or is this simply a side-effect of living where the average elementary school classroom looks like a Benetton commercial and the dinner table discussions are likely to involve topics of research at the local university?

It certainly has nothing to do with my weakness for geek music:

life’s questions without easy answers

Admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:21:40 +0000

Will and I have deep conversations. Yesterday he asked me what would happen if a meteoroid ran into the sun. “It would burn up in its approach because the sun is super hot.” Okay, what would happen if a meteoroid as big as the sun hit the sun? Huh. So this is where the questions on my college physics tests came from…

So we’re going to test this. We’ve got ice and rocks and fire.

shh, all my secrets are belong to you

Admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:05:47 +0000

dogs explaining atoms

Admin — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:14:54 +0000

Everyone is back to full health over here. It is movie time! Goldens explaining atoms.

some chemical reactions

Admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:15:44 +0000

explained by the Europe Research Committee using a dance party analogy.

hee-hee-ha-ha! presidential election affected testosterone

Admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:45:05 +0000

Chalk this up in the list of topics I can’t believe people spent time researching, but this is amusing – apparently, males who voted for John McCain showed a drop in their testosterone levels after the election. Read all about it.

let’s get small

Admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:46:43 +0000

If you don’t already feel insignificant, you certainly will after watching this footage modeled from pictures taken by the Hubble. Will asked, “Are those planets?” “No, those are galaxies that contain billions of planets.” “Awesome.”