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Spring
2007 -
Subscribe here.
Spring
has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. The weather is
heating up and the longer days invite us to linger outside
in the evening. But after a postprandial stroll, you might
want to take a few moments to explore the sites listed
below. And for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere,
we invite you to get cozy and check out our spring edition.
CONTENTS
1- SCIENCE FROM THE POLES
2- DIG INTO SPRING AT THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING WEB SITE
3- EXPLORATORIUM EARNS MORE WEB AWARDS
1-SCIENCE
FROM THE POLES
http://www.exploratorium.edu/poles/index.html
The
International Polar Year is a large scientific program
focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic that will extend
until March 2009. Major concerns of the IPY--climate
change and building the South Pole Telescope--are included
in this Exploratorium Web site, along with the Exploratorium's
own polar videos.
The South Pole Telescope was pieced together by a team of two dozen scientists,
engineers, and technicians in record time. In a special series of blogs and video
updates direct from the South Pole, three cosmologists from the University of
Chicago take us along on their race to finish the telescope before the harsh
Antarctic winter.
Over
the past few decades, scientists say, the earth's poles
have experienced twice the rate of warming as the rest
of the earth. One important focus of International Polar
Year efforts will be to understand how and why the poles
are affected so dramatically by global climate change.
Our site contains interviews with scientists and archived
Webcasts and podcasts that cover topics such as Global
Warming 101 and How Global Warming Affects Penguins.
2-
DIG INTO SPRING AT THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING WEB SITE
http://www.exploratorium.edu/gardening/index.html
It's time to begin a new gardening season. This site provides interactives, videos,
and articles covering many aspects of gardening, including carnivorous plants,
gardening in the Antarctic, and the secret lives of flowers. Get the dirt on
dirt. Find out what motivates people to grow giant pumpkins or prized orchids
and enter them in competitions. Learn this and more on the Science of Gardening
Web site.
3- EXPLORATORIUM EARNS MORE
WEB AWARDS
The Exploratorium's Web site has been in the
news lately as the recipient of twoWeb awards:
The Webby Awards, the leading international honor for Web sites, awarded the
Exploratorium's Total Solar Eclipse: Live from Turkey Webcast http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/2006/index.html
the People's Voice Award in the new "Best Events and Live Broadcast" category
of 2007 in the annual People's Voice voting.
The
Exploratorium's Extremophiles in Kamchatka Web site earned
the American Association of Museums (AAM) 2007 Muse Bronze
Award for Online Presence http://www.exploratorium.edu/kamchatka
Revealing
to a general audience the real-world processes for gathering
scientific evidence, Extremophiles in Kamchatka transports
us to the pristine habitat inside a collapsed volcano in Eastern
Siberia, where microbial life forms thrive in the boiling-hot
geothermal waters. Visually rich and accompanied by optional
audio narration, the site features slideshows, as well as video
collections in both English and Russian, focusing on both the
uniqueness of the location and its extremophile inhabitants.
These tiny yet hardy life forms, whose colonies appear as colorful
patches on rock or as hairy white mats, give scientists clues
about what life might be like on other planets. The site offers
insight into the experience of researchers in the field--through
documenting an international collaboration between microbiologists,
geochemists, and geologists, and letting us observe the temporary
tents that function as laboratories, and the sulfur pools that
serve as both observatories and the only available opportunity
for bathing.
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