North American Benthological Society
Founded in 1953, the "North American Benthological Society (NABS) is an international scientific organization whose purpose is to promote better understanding of the biotic communities of lake and stream bottoms and their role in aquatic ecosystems, by providing media and disseminating new investigation results, new interpretations, and other benthological information to aquatic biologists and to the scientific community at large." Notably, NABS hosts a Classified Ads and Announcements section w
National Diatom Database
Single-celled diatoms are "powerful indicators of environmental conditions as they respond quickly to environmental changes, and are widely utilized in stratigraphic investigations." The Geological Survey of Canada's National Diatom Database contains two components, the first of which includes about 5,000 diatom samples, their description, and precise geographic location. The second has 1,500 entries that give "information on the environmental and ecological tolerance of individual diatom specie
FunBrain.com Kids Center
Seventeen fun, Web-based educational games are on Funbrain.com's Numbers site. The games cover basic arithmetic, fractions, graphs, algebra, and many other topics. Math Baseball is the most popular game on the site, which awards singles, doubles, or triples depending on the difficulty of the question. All of the games have varying levels of difficulty, ranging from easy to "Super Brain." There is even an activity where the user spells the words of a number written on a check (but you might want
Concepts and Applications of Inferential Statistics
A professor of psychology at Vassar College is the author of this impressive online statistics textbook. Seventeen chapters and numerous appendixes range in topic from beginning concepts to what would likely be covered in a second or intermediate course in statistics. Easy to navigate, the online interface provides quick access to all sections of the book, and some of the book's material is interactive, such as calculators and sampling distribution functions. A companion site to the text, offere
Stanford University Medical Center: Ovarian Kaleidoscope Database
The Ovarian Kaleidoscope Database (OKDB) was developed by the Hsueh Lab in the Department of Gynecology & Obstetrics at Stanford University Medical Center. The OKDB "provides information regarding the biological function, expression pattern and regulation of genes expressed in the ovary. It also contains information on gene sequences, chromosomal localization, human and murine mutation phenotypes and biomedical publication links." Database users can conduct a Gene Search, or browse an extensive
Technology Review: When the Web Was New
How has our understanding of the Web changed since 1995? This article from Technology Review, an MIT publication, gives readers a chance to consider this question. The author, an MIT graduate, reflects on "When the Web Was New" by posting an article he wrote in 1995. Presented with some graphic images, the article provides a look into the history of the World Wide Web and related technology. Reflecting back, the author states, "how easy it is to forget that many of the technologies that structur
The Economist: Proof and Beauty in Mathematics
This article from the magazine _The Economist_ argues that the notion of mathematical proof is now in flux and that "the use of computers to prove mathematical theorems is forcing mathematicians to re-examine the foundations of their discipline." The author discusses the differences between proofs conducted by hand and those conducted by computers, using the classification of finite simple groups as an example showing how some proofs are unverifiable. The article concludes with a discussion of t
Signal Compression Lab
The Signal Compression Lab (SCL) is a part of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "Current research activities at SCL include low bit rate speech coding, wideband speech and audio compression, speech modeling and synthesis," and many more focus areas involving data compression of various forms of media. A large collection of informative demonstrations and slide presentations illustrate the group's work. Many of the SCL staff have pub
Hypography Sci-Tech
Hypography Sci-Tech is an intriguing Internet portal to some of the more obscure, yet profound, discoveries and scientific developments around the globe. The site "aims to provide popular science and technology content to a general, world-wide audience on a daily basis." Besides including links and references to original work, the author provides a unique perspective of the topics' implications. Some recent hypographies include DNA computing, impossibility, and thinking machines. also an active
The Child Care Nutrition Resource System
The Child Care Nutrition Resource System is developed by the University of Maryland's Department of Nutrition and Food Science and the USDA National Agricultural Library's Food and Nutrition Information Center. The Resource System is geared towards childcare providers who participate in USDA nutrition programs, but others interested in children's nutrition will find this website useful as well. Notably, the website serves as a portal to many helpful resources from a variety of different universi
