TED + PBS = TED Talks Education Tune in tomorrow night, May 7, to your local PBS station (full disclosure, they make my YouTube show but I would be posting this anyway) to see their educational collaboration with TED. They are bringing some revolutionary educators to the stage to talk about how we can change the future of learning for the better. Duhhhhhh the answer = Tumblr Great minds coming together to do great things for education! More info here.
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TED + PBS = TED Talks Education

Tune in tomorrow night, May 7, to your local PBS station (full disclosure, they make my YouTube show but I would be posting this anyway) to see their educational collaboration with TED. They are bringing some revolutionary educators to the stage to talk about how we can change the future of learning for the better.

Duhhhhhh the answer = Tumblr

Great minds coming together to do great things for education! More info here.

What happens to mercury when it is exposed to various sound frequencies? This does.

Nick Moore placed a blob of quicksilver in the path of various sound waves between 10 and 120 Hz and then pressed record. What you’re seeing here, in slow motion, are three-dimensional standing waves forming in the mercury. The higher the frequency, the more “nodes” that form.

Visit Mental Floss to see the equally awesome full-speed version.

Source: mentalfloss.com

Episode Extra: A Flower’s Electric Field In the “Electric Buzzaloo” episode I did on YouTube, I showed you not only how bees find flowers using UV vision, but also mentioned that they can sense a flower’s electric field. What does that look like? This image captures the slightly negative electric charge that most flowers carry since they’re literally grounded. After being visited by one bee, it sheds some of that negative buzz to the positively-charged pollinator. If another bee comes along, it won’t be attracted to the less charged (and less nectar-filled) flower. This maximizes a bee’s chances of visiting fresh flowers and not wasting their time at an empty well. Read more at Nature News. Bee sure to check out the full episode on YouTube.
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Episode Extra: A Flower’s Electric Field

In the “Electric Buzzaloo” episode I did on YouTube, I showed you not only how bees find flowers using UV vision, but also mentioned that they can sense a flower’s electric field. What does that look like?

This image captures the slightly negative electric charge that most flowers carry since they’re literally grounded. After being visited by one bee, it sheds some of that negative buzz to the positively-charged pollinator. If another bee comes along, it won’t be attracted to the less charged (and less nectar-filled) flower.

This maximizes a bee’s chances of visiting fresh flowers and not wasting their time at an empty well. Read more at Nature News.

Bee sure to check out the full episode on YouTube.

PBS Meets The Avengers - Here to save you from crappy TV

Bob Ross, Bill Nye, Mr. Rogers, and Carl Sagan are united to pilot the spaceship of the mind away from the mind-numbing reality of today’s reality programming.

“Some people just want to watch the world learn.”

I really can’t tell you how happy I am to get to work for PBS. Like, I’m giddy watching this. These are my dudes. I feel like a Junior Avenger. We … ARE … PBS!!!

How did feathers evolve?

Carl Zimmer, an elegant peacock among science writers, delivers this lesson on where bird feathers came from. The shared anatomy between dinosaurs and birds extends beyond the wishbone to their equally functional and extravagant plumage. Recent fossil finds give us hints about the colors and forms that adorned some prehistoric reptiles, from frilly crests to fuzzy proto-wings.

Dinosaurs didn’t take to the air for tens of millions of years after the first feathers showed up, and we don’t yet know exactly how that happened. But we know that the evolution of these delicate, beautiful and functional forms carried some dinosaurs aloft to a higher branch on the tree of life, and from that branch lept the first bird.

(view the full lesson at TED-Ed)

Source: ed.ted.com

Turn Your Smartphone Into A Microscope

This morning I played around with a pretty cool trick. You can turn your smartphone camera into a “microscope” of sorts using a tiny water droplet! I used my fingertip to place a droplet of water over the outer glass of my iPhone lens, juuuuust small enough to cover the glass and be held on by surface tension. Then just hold something up really close to the lens! It works in video or still mode, and I found that having the light on can help.

I chose to investigate a very small and very well preserved Tyrannosaur that I dug up.

I don’t think I need to tell you to BE CAREFUL and don’t hold me responsible if you get water in your phone. Just a dab’ll do ya. Also, best not to mention this to anyone at Ye Olde Smartphone Shoppe, or wherever you buy your gear.

Show me what you zoom in on!!

