Education

Hella News Roundup

March 3rd, 2010 @ 1:53 pm by andy

Physics student Austin Sendek’s campaign to get “hella” designated as an official SI prefix (for 10 to the power 27) might be the media hit of the year so far. On Monday, the Sacramento Bee ran a story, followed by a nice piece from CBS-13’s Steve Large. Yesterday other local TV stations Fox 40 and News 10 followed up with their versions of the story, affiliates nationwide have picked up those local pieces and the story has been covered by news sites in the UK as well. The Guardian provides a handy Q&A for Brits to decode American English (”What’s a sophomore again?”).

Five UC students protesting budget cuts are arrested at Capitol
By Laurel Rosenhall - lrosenhall@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Mar. 1, 2010 - 11:43 am
Last Modified: Monday, Mar. 1, 2010 - 4:58 pm

Five University of California students have been arrested in the state Capitol for disrupting state business and demonstrating without a permit, according to the California Highway Patrol.

They're among about 100 who had gathered outside the office of Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Yuba City, to protest state budget cuts in higher education. CHP Sgt. Steve Stone said officers asked the large crowd to disperse, and most students did.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: February 15, 2010

Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected.

Yes, even California textbooks

How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids’ textbooks

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No, it's not Rex, the Coelurosauravus in the youtube above, it's an Anchiornis huxleyi as you'll read about below

Fossil Feather Colors Really ARE Written In Stone

Help! My Water is Glowing!

January 28th, 2010 by Bunny

I’ve never seen the ocean glow, but Katie Spotz did this week. She has been rowing in the Atlantic Ocean for 3 weeks now, getting closer to South America each day. A recent tweet from her:

“Can anyone explain what these glowing specks in the water are? Every night I see them and have no clue what they are”

[...]

Bioluminescence in the water has puzzled people for thousands of years, starting with Aniximenes in 500 B.C. Many have guessed over the years.

The glow is likely from bioluminescent dinoflagellates—that is, marine plankton that light up. The plankton light up when they sense a predator. The purpose is to attract a bigger predator that will eat the plankton’s predator!

The entropy force: a new direction for gravity

WHAT exactly is gravity? Everybody experiences it, but pinning down why the universe has gravity in the first place has proved difficult.

Although gravity has been successfully described with laws devised by Isaac Newton and later Albert Einstein, we still don't know how the fundamental properties of the universe combine to create the phenomenon.

Now one theoretical physicist is proposing a radical new way to look at gravity. Erik Verlinde of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a prominent and internationally respected string theorist, argues that gravitational attraction could be the result of the way information about material objects is organised in space.

Sac State Students Tape Mouths In Protest

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Students protested Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez Thursday during his spring address at the university.

The protesters, who were seen wearing tape over their mouths, staged a silent and peaceful protest.

Students carried signs that protested fee increases, and another that had a message that students have no confidence in Gonzalez' leadership.

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Yes! You can stick it to the MAN! Double your gas mileage