The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) has been given funding to increase its efforts to more accurately estimate the deer population throughout the state. Since 1960, the department has only used it’s staff and official employees of the state to help with the counting, and the breadth of the coverage has never been enough to calculate meaningful population estimates.
But, now, they are requesting the help from citizens to volunteer their observational skills and report what they see during August and September. Citizen Science makes its way into Wisconsin!
If you live in Wisconsin, and you would like to connect with the WDNR to help with the summer counting, visit the site linked below and get ready to keep a close eye out for those deer in your headlights beginning August 1!
“Citizens asked to survey deer afield” :: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel :: July 24, 2010 [ READ ]
Summer 2010 Operation Deer Watch from WDNR [ VISIT ]
This weekend’s All Things Considered from NPR featured a professional astronomer turned bold citizen scientist who is building a satellite to convert the Earth’s magnetic field high in the ionosphere into MIDI music.
DPR featured Alex Antunes in September 2009 (read more), and we are excited to update that his notice is growing into a public, national audience. Dr. Antunes is also a key contributor on Science 2.0, and you may also stay updated with his progress on his Project Calliope site.
“DIY Satellites Let You Find Your Own Space” :: NPR All Things Considered with Audie Cornish :: July 24, 2010 :: [ READ ]
Painted green by a flashlight, astronomer Dennis Mammana of California points out Mars to onlookers on Aug. 26, 2003, when Mars was particularly close to Earth. Photo credit: Thad V'Soske via NASA Science
Mars came particularly close to Earth back in 2003, and ever since we have been experiencing an annual email hoax convincing us that we will once again have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Mars as big as the Moon.
The cycle is happing again (view an interactive orbit map), with an expected closer encounter to happen this August. However, when you look up into the sky next month, you won’t see the Moon and the Red Planet together as temporary twins.
The close approach that occurred on August 27, 2003 was indeed the most near we have been to Mars in some 60,000 years. And, we are talking only 56 million kilometers (about 34.8 million miles) close. Take an important comparative note here that the Moon sits anywhere between about 363,000 and 406,000 km from Earth (learn more about the Moon). However, near approaches have routinely happened many times in between 58,000 B.C. and 2003, with more recent occurrences in 1845 and 1924, which were only around 50 thousand km less. Not so much difference in the scale of the Solar System.
What’s great about this particular hoax is that it is a perfect opportunity for citizen scientists to learn (or re-learn) about planetary orbits, and to help spread the excitement about the real physics of our Solar System. It is truly incredible that all of these massive objects are spinning around in such predictable harmony, and that anyone can discover so much information about how it all works.
For example, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides an online system, called JPL HORIZONS, for reporting the ephemeris (positions of astronomical bodies) for planets, planetary satellites, spacecraft, and other dynamic points throughout or Solar System. The distances can also be calculated to your personal location on Earth from anytime since January 4, 1900 up through January 3, 2100.
So, watch your email inbox carefully over the next several weeks (and make sure you don’t download any computer viruses), and help your friends learn more about the reality of our planetary neighbor Mars, since you–or your children–might travel there someday!
Interactive Mars-Earth-Sun Orbit Map [ TRY IT ] from Windows to the Universe (requires Flash) Try running the simulation backwards to August 27, 2003 and see how close Mars really was. How close was Mars on your birth date?
JPL HORIZONS Ephemeris Calculation System [ TRY IT ]
In 2008, DPR discussed the emergence of an extreme case of amateur research [READ more] where a growing number of independent citizens (see the list) are developing working fusion reactors at home.
There must be an emphasis on the extreme here as a citizen science project, since the financial requirements are high (an understatement, for sure). Although the actual process of low-scale fusion in a properly sealed chamber is reasonably safe (in particular, there is low radiation and no nasty nuclear waste left over to throw away), high voltages are required and an advanced technical flair must be developed.
A fusion reaction occurs when two similar light weight atoms are brought together under high temperature and high pressure, slam together, and re-form as a single atom. Energy is released from the process … a lot of energy … and efficiently harnessing the outgoing energy has been a holy-grail project of physicists for more than a half-century. This is the energy process that powers our Sun. And it has been efficiently glowing for some time now.
One of the key challenges is that it takes more energy to generate the fusion reaction in the laboratory than what you can extract, which doesn’t make so much economic sense for the utility industry.
