Oblate Spheroid

Along with Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Hilary Clinton, and RFK Jr., UWT’s own Bridget Mason has a Huffington Post blog. I was at the MLK day Giving Garden work party that Bridget talks about in her post: it was a resounding success. Congrats, Bridget and Kayomi! Bridget Mason: Obama’s Call to Service — The Garden We’re Growing.

Sweet! Build your own riser drilling vessel. Guaranteed to take less time to build than the actual ship. Warning: does not float. Or drill. See also: paper models of deep-sea creatures, the Shinkai-6500 sub, and the “Earth Simulator” computer. ペーパークラフト図鑑.

So, among other projects, I’m putting together a proposal to buy toys for physics demos. We have some simple ones already – nerf soccer balls, for example (one of which I want to cut up to install a wireless accelerometer… more on that later).  I’m making a wish list, and have decided on a few [...]

Do your students ever ask you why they need to understand math/physics/chemistry? Ask them if they like ice cream. At workbook, Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernardin explains how careful planning – thanks to some chemistry and math – makes for good ice cream. Workbook: Doing The Math.

A Blog Around the Clock has released a list of 2008′s best science blog posts. Among the winners I count at least 3 geoscientists (one of whom I still need to add to my blogroll…)! Good reading, especially Green Gabbro’s “The Igneous Petrology of Ice Cream“, Reciprocal Space’s “I Get my Kicks from Thermodynamicks” (my [...]

From Geotripper, a list of 100 things a geologist should see in his/her lifetime. Ones I’ve seen are in bold, with locations in brackets. I count 36. I’m working on the rest! 1. See an erupting volcano [Kilauea, HI] 2. See a glacier 3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand [...]