Category: Science

  • Buy CFLs for Earth Day

    In our recent interview with Bill Nye, he reminded us that “the hardest thing for everyone to understand about the environment is that every single thing you do affects everybody in the whole world.” Inspired by his words, I decided to replace some lightbulbs in my house with CFLs (compact flourescent lightbulbs). While I have…

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  • Darwin Day Celebration

    Saturday, February 9th @ 7:00 PM Lawrence University; Appleton, WI Science Hall, Room 102 Please join us for this special Darwin Day event on Saturday, February 9th at Lawrence University. This event is designed to celebrate Darwin’s birthday and contributions to science. All students, educators and scientists are welcome. Food and door prizes will be…

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  • Rate of Reaction Videos

    Inspired by Dale Basler’s stop-motion video project in physics, I recently had my freshman biophys students make videos that examine the factors affecting the rate of a chemical reaction. We used a lab from an Addison-Wesley Chemistry lab manual entitled “Factors Affecting Reaction Rates”. This lab was ideal, as the instructions are already neatly divided…

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  • Margarine for Learning

    Today is the Friday of Homecoming week, and you can feel the energy pulsing through the students and staff in the building. During the week we have plenty of spirit building activities, such as dress-up days, music in the halls, voting for homecoming court, penny wars between the student classes, and a float-building party with…

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  • Wikipedia vs. Nature?

    In December (2005), the journal Nature conducted a scientific study of the accuracy of scientific entries in Wikipedia (on online, free & editable encyclopedia) vs. Encyclopedia Brittanica. You can view the original results here. Yesterday, Encyclopedia Brittanica struck back, with this lengthy press release. Ultimately, they requested Nature to retract their article. A summary of…

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  • How Shatner Changed the World

    Tonight, I accidentally stumbled upon a show on The History Channel entitled “How William Shatner Changed the World”. As a Star Trek fan (but not a full-fledged Trekkie), my interest was immediately grabbed. Based on his book “I’m Working on That”, Shatner hosts and narrates a show that postulates how Star Trek has influenced the…

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