ScienceMaster - April 2001 Newsletter

WEB SITE NEWS

Free Screen Savers
Good news!

We decided that it's a lot of work selling screen savers. We talked it over and decided to give them away. So effective immediately, our Windows screen savers, and Mac Desktop Pictures are free to download. But we didn't stop there - our digital book 'The Interactive Guide To NASA on the Net' is free too. This valuable resource will help you find the coolest NASA sites, quickly and easily.

We only ask one favor in return, that you tell all your family and friends about our web site, our resources and our newsletter. We want to be the best and the only way we can be the best is to have a growing audience of students, parents and teachers. So download a screen saver, but don't forget to tell everyone that ScienceMaster has the best science and education resources on the net.

View our free products.

SCIENCE NEWS AND LINKS

National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
The National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), a part of the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, is located in Golden, Colorado, 10 miles west of Denver. The NEIC has three main missions:

to determine the location and size of all destructive earthquakes that occur worldwide
to collect and provide to scientists and to the public an extensive seismic database
to conduct research to improve its ability to locate and understand earthquakes mechanism

The NEIC is a great research tool for earthquake information. Start on their 'Home Page', then take a look at their 'Near Real Time Earthquake List', or 'Current Earthquake Information'.

Now Playing at the Star Nearest You: A Really Big Sunspot
Breaking News From The Sun -- A huge sunspot, 13 times larger than the surface area of the Earth and growing, has now rotated with the Sun to face our planet.

The sunspot, which is the largest of the current solar cycle, is also the largest to appear in a decade. This area of the sun has generated a storm of solar activity, most recently a very potent solar eruption on March 29 that may cause auroral displays and magnetic storm activity when it impacts the Earth's magnetic field this weekend. Solar magnetic storms are occasionally harmful, potentially affecting satellites, radio communications and power systems. More information about the effect of solar activity on Earth is available on the Spaceweather web site. Solar flares are a related topic you might find interesting. Visit Goddard Space Flight Center's Solar Flare Theory page to learn about the biggest explosions in the solar system.

Public Access to the Human Genome
The DNA sequence of the Human Genome is now freely accessible to all, for public or private use, from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The Center is a part of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. The web address for the Human Genome home page is: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/guide/human

If you think of the genome as a book, it wasn't "read" from cover to cover. Instead, it was photocopied and split into paragraphs-with no spacing or punctuation-before being sequenced by various participants in the Human Genome Project. NCBI scientists are working to put the paragraphs back into their correct order, annotate them with section headings that guide the reader, and create an index to help locate any particular section of interest.

Wow, You've Got To See This Web Site
There are all kinds of satellites orbiting the earth today each serving a different purpose. Some satellites provide communications like telephones and television while other tell you where you are on earth like the Global Position System. NASA also uses satellites to learn more about earth and about the deepest reaches of space.

Now you can locate the Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory or any of your favorite satellites in two and three dimensions. Locate 700 satellites, out of thousands, swarming about our earth. You can rotate the display and modify all kinds of settings all from the comfort of your computer screen with this amazing web site. Fun and educational. Check it out now.

Factoid -- Did you know there are over eight thousand artificial objects orbiting Earth? Over 2,500 are satellites, operative and inoperative. The remaining objects are orbital debris: parts such as nosecone shrouds, lens, hatch covers, rocket bodies, payloads that have disintegrated or exploded, and even objects that "escape" from manned spacecraft during operations.

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs and More Dinosaurs

Looking for dinosuars? Try this fun-filled web site. Zoom Dinosaurs is a comprehensive on-line hypertext book about dinosaurs. It is designed for students of all ages and levels of comprehension. It has an easy-to-use structure that allows readers to start at a basic level on each topic, and then to progress to much more advanced information as desired, simply by clicking on links. The is a wealth of information here so be prepared to spend some time exploring.

And if you enjoy Zoom Dinosaurs, follow the links on this site. They have tons of science education resources. Suitable for younger kids too.

Quote of the Month
The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat. - Albert Einstein
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