Like A Bee Sees By now you’ve probably all watched the latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video  about the amaaaaazing ways that bees are able to sense flowers. (actually I know a few of you haven’t so go do that, mmkay? Thanks!) Beyond the electric field sensing part (which is cool in its own right), it’s the fact that bees see into the “invisible” that just blows my mind. Bees (and butterflies too, actually) have photoreceptors that respond to wavelengths down in the UV range (see chart above). They use that vision to zoom right in on the important part of the flower: the sweet, sugary nectar pot. Spoiler alert: As much as we love flowers, they don’t really give a crap about us. But they do love bees. In return for giving the bees the sugary yum-yums, flowers get pollinated. And in the name of the evolutionary game, that’s the most important thing. To help get the gene-passing-on done, flowers have evolved certain pigments near the center of the flower that absorb UV light. That paints a big, fat bulls-eye for the bee to land on, right where the flower needs them (next to all the flower-sex bits). To us, the whole flower may look yellow or orange. To a bee. BIG “land here” spot in the middle.  THAT IS AMAZING!!! Nature, you are just too cool. Thanks to camera technology, we can take UV filtered photos of flowers and see those patterns pop out. It’s a pretty advanced technique, but some of my favorites are above. Check out those photographers’ galleries at the links below: UV floral photography by Klaus Schmitt and Bjørn Rørslett.  Click to subscribe to IOTBS on YouTube.
Zoom Info
Like A Bee Sees By now you’ve probably all watched the latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video  about the amaaaaazing ways that bees are able to sense flowers. (actually I know a few of you haven’t so go do that, mmkay? Thanks!) Beyond the electric field sensing part (which is cool in its own right), it’s the fact that bees see into the “invisible” that just blows my mind. Bees (and butterflies too, actually) have photoreceptors that respond to wavelengths down in the UV range (see chart above). They use that vision to zoom right in on the important part of the flower: the sweet, sugary nectar pot. Spoiler alert: As much as we love flowers, they don’t really give a crap about us. But they do love bees. In return for giving the bees the sugary yum-yums, flowers get pollinated. And in the name of the evolutionary game, that’s the most important thing. To help get the gene-passing-on done, flowers have evolved certain pigments near the center of the flower that absorb UV light. That paints a big, fat bulls-eye for the bee to land on, right where the flower needs them (next to all the flower-sex bits). To us, the whole flower may look yellow or orange. To a bee. BIG “land here” spot in the middle.  THAT IS AMAZING!!! Nature, you are just too cool. Thanks to camera technology, we can take UV filtered photos of flowers and see those patterns pop out. It’s a pretty advanced technique, but some of my favorites are above. Check out those photographers’ galleries at the links below: UV floral photography by Klaus Schmitt and Bjørn Rørslett.  Click to subscribe to IOTBS on YouTube.
Zoom Info
Like A Bee Sees By now you’ve probably all watched the latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video  about the amaaaaazing ways that bees are able to sense flowers. (actually I know a few of you haven’t so go do that, mmkay? Thanks!) Beyond the electric field sensing part (which is cool in its own right), it’s the fact that bees see into the “invisible” that just blows my mind. Bees (and butterflies too, actually) have photoreceptors that respond to wavelengths down in the UV range (see chart above). They use that vision to zoom right in on the important part of the flower: the sweet, sugary nectar pot. Spoiler alert: As much as we love flowers, they don’t really give a crap about us. But they do love bees. In return for giving the bees the sugary yum-yums, flowers get pollinated. And in the name of the evolutionary game, that’s the most important thing. To help get the gene-passing-on done, flowers have evolved certain pigments near the center of the flower that absorb UV light. That paints a big, fat bulls-eye for the bee to land on, right where the flower needs them (next to all the flower-sex bits). To us, the whole flower may look yellow or orange. To a bee. BIG “land here” spot in the middle.  THAT IS AMAZING!!! Nature, you are just too cool. Thanks to camera technology, we can take UV filtered photos of flowers and see those patterns pop out. It’s a pretty advanced technique, but some of my favorites are above. Check out those photographers’ galleries at the links below: UV floral photography by Klaus Schmitt and Bjørn Rørslett.  Click to subscribe to IOTBS on YouTube.
Zoom Info
Like A Bee Sees By now you’ve probably all watched the latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video  about the amaaaaazing ways that bees are able to sense flowers. (actually I know a few of you haven’t so go do that, mmkay? Thanks!) Beyond the electric field sensing part (which is cool in its own right), it’s the fact that bees see into the “invisible” that just blows my mind. Bees (and butterflies too, actually) have photoreceptors that respond to wavelengths down in the UV range (see chart above). They use that vision to zoom right in on the important part of the flower: the sweet, sugary nectar pot. Spoiler alert: As much as we love flowers, they don’t really give a crap about us. But they do love bees. In return for giving the bees the sugary yum-yums, flowers get pollinated. And in the name of the evolutionary game, that’s the most important thing. To help get the gene-passing-on done, flowers have evolved certain pigments near the center of the flower that absorb UV light. That paints a big, fat bulls-eye for the bee to land on, right where the flower needs them (next to all the flower-sex bits). To us, the whole flower may look yellow or orange. To a bee. BIG “land here” spot in the middle.  THAT IS AMAZING!!! Nature, you are just too cool. Thanks to camera technology, we can take UV filtered photos of flowers and see those patterns pop out. It’s a pretty advanced technique, but some of my favorites are above. Check out those photographers’ galleries at the links below: UV floral photography by Klaus Schmitt and Bjørn Rørslett.  Click to subscribe to IOTBS on YouTube.
Zoom Info
Like A Bee Sees By now you’ve probably all watched the latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video  about the amaaaaazing ways that bees are able to sense flowers. (actually I know a few of you haven’t so go do that, mmkay? Thanks!) Beyond the electric field sensing part (which is cool in its own right), it’s the fact that bees see into the “invisible” that just blows my mind. Bees (and butterflies too, actually) have photoreceptors that respond to wavelengths down in the UV range (see chart above). They use that vision to zoom right in on the important part of the flower: the sweet, sugary nectar pot. Spoiler alert: As much as we love flowers, they don’t really give a crap about us. But they do love bees. In return for giving the bees the sugary yum-yums, flowers get pollinated. And in the name of the evolutionary game, that’s the most important thing. To help get the gene-passing-on done, flowers have evolved certain pigments near the center of the flower that absorb UV light. That paints a big, fat bulls-eye for the bee to land on, right where the flower needs them (next to all the flower-sex bits). To us, the whole flower may look yellow or orange. To a bee. BIG “land here” spot in the middle.  THAT IS AMAZING!!! Nature, you are just too cool. Thanks to camera technology, we can take UV filtered photos of flowers and see those patterns pop out. It’s a pretty advanced technique, but some of my favorites are above. Check out those photographers’ galleries at the links below: UV floral photography by Klaus Schmitt and Bjørn Rørslett.  Click to subscribe to IOTBS on YouTube.
Zoom Info

