The Endoplasmic Reticulum, Explained

"The Endoplasmic Reticulum"
Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University, Molecular Expression^TM

"The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a network of flattened sacs and branching tubules that extends throughout the cytoplasm in plant and animal cells. These sacs and tubules are all interconnected by a single continuous membrane so that the organelle has only one large, highly convoluted and complexly arranged lumen (internal space). Usually referred to as the endoplasmic reticulum cisternal space, the lumen of the organelle often takes up more than 10 percent of the total volume of a cell...."

There's more - including a colored drawing of the endoplasmic reticulum and part of the nucleus that does a better job than most, of illustrating what the ER is, how it's and how it relates to the rest of the cell. I'd show you, but the copyright statement at the bottom of the page seems to exclude use of images - even for a micro-review like this.

So you'll have to take the Lemming's word for it.

It's a pretty good resource, for learning how this part of cellular machinery works. Here's a sample of how the ER's function is described:

"...These proteins may be either transmembrane proteins, which become embedded in the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum, or water-soluble proteins, which are able to pass completely through the membrane into the lumen. Those that reach the inside of the endoplasmic reticulum are folded into the correct three-dimensional conformation, as a flattened cardboard box might be opened up and folded into its proper shape in order to become a useful container. Chemicals, such as carbohydrates or sugars, are added, then...."

I've seen educational pages that are a tad easier to read than this one - but the author did, in my opinion, an unusually good job of actually saying something with the big words.

Our Benevolent Rulers Protecting Us From Big Paperclip?!

This is not a political blog.

On the other hand, this item was so moonbat-crazy that the Lemming couldn't resist:

"EDITORIAL: Goodbye to chemistry sets"
Las Vegas Review-Journal (October 1, 2010)

"Here come the federal regulators

"Many an adult who today makes a good living -- and contributes to our standard of living -- as an engineer or scientist first had his or her enthusiasm for the field kindled by a home or classroom science kit.

"But as the modern nanny state gets busy, such inspiration may become a thing of the past.

"The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, known as CPSIA, requires extensive -- and expensive -- safety testing of products designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger, checking for lead, chemicals, flammability and other potential dangers.

"Now caught up in the Consumer Product Safety Commission's debate about the act's regulations are those classroom science kits and some of the items they contain -- including paper clips, used to show kids how magnets work...."

The Lemming acknowledges the need for regulation. There have to be rules about which side of the road we drive on, and whether or not it's okay to put poop in our food. (August 20, 2010, February 26, 2009)

This, however, looks - well, crazy.

Maybe it's not. Maybe there really is deadly peril lurking in science kits for kids. Maybe Big Paperclip really is behind this nefarious plot to jump-start the minds of America's youth.

No, really: there might be a hazard here.

Or, we might be looking at the sort of stupid thing that bureaucrats do when they come back from the golf course. It's not only government bureaucrats, in the Lemming's opinion. Just read Dilbert.

An Educational Page About the Invertibrate Nervous System: That's Coherent!

"Invertibrate Nervous System"
Neuroscience for Kids, Eric H. Chudler, University of Washington

"Invertebrates are those animals without a backbone (spinal column). Invertebrates include animals such as insects, worms, jellyfish, spiders - these are only a few of the many types of spineless creatures.

"Invertebrates have played an important role in discoveries about how the nervous system works. The squid, aplysia (sea hare), leech, horseshoe crab, lobster, and cockroach have all provided scientists with models by which to study the nervous system. The squid even helped win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963.

"Invertebrates are useful animals to study because their nervous system functions in basically the same way as that of vertebrates. Neurons in all animals work using an electrochemical process. Because the nervous system of invertebrates is less complex than that of vertebrates, it is easier to isolate and study neural functions in these animals without backbones...."

Never mind the "for kids" part of this website's title. It "...has been created for all students and teachers who would like to learn about the nervous system...." And, in the Lemming's opinion, is a pretty good resource for anybody who's interested in the workings of nervous systems - and doesn't mind getting information in clear illustrations and coherent text.