So, the primary goal of institution researchers — and of the amateurs — is to design and create a functioning “break-even” fusion reactor, where you harvest the same amount of energy that you put into the system. Success here still would not be the end-game, but it is a goal that seems to be reasonable for reaching in the near future.
The ultimate payoff here, of course, is so incredible and is becoming more desired every day (see all that sludge sloshing toward the gulf coast line?). No large-scale carbon emissions. No politically- and environmentally-threatening nuclear waste. No sloppy oily deposits. Just clean, beautifully-glowing plasma to bring slick and fast electricity to satisfy all of our energy-hungry lives.
If you have the cash, you might try converting your garage to a fusion reaction laboratory. The entire human population on Planet Earth would be grateful.
“Extreme DIY: Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC” :: BBC News, Matthew Danzico :: June 23, 2010 :: [ READ with Video ]
Mark Suppes Blog about his Prometheus Fusion Reactor [ VISIT ]
The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium [ VISIT ]
Learn more about fusion from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [ VISIT ]
UPDATE July 25, 2010: Tip Sheet for Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Investigators, by Tom Ligon, from fusor.net :: [ DOWNLOA PDF]
Fireflies have been flashing into a broader public awareness lately, well beyond those simple childhood summer evening memories of running through the yard capturing these little creatures into temporary glass prisons.
In particular, the Firefly Watch program from Boston’s Museum of Science (read DPR’s review from 2008) has been bringing more people together across the country to measure current back-yard populations of fire flies. Their numbers seem to be declining significantly in recent years, and the researchers guiding this great citizen science program hope to find out why our flashy little friends aren’t as happy these days.
An amateur photographer from Evansville, Indiana has helped to glorify and beautify the bug by developing his own process for creating incredible still images of fire flies in action. Terry Priest started generating successful photographs using a typical hand-held four mega-pixel digital camera, and has advanced into more sophisticated equipment, including high-speed flashes.
And, his images are breathtaking. And, you can create similarly breathtaking images yourself in your own backyard… tonight. Mr. Priest has written a detailed online guidance on how to craft these images, and he hopes that his efforts will inspire other amateur photographers to explore the life of the flashing bug.
“Terry Priest photographs fireflies in flight” :: Evansville Courier and Press :: July 11, 2010 [ READ ]
Stephen Wolfram has spent his life to date — and will likely continue to do so — developing amazing new computational technologies to empower scientists and academics to more efficiently and effectively compute their way through their research, and even help them to make a few discoveries along the way.
Now, Wolfram and his company’s decades worth of computational development are being reimplemented into a simple user interface that is accessible to anyone who can ask a question. In particular, the ultimate goal of Wolfram|Alpha is to — simply! — “make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.” This platform is under continuous development and hopes to “compute whatever can be computed about anything.”
Pause for a moment and just think about that goal once again: “compute whatever can be computed about anything.” After soaking in these thoughts, you may now raise your jaw back into it’s closed and upright position.
This resource will be especially useful to citizen scientists who need quick references to factual data that can be trusted. (References are included with the computed results.) Moreover, an exciting feature of the output from a Wolfram|Alpha query is that it not only tries to provide you with a specific result, but it also explores the results to potentially bring you additional information, background, and even comparisons that you might not have considered in your original question.
Enter any mathematical expression, and a whirlwind of results will be presented, ask about what drugs are used to treat a medical condition, say Multiple Sclerosis (try it), ask about the temperature in your city (try it) and you’ll have current temperature and historical data graphed for you for 10 years or more, find out how much oil has been spilled in the Gulf of Mexico (try it), type in your birth date (try it) and discover not only how old you are, but other famous anniversaries and the sunrise, sunset, and moon phase for that day in history. Examples of what you could possibly discover with Wolfram|Alpha are infinite [ EXPLORE EXAMPLES ], and the results that you will find are so much more direct, powerful and efficient than what you could ever find googling random web sites.
So, I encourage you to dive in and try out this exciting resource (download the iPhone app), and consider it when you need to find real answers to your real questions while doing your real amateur research. And, if you discover something particularly interesting, please post here to let everyone experience the wonders of computation with you.
Explore Wolfram|Alpha now… Enter your question to computer in the Wolfram|Alpha Search Box at the right column –>