The Vega Science Trust: Online Science Programmes
The nonprofit, UK-based Vega Science Trust broadcasts free science programs over the Internet. The programs "are mainly produced by experts in science and engineering and many have been previously shown on mainstream television." The Vega Science Trust website contains a sizeable collection of science programs for viewing. Program subject categories include: Biology, Health, Molecular Biology, Safety, Physics, and more. As indicated by the various categories, the programs address a wide range of
LHS Interactive Showcase
The Lawrence Hall of Science of the University of California Berkeley maintains the Interactive Showcase Web site. Eleven interactive Shockwave activities are presented based on various science themes. One called Variables allows users to change a human cannonballer's weight, angle of flight, the gun powder amount, and wind direction and speed with the goal of getting him to land in a net. Others deal with space flight, auto fuel efficiency, the human body, ideas and inventions, and more. Althou
Fossett's Makes Aviation History
This article from CNN reports on the first non-stop solo flight around the world, completed by Steve Fossett on March 3. The article provides some basic facts about the accomplishment, such as the distance (19,880 nautical-miles or 36,818 kilometers) and time (67 hours and two minutes). The touchdown is also described in detail as well as some highlights from the trip. A section on related links offers a gallery of photos and audio slide show of his "historic landing," which includes the voice o
VESTAC: Java Applets for Visualization of Statistical Concepts
This collection of over 30 Java applets is quite impressive, both in content and in presentation. Operated at a university in Belgium, Visualization of and Experimentation with Statistical Concepts (VESTAC) is the title of the project that developed these educational tools. The applets are very intricate, with many functions and graphical capabilities; they are therefore quite large and can take some time to download on a slow connection. The four main categories of material are basic concepts,
Sky Chart
The Sky and Telescope Web site, which is the companion site to the long running magazine of the same name, hosts the online interactive Sky Chart. Users can choose from any location on earth by inputting a city or a latitude and longitude, after which they then choose the direction they want to view in the sky. The tool allows anyone to view an image of the sky from any location on earth, which is pretty darn cool. The ease of use is another highlight of the Sky Chart, making it easily accessibl
The ALPHA Lab at UC Berkeley
The Alpha Lab at the University of California at Berkeley researches and develops robotics systems for high-precision manufacturing. Specifically, it combines mathematical algorithms and industrial automation to build low-cost, reliable tools for "feeding, fixturing and grasping." The projects section of the lab's Web site describes a number of experiments and model implementations for robotics operation. Many of these have Java applets that demonstrate the principles involved in handling differ
Online Shuttle Press Kit
The Online Shuttle Press Kit is a collaborative effort between NASA, the United Space Alliance, and Boeing. The large collection of documents contains information about many space shuttle missions, both for previous flights as well as ones that are scheduled. The material is very complete and describes virtually every aspect of the missions. Details on the main objectives, crewmembers, scheduled launch date and location, spacewalks, shuttle payload, and scientific experiments are all presented.
Mathematics Demos
For students in mathematics, it is often very difficult to visualize abstract concepts. One of the most obvious examples is the analysis of three dimensional objects, or a 3D coordinate system. This small collection of mathematics demos illustrates some of these concepts by using multi-color animations. Items such as contours, Fourier transforms, and convolution, which cannot be effectively drawn on a chalkboard, are shown in great detail here. The site also demonstrates the dimensions of the sp
NanoOpto Technology
NanoOpto is a company using "nano-optics and nano-manufacturing technology to design and make components for optical networking." On this site, NanoOpto offers two white papers that describe some of the methods and techniques. The first serves as an introduction to Subwavelength Optical Elements (SOEs), which allow for improved performance and possibly new features in optical systems. The second white paper is more detailed and delves further into the application of these SOEs. A brief registrat
The High Energy Weapons Archive: A Guide to Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons are arguably the most destructive force invented by humans. The High Energy Weapons Archive has material on the history of their development, post World War II testing, and country-specific nuclear programs. There are facts about countries that could soon have nuclear weapon technology, including Iraq and Israel. Several links to government and news related sites are also given. Simply a source of information, the archive in no way condones nuclear weapons; this is stated repeate
