Water Floats Tub Tunes By filling up the set of five flutes to different amounts of water, you can change the note (or pitch) in each of these brightly colored tubes. The air space left inside the flute is what scientists call a resonance chamber. More water in the flute leaves a smaller air space, and the smaller air space produces a higher note. Leave a larger air space and you'll get a deeper (lower pitched) note. The water flute works much like an organ pipe. Short organ pipes contain less air than long pipes, and so they produce shriller (higher pitched) notes.
Einstein@Home MousepadScience isn't just for scientists anymore -- home PC users can be involved too. You can sign up to have your computer's downtime process data for projects like SETI@Home, which searches through radio wave data for communications from other civilizations, or the recently introduced Einstein@Home, which searches though gravity wave data for evidence of spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars). Show your geek side in style with an Einstein@home mousepad, pillow or mug.
"Florida State scientist sees art through microscope"Tallahassee (AP): As biochemist Michael Davidson peered at monkey DNA through his microscope more than two decades ago he saw more than scientific form and function. He saw art.
Davidson eventually began taking pictures of crystallized substances ranging from vitamins to beer as seen through a microscope. His images have been used for calendars, posters, greeting cards and women's sportswear but most profitably on neckties."
Persistence of Vision ClocksThese clocks seem to project the time into thin air. The secret? Quickly moving LED's change the pattern of their lights quicker than your brain can forget the light it saw. So, like the image projected onto a TV screen,your eye sees the whole pattern at once.
Books:
The Physics of Baseball This highly popular book by physicist Robert Adair explains the mysteries of the speed of batted balls, how the stitches on the ball affect its flight, and other tidbits of baseball physics that every serious fan can appreciate.
Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to PhysicsFrom well-known women physicists like Marie Curie, who studied radium, to undiscovered lights like Helen Megaw who studied ice crystal structures, to modern physicists such as string theorist Renata Kallosh, this book of essays by about women physicists aims to inspire students by hearing about the personal lives and the scientific lives of important women in physics.
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