If you prefer to read something that's exemplary of hypertrophied erudition and utilization of terminology enumerated within a recondite lexicon: you won't like Neuroscience for Kids. Eric H. Chudler apparently wants folks to understand what he's presented.

He'll use terms like "electrochemical process" with links to a page where the concept is discussed - again in a way where the reader doesn't have to know what's being discussed before reading about it.

The illustrations are simplified drawings, with enough detail to get the idea across.

I've suspected that clear, no-nonsense writing might be a refreshing change for both students and professors in the higher echelons of the education system - but that's another topic.

New York City, Paper Clips, Wire Art and a Book

"Wow! New York City "

duopress, YouTube (February 10, 2010)
video, 1:21

"This is a video for the book Wow! New York CIty.
"Available at bookstores and online

"Wow! New York City
"Imagine a City Built with a Paper Clip . . .

"Puck (Author), Rey David Rojas (Illustrations by)

"New York City has never been more whimsical than in this visual narrative that uses wire-art sculptures to explore the Big Apple. Everything starts with a paper clip that unfolds to create some of New York's most famous symbols, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Empire State Building. A lively text accompanies the striking visuals, and six pages of information chronicle everything needed to know about the included attractions and landmarks...."

It took a lot of paperclips to make these wire-art sculptures, actually. A whole lot.

The video as an engaging music track - it's probably worth the one-and-a-third minutes it'll take to view.

If you've got a case of 'Monday blues' today, you may find the child's giggle in the soundtrack helpful. Or, not.

Although calling a children's book "educational" may call up memories of dreary, ill-planned documentaries: I think the display of art that uses some fairly inexpensive materials might spark a child's imagination.

Or, an adult's.

---

A tip of the hat to amyhodgepodge, on Twitter, for the heads-up on this video.

American History Textbooks: Good for Schools, Good for Home Schooling

Project Special Education

"For teachers who are not scientists, historians, or experts in sex education: but are teaching these subjects to special students anyway, Project Special Education (PSE) offers a solution.

"Project Special Education's DATELINE: America, PROJECT EXPLORE and IMAGES are a fresh and effective way to teach your special students about American history, science, and human sexuality.

"Content-rich texts, reinforcement-oriented exercises, and exciting reading keep students interested, and help them learn...."

I'm Biased: I Think This Stuff's Good

I worked at Project Special Education's sister company, Vocational Biographies, for about 20 years, so my opinion that parts of this website, like the 'multilogo' over there, are pretty cool.

Of course, I would think so: I assembled the thing from pre-existing artwork.

And I think that Project Special Education's Dateline: America product is pretty good. Again, I would: I had a small part in producing the original.

That was then, this is now.

I haven't worked at Vocational Biographies since the spring of 2006, but I get called back now and again when one of the companies have something for me to do on their websites. I was back this week, with a little updating on their page about Dateline: America.

Somebody Publishes History Textbooks: So What?

The whole Project Special Education line of products is, I think, valuable for people teaching secondary-level students who are fairly smart, but didn't keep up with reading skills. There's a sort of explanation on the P.S.E. "What is Project Special Education?" page.

I'm particularly interested in the American history series, because my first major was in history - and in my opinion the subject often isn't handled all that well. Sure: it's possible to kill interest in history by reducing it to a dusty series of unrelated names and dates. (Imagine how popular soccer might be, if kids were forced to memorize the names of every team to make the world cup, before they were allowed to see a grainy photo of a soccer ball.)

Dateline: America isn't like that. It probably isn't the ultimate resource for teaching history to high schoolers. But until you find that academic El Dorado, I think it'll do. And checking it out won't take more than a minute or two:

• Dateline: America

Am I 'pushing' Dateline: America? Yeah, actually, I am.

