Maya Gupta was sitting in the San Francisco airport one day when she saw some unusual jigsaw puzzles in a shop. A puzzle fan in childhood, she liked the shape and quality of the finely cut pieces, but thought the art was boring. She hadn’t done a jigsaw puzzle for about 20 years. A UW […] … learn more→
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Elegance, engineering combine in Maya Gupta’s high-end jigsaw puzzles
Back in Beijing, researchers with Stanford\’s rural education action project take on digital divide
Ask Zhang Qian why her family moved here from a rural village in another part of China, and the fifth-grader won\’t turn from her computer. Try finding out if she likes living in the city, and she clicks a mouse. Forget about learning if she grew up on a farm. The only agriculture she\’s concerned […] … learn more→
From biochar to organic crops, Cornell research farm helps grow N.Y. economy
Paul Stachowski, farm manager at Cornell\’s Musgrave Research Farm near Aurora, N.Y., pilots his tractor along rows of winter wheat waving in the wind. Beneath them a carpet of red clover blankets the earth. Stachowski sowed the wheat last fall to give it a head start. But he waited until March to sow roughly 75 […] … learn more→
UC Berkeley achieves sustainable seafood certification
Five years after becoming the first university dining program in the country to achieve organic certification, Cal Dining at the University of California, Berkeley, has achieved another first. It is the first public university in the nation to be awarded Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for its commitment to seafood sustainability, the MSC announced this […] … learn more→
Top 5 wacky alarm clocks
Whether you’re studying criminal justice so you can find evidence that proves your roommate is eating all your cereal in the morning, or your taking a course in psychology to find a way to Pavlovian response your roommate so that whenever they hear the word “breakfast” they immediately have to pee, there is one thing […] … learn more→
Mums are heading back to work sooner…and it is stressing them out!
Sole parents and married mums are working more, leading to more time in childcare for their kids and decreases in the parents overall life and job satisfaction, according to news stats from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. The figures come as part of the sixth volume of the Institute’s Household, Income […] … learn more→
Why can’t planes fly through volcanic ash?
A volcanic ash cloud produced by Chile’s Puyehue volcanic eruption has circumnavigated the globe and floated over Australia twice, disrupting flights and leaving over 120,000 passengers stranded. Dr John Olsen from the University of NSW’s School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, explains why airlines won’t let their pilots fly through the volcanic ash cloud. Why […] … learn more→
Evolution to the rescue
Evolution is usually thought to be a very slow process, something that happens over many generations, thanks to adaptive mutations. But environmental change due to things like climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, etc. is happening very fast. There are just two options for species of all kinds: either adapt to environmental change or become extinct. […] … learn more→
Sharing wisdom, teacher to teacher
How do you teach math students to speak and write effectively about what they do? Crucially, how do you teach their teachers — themselves mathematicians — how to impart and evaluate these skills? Faced with this problem, a group of instructors in MIT’s Department of Mathematics decided that many heads are better than one. They […] … learn more→
University of Minnesota engineering researchers discover source for generating \’green\’ electricity
University of Minnesota engineering researchers in the College of Science and Engineering have recently discovered a new alloy material that converts heat directly into electricity. This revolutionary energy conversion method is in the early stages of development, but it could have wide-sweeping impact on creating environmentally friendly electricity from waste heat sources. Researchers say the […] … learn more→