Magplane: Transportation for the Information Age
The Magplane concept involves electromagnetically levitated vehicles designed for fast intra-city travel. This is in contrast to most other systems that focus on intercity travel; the goal of the Magplane system is to connect suburbs and locations up to 250 miles from a central metropolitan area, with travel times of about an hour or less. The Magplane home page offers many details of the system's design and operation. Five technical papers are also presented, which describe some of the engineer
Genome Bioinformatics
This no-frills UC-Santa Cruz Genome Bioinformatics Web site contains searchable "working drafts of the human genome and the mouse genome," which each represent "immense collaborative efforts" within the biomedical research community. Those who are active in genome research may find this Web site useful, especially for the multi-faceted genome browser that "provides a rapid and reliable display of any requested portion of genomes at any scale, together with dozens of aligned annotation tracks (kn
National Aquarium in Baltimore
The Web site for the National Aquarium in Baltimore has some valuable resources for students and teachers, as well as information for those interested in visiting the museum. Several of the teachers activities can be used in classrooms that do not visit the aquarium, and the Animals section is a sizable resource of information on a number of aquatic species. A great new feature is the interactive aquagames that provide a fun way for students to test what they have learned from visiting this Web
Bionic Eyes
Both Web sites come from Science@NASA, an online source for news and information about NASA-funded research. The first article describes the work of researchers at the Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space, who are developing artificial bones for long-lasting, pain-free hip and knee replacements. These ceramic bones are touted as "so much like the real thing that they could actually meld with living bone." Earlier this year, researchers at the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center in H
Association for Biology Laboratory Education
Established in 1979, the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE) promotes "information exchange among university and college educators actively concerned with teaching biology in a laboratory setting." The ABLE website contains information about grants, past and future annual conferences, and membership. ABLE also posts employment opportunities, and an extensive array of links organized into categories for General Biology, Online Journals, Biological Animations, Suppliers of Biologic
Creature Feature: Vampire Bats
This Web site from National Geographic (last mentioned in the October 11, 2002 Scout Report) offers a short multimedia introduction to vampire bats. Geared toward younger kids, this site includes vampire bat audio and video files, Fun Facts in the form of a brief but educational article, a map of vampire bat global distribution, links to bat-related Web sites, and an email postcard. It may be too late to get much Halloween mileage out of this site, but teachers and students should enjoy this qui
Extrasolar Visions
The Extrasolar Visions Web site provides a searchable guide to extra solar planets. These include planets of normal stars, pulsar planets, brown dwarfs, protoplanetary disks and protoplanets, extragalactic worlds, massive compact halo objects, and disproven or doubtful worlds. Visitors can search for these objects or view the week's 20 most popular systems, 20 most interesting systems, or the 20 most recently updated systems. Once chosen, the objects name, mass, average distance, and type is giv
Nutrition Café
Developed jointly by the Pacific Science Center and the Washington State Dairy Council, Nutrition Café offers students three interactive games to explore the world of nutrition. The first game, Nutrient Sleuth, is an entertaining hangman-style game where students try to discover what nutrients different characters are missing based on clues and letter guesses. Another enjoyable offering is Grab A Grape, a Jeopardy-style game where site visitors try to match nutrition-related questions with answ
Puff - A Volcanic Ash Tracking Model
This website, provided by the University of Alaska and Geophysical Institute, explains the Puff-A Volcanic Ash Tracking Model project, which uses representative ash particles from volcanoes to study the advection and diffusion of ash within the atmosphere. After learning about the history of the project, visitors can find animations and images of the model's predictions for various volcanoes as well as the technical documentation. The website offers downloads of the latest version of the model,
EDUCAUSE Quarterly
EDUCAUSE Quarterly "is a practitioner's journal about managing and using information resources in higher education." It deals with many issues about implementing information technology (IT) practices as learning tools. The material is suitable for anyone interested in IT applications, but is particularly useful for those who work in computer services or other IT organizational positions. This site offers full text articles from the journal at no cost, and several back issues can be viewed as wel
Interactive Investigator
Interactive Investigator, available through Virtual Museum Canada, is a website "for anyone with an interest in the different scientific methods used to solve crimes." Users will find a database of forensic science, containing short but informative essays on forensic entomology, toxicology, alcohol analysis, and various other forensic science topics. A simple timeline reviews key dates in the development of forensics, starting with the creation of the Paris Institute for Forensic Science in 1868
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
Coral Reef Information System: Discover NOAA's Data
Part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS), this Web site is "designed to be a single point of access to NOAA coral reef information and data products, especially those derived from NOAA's Coral Reef Initiative Program." With Discover NOAA's Data, users can access information by a text search of metadata records, or by a spatial search using an Arc IMS application. The two approaches share many of the same data sets. With the text search,
Biological Biochemical Image Database
The National Institute on Aging -- one of the National Institutes of Health -- provides the Biological Biochemical Image Database, "a searchable database of images of putative biological pathways, macromolecular structures, gene families, and cellular relationships." The database is intended for researchers "working with large sets of genes or proteins using cDNA arrays, functional genomics, or proteomics." The database may be searched by gene name, pathway, cell or tissue type, disease name, bi
The Allergy Authority
The Allergy Authority, created in collaboration with Healthology.com and funded by an educational grant from Schering-Plough (the makers of Claritin), offers "information necessary to make informed decisions about the control of allergy symptoms." The Web site describes the different types of allergies, how allergies develop, the difference between chronic and seasonal allergies, the side effects of allergy medications, and more. The site's main sections -- The Basics of Allergies, Seasonal or C
America's Backyard: Exploring Your Public Lands
America's Backyard: Exploring Your Public Lands is the featured topic of National Geographic's Geography Action! -- an "annual conservation and awareness program designed to educate and excite people about our natural, cultural, and historic treasures." This Web site offers a number of public land-related educational activities, many of the which apply directly to the life sciences. Activities are available for grades K-12, and cover such topics as the role of forests in our daily lives, conserv
A Thin Blue Line: The History of the Pregnancy Test
In today's world, the test for pregnancy is only a pharmacy, and minutes, away. This wasn't always the case, however. Until 1978 no definitive means existed for at-home pregnancy testing. This site, from the National Institutes of Health, traces the history of the test back to its earliest roots at NIH. The site includes historical information on the early Egyptian practice of women urinating on wheat and barley to the more modern research into human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), the so-called p
Museum of the Future
This Web site, operated by the Ars Electronica Center in Austria, provides an online tour of a fascinating museum. It can be a little confusing to navigate at first, but it is certainly worth visiting. The main attraction is the Guide through the Museum of the Future. After clicking this link, it is important to note the language selector that chooses between German and English. Six different sections of the museum can be explored by the icons on the right, and each section has several different
Lamington National Park
To see the "dangerously venomous" Common Death Adder or hear the low growl of the Giant Barred River Frog, take a trip to the Lamington National Park website. Here you will find a treasure trove of great information about the wide variety of plants, animals, and insects found at the park. Laminton, a huge park (20,000 hectares) is located in Queensland and carries the distinction of a World Heritage Area. The website, offered by the Green Mountains Natural History Association and the University
Rewind, Repair, Replay: Three R's to Dependability
One of the most important features in current software applications is the undo command, which allows users to revert to previous states in their documents. A relatively unexplored concept involves system undo, a method of restoring settings in a system that were accidentally changed by the operator. This research paper discusses "a model of undo that matches the needs of human error recovery and retroactive repair." The authors begin by explaining the growing importance of such a mechanism and