Most of Project Special Education's customers when I worked for the companies were traditional schools. Dateline, America is a pretty good resource for parents who home school their kids, too. It's designed for teachers, by people who were teachers themselves - or at least understood what's involved - so most of the preparation is already done.

And yes: it works for home schooling. That's not a guess: all four of our kids have been (or are being) home-schooled from seventh grade through high school graduation. And we're using Dateline: America for the American history units. It works.

Don't let the "special education" part of the name fool you: it's not 'dumbed down' geared for stupid kids.

What sets the Project Special Education products apart from most high school texts is that they're designed for easy reading.

Let's put it this way: although utilizing polysyllabic vocabulary and assemblages of sentences whose structures are not only of unnecessary, but of superfluously elaborate, complexity may impress and bedazzle - Writing simple statements is better.

Better, that is, if the idea is to inform.

Dang! I was going to work "pleonastic redundancy" into that jaw-breaker of a sentence. Oh, well: You get the idea, I think.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Police Handcuff Dangerous Student! School Protected From Erasable Marker!"
  (April 6, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Home Schooling isn't What You May Think"
  (March 31, 2010)
• "Ötzi, Tattoos, Acupuncture, and Things We Don't Know"
  (March 5, 2009)
• "Worst High School Analogies, plus Gilbert and Sullivan"
  (August 29, 2007)

Museum of Glass: "Hot glass. Cool art."

Museum of Glass
"Hot glass. Cool art."

"All glass, all the time. Housed in a striking building distinguished by its iconic 90-foot-high cone, the Museum of Glass features ongoing glassblowing demonstrations in the Hot Shop Amphitheater, where visitors learn about the creative challenges of working with molten glass. The 13,000 square feet of gallery space is dedicated to changing exhibitions of works executed in glass. A hands-on art studio is available for visitors...."
(From the about page.)

They're in Tacoma, Washington.

Looks like a great place. The website has live streaming video of the Museum of Glass hot shop - which obviously isn't available when the shop isn't open. Live streaming video.

The link labeled "virtual museum" on the home page isn't. I mean, the page it leads to is more a description of what the Museum of Glass is, where it is, and why it's so cool. Still, the photos are nice.

Most of what I saw on the website was attractive, well-written, and well-designed. Then, on a page about the history of the museum, I found this:

"Warning: include(/includes/store-rotator.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/museumof/public_html/about-mog/history/index.php on line 98...."

here were five more, pretty much like this. Apparently something was wrong with lines 98, 100, and 102 of either software the web designer was using, or of a data set. (I checked the page's source code: it's an ordinary text document, with HTML tags and all - I'm surprised nobody spotted those 'warning' messages.)

Don't get me wrong: It's a beautiful website, other than that.

I think glass art is one of the more striking examples of technology and creativity interacting. Glass is a very practical substance: here in Minnesota, it allows my household to maintain fairly comfortable temperature levels inside winter and summer, while still having light and a view outside.

It's used to make light bulbs, lenses, and bottles.

And with a little tweaking, it can be used to make beautiful sculptures.

I'd like to see the Museum of Glass myself, in person: but meanwhile I'll settle for visiting the website.

Leftover Chocolate, Microwave Ovens, and the Speed of Light

"Leftover Valentine's Chocolate? Use It to Measure the Speed of Light"
Kathy Ceceri, GeekDad, Wired (February 15, 2010)

"If you're a long-time reader, you may remember the great leftover Easter Peeps microwave experiment. Well, today we're going to be nuking leftover Valentine's Day chocolate to demonstrate one of the constants of physics, the speed of light. Chocolate makes a very appropriate medium, because the heating property of microwaves was first discovered by a scientist whose candy bar melted in his pocket when he got too close to a microwave device being tested for use in radar...."

The author tells what's involved in the physics, how to set up the microwave oven - and how to avoid "familial strife" over chocolate.

And (kudos!) tells where she found the information.

If you've heard of this before: I'm not surprised. As Ceceri says, "it can be found all over the Internet".

Bottom line? This looks like fun, it's educational - and you can eat the results. Not bad at all.

