ScienceMaster - March 2001 Newsletter

WEB SITE NEWS
A+ Learning Galleries
The educators at ScienceMaster believe that pairing words with images is a great way to learn. That's why we created A+ Learning Galleries. Each gallery contains pictures and text relating to just one science topic. It makes it easy for students to get an overview of just that topic. The pictures help create mental images that improve retention.

Visit our new galleries on glaciers, bugs or tornadoes. And if you would like us to create a gallery from your images and text please drop us an e-mail. View the Learning Gallery index.

Homework Help and Reference Materials
Let's face it - homework is important, but not always appreciated by students. At ScienceMaster we make learning fun, and that includes homework. We're expanding our 'Homework Help' pages, adding more calculators, equivalency converters and now science glossaries. Our favorite new addition is a really cool Sunrise/Sunset Calculator. Enter your location and it will calculate the exact local time for sunrise and sunset. Give it a try, then take a look at all the help we have for homework and learning. It may not make homework the most popular chore, but it makes it more fun. Take a look.

Big Fun In San Diego
Speaking of fun, we just returned from Winter Break. This year's destination was San Diego. We took in some of the local scenery and sights. The highlight of the trip was the famous San Diego Zoo and it's affiliated Wildlife Park near Carlsbad, California. The zoo is world-class and just seems to improve with age. Our favorites were the tapirs and the pandas.

Both these stops were rivaled by Seaworld. We hadn't been there in years and in a word it was "fantastic". Large viewing windows for the orcas and the porpoises gave a cetacean-eyed view of the world. A new display featuring two beautiful beluga whales was a must-see. Take a look at our San Diego page to experience some of the sites and wild animals. If you are in the area, it's a definite stop.

SCIENCE NEWS AND LINKS

See What NASA's Hubble Sees, With The Click Of A Mouse
Each day, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope collects enough information and images to fill five encyclopedias. Now, anyone with access to a computer and the World Wide Web can see the most exciting pictures captured by the world's first space- based optical telescope.

A new Web site, Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe, highlights the unique contributions to astronomy by this tireless observatory. The exhibition was developed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Baltimore, MD, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution. To experience the new 'Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe,' visit: http://hstexhibit.stsci.edu

International Human Genome Mapping Consortium Publishes Physical Map Of The Human Genome
The Human Genome Project public consortium in February announced that it has assembled and published a nearly completed physical map of the human genome - the genetic blueprint for a human being. The map, which is more than 95 percent complete and covers 96 percent of the genome, appeared in the Feb. 15 issue of the journal Nature.

The map provided the basis for the selection of clones for sequencing, and in turn provided the scaffold on which the draft human genome sequence was assembled. After the multiple centers involved in the public effort sequenced pieces of DNA, these pieces could be positioned with respect to one another to determine where particular pieces fit with other pieces on a chromosome. For the latest news and more information on the Human Genome Project visit: http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/

Physicists Announce Possible Violation of Standard Model of Particle Physics
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has announced an experimental result that directly confronts the so-called Standard Model of particle physics. "This work could open up a whole new world of exploration for physicists interested in new theories, such as supersymmetry, which extend the Standard Model," says Boston University physicist Lee Roberts, co-spokesperson for the experiment.

The Standard Model is a theory of particle physics that has withstood rigorous experimental challenge for 30 years. The Brookhaven finding deviates from the value predicted by the Standard Model. This indicates that other physical theories that go beyond the assumptions of the Standard Model may now be open to experimental exploration.

"We are now 99 percent sure that the present Standard Model calculations cannot describe our data," says Brookhaven physicist Gerry Bunce, project manager for the experiment.

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission is the first of NASA's Discovery missions and the first mission ever to go into orbit around an asteroid. A soft landing on Eros recently captured the headlines. NEAR touched down on the surface of Eros at 3:01:52 p.m. EST Monday, 12 February. The spacecraft apparently came to rest with the camera and gamma-ray spectrometer pointing towards the ground and the solar panels and low gain antenna pointing generally towards the Earth and Sun.

The spacecraft impacted at a velocity of about 1.5 to 1.8 meters/second (3.4 to 4.0 mph). The spacecraft obtained 69 high-resolution images before touchdown, the final image showing an area 6 meters across. NEAR was not designed as a lander, but survived the low-velocity, low-gravity impact, a signal continued after the "landing" using the omni-directional low-gain antenna as a beacon. --> See the NEAR Eros Descent Images

Scientists Find Evidence Of Ancient Microbial Life On Mars
An international team of researchers has discovered compelling evidence that the magnetite crystals in a martian meteorite are of biological origin. The researchers found that the magnetite crystals embedded in the meteorite are arranged in long chains, which they say could have been formed only by once-living organisms. "The chains we discovered are of biological origin," said Dr. Imre Friedmann, a leader of the research team. "Such a chain of magnets outside an organism would immediately collapse into a clump due to magnetic forces," he said.

The chains were preserved in the meteorite long after the bacteria themselves decayed. The researchers say the magnetite chains probably were flushed into microscopic cracks inside the martian rock after it was shattered by an asteroid impact approximately 3.9 billion years ago. This cataclysmic event on Mars' surface also may have killed the bacteria. The same, or a later, asteroid impact ejected the rock, now a meteorite, into space. Read More About Ancient Life On Mars --> http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2001/01images/magneticbacteria/bacteria.html

Quote of the Month
The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.
Albert Abraham Michelson
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