Like A Bee Sees

By now you’ve probably all watched the latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video  about the amaaaaazing ways that bees are able to sense flowers. (actually I know a few of you haven’t so go do that, mmkay? Thanks!)

Beyond the electric field sensing part (which is cool in its own right), it’s the fact that bees see into the “invisible” that just blows my mind. Bees (and butterflies too, actually) have photoreceptors that respond to wavelengths down in the UV range (see chart above). They use that vision to zoom right in on the important part of the flower: the sweet, sugary nectar pot.

Spoiler alert: As much as we love flowers, they don’t really give a crap about us. But they do love bees. In return for giving the bees the sugary yum-yums, flowers get pollinated. And in the name of the evolutionary game, that’s the most important thing. To help get the gene-passing-on done, flowers have evolved certain pigments near the center of the flower that absorb UV light. That paints a big, fat bulls-eye for the bee to land on, right where the flower needs them (next to all the flower-sex bits). To us, the whole flower may look yellow or orange. To a bee. BIG “land here” spot in the middle. 

THAT IS AMAZING!!! Nature, you are just too cool.

Thanks to camera technology, we can take UV filtered photos of flowers and see those patterns pop out. It’s a pretty advanced technique, but some of my favorites are above. Check out those photographers’ galleries at the links below:

UV floral photography by Klaus Schmitt and Bjørn Rørslett.  Click to subscribe to IOTBS on YouTube.

via skeptv:

Bite Sci-zed - My Scientific Journey

A ramble about how I got to here. Love, prayers, and good vibes, Boston.

via Alex Dainis.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BiteSciZed
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexDainis

For anyone struggling with where and how they fit in to science, whether it’s learning it or performing it, Alex’s story is one to watch. I just love how just a single teacher, or one special learning experience can turn it all around for someone. I think we’re on to something here.

Maybe I should do a video like this.