SD Science Junction

Dreams, real and virtual reality and Charlie Rose "Brain" series

I seldom think much about my boring dreams and seldom remember any until morning coffee.  But this morning was a bit different.   I remembered in a dream  trying to use Krazy Glue to repair broken software.  Something needed to be literally glued into place in the program.

That struck me this morning as being a wonderful confusion of real and virtual reality but which may have also have had something to do with my wife requesting me to glue a ceramic handle onto a brass center of a faucet on a bathroom vanity.

More seriously, over the past year, Charlie Rose has been running programs about once a month on the wonders of the human brain and the also wonderful research that brain allows scientists to do.

I have seen most of the programs, but my ability to remember information from TV shows seems to be nearly fatally flawed compared to what I can read on the pages of a book.  I think the series warrants a book, and it also warrants a collection for sale for $5 or so to all schools and colleges. Unfortunately, Charlie Rose and most of the public TV programs think they must get $24.95 or some such absurd price for something that costs about 15 cents to manufacture.  I can understand they also want to make some money for production of future programs, but they might also consider seriously reducing the prices in the interests of getting more of it into schools and libraries.

But, I guess that may also be just a dream.  If you want to learn more about the series, check the following link   Charlie Rose "Brain" Series 

--Written by Douglas Wiken with contributions from too late in the night public TV and indigestion-driven dreams.

NASA offers free DVD's "Journey to the Stars" to K-12 Teachers

SD Science and other teachers can each get up to 50 free DVDs of the NASA and Museum of Natural History digital planetarium tour of the stars in a scientifically correct "film".  Looks like an opportunity for SD teachers.

Order form for NASA "Journey to the Stars"  

I found this offer at an excellent and persistent Science blog from Texas edited by Eric Berger:

Science Guy Blog

So if you are a SD Science teacher take advantage of this.  If you are a SD parent of a child in a science class, let your teachers know.  The might even get you and your child a free copy since each teacher can order up to 50 free DVDs.  If your children are interested in science and may be interested in working as a scientist or engineer, it is never too early to introduce them to the wonders of discovery resulting from science and technology.

--- Doug Wiken with information from SCIENCEGUY Blog and NASA --

Another "Science Cafe" in South Dakota

Before I started this blog, I did a number of Google and Yahoo searches for Science in South Dakota, etc and found nothing except an out-of-state based system which has sites in "for" every state apparently with the same "science" on all of them (and also perhaps all the same ads).  Anyway, tonight I did another search and found that SDPB in cooperation with NOVA has a Science Cafe as well.

Let me assure you and them that we have no connection and until tonight, I was not aware that the site following even existed.  Check SDPB Science Cafe South Dakota anyway.  You may find something there nearly as interesting as the stuff here. Cara Hetland is apparently getting paid to moderate the SDPB Science Cafe (with a diacritical mark perhaps) .

SDPB-TV is also carrying the MAKE TV program on their CREATE  channel... I think.   It comes from Makezine and Twin Cities TV. Make projects convert regular stuff into oddball stuff that might explode, catch fire, play music or fly on a kite to take pictures, shoot hotdogs at your neighbor's dog, etc.  Sort of on the edge of science applied in entertaining, sometimes naughty, and sometimes useful ways.  And, SDPB-TV has the NOVA and Scientific American programs on regularly.

All related to science and technology, but not quite in the way I hope this site will be.

--- Doug Wiken with the help of Google.