Bubbles!

Bubbles
Exploratorium

"Sticky Water

"The Shape of Bubbles

"When Bubble Meets Bubble

"Soap

"Bubble Colors"

There's more, of course. That's just the splash screen/index for the Exploratorium's section on bubbles.

I've been to the Exploratorium in San Francisco - about three decades back. It was a marvelous place then, and probably still is. The folks who founded it had decided that people learn more if they're able to get involved with processes. Which is a sophisticated way of saying that the Exploratorium encouraged people to wade in and get hands-on with science.

The organizers were careful, of course. The horseshoe crab had a handler who made sure that the weird critter didn't get hurt, for example.

The online section of bubbles should be fun to go through - and 'educational' without making you want to scream.

I checked the page source, and there's quite a lot of text that's supposed to show up on each page. Right now, my browser's not showing any of it, so all I get is a really big white page with pictures like this on it:

Impressive, of course - but without the accompanying text, somewhat arcane.

Well, maybe it's just my system. Although everything I've checked today, before and since, displays correctly. I'll reboot the browser, after posting this.

---

Update (January 23, 2010)

Aha! The background graphic hadn't loaded. And whoever designed the page - or the designer's supervisor - had decided to make the pages' font white. And make the default page background white, too. The background graphic is fairly dark, so the white text shows up just fine. If the page background had been a dark color, it wouldn't have made a difference.

Oh, well.

Trilobites, Arthropods, Evolution, and Why Mothra Isn't Real

"Trilobites: Extinct, but not a failure"
The Arthropod Story, Understanding Evolution, University of California, Berkeley

"The trilobites may have gone extinct (along with 95% of marine species) during the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, but that doesn’t mean that they were a failure. On the contrary, the trilobites survived for more than 250 million years (longer than the dinosaurs), and dominated seafloor ecosystems for much of this time...."

This page is in the middle of the longer "Arthropod Story" section of Berkeley's online (tutorial, I suppose) about evolution. Navigation's quite intuitive (for me), the pages are well-designed with animations and branching links limited to concepts that actually require them.

In short, a well-designed page in a well-designed website.

Quite a few pages beyond this one, there's a pretty good set of examples that gets the idea of square-cube limitations on structures. That's the reason that fifty-foot tarantulas and King Kong are fine fantasies, but wouldn't work in the real world. Not as shown, anyway.

As I went along, I saw a pretty good discussion of why the respiratory and circulatory systems of spiders and crabs makes it easier for them to be large than it is for insects. And one of the better discussions of how we think evolutionary adaptation works.

---

Isn't Evolution the Work of the Devil or Something?

When (and where, I suspect) I was growing up, a frightfully 'religious' subculture was having fits about evolution - when they weren't using numerology to find connections between the Bible and the Soviet Union's military inventory.

From what I still run into, now and again, it looks like the loyal acolytes of Ussher are still around. And people who are convinced that Earth is flat.¹ They're not necessarily the same people, though.

Anyway, if you listen to the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) people: Christianity is a psychiatric condition, characterized by chronic breaks with reality and a marked aversion to systematic investigations of nature. If my memory serves, Freud and Marx had views similar to that.

Me? I'm one of those benighted dupes of the Whore of Babylon: a practicing Catholic.

There are Catholics who are convinced that evolution is some kinda plot, the work of the devil, and/or utterly nasty. But that's not a teaching of the Church.

Let's put it this way: St. Albert the Great is the patron saint of scientists and Gregor Mendel was a Catholic monk. (Mendel is the dude who got genetics going as a science - although I don't know if he's mentioned much these days.)

I touched on Catholic views of reason, science, and reality; and contemporary Western culture's preferences; in another blog:

• "Faith and Reason, Religion and Science"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 20, 2009)
• "Catholic Church, Creationism, Evolution, Facts and Faith"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 5, 2009)

That Doesn't Sound Very Apathetic: What Gives?

The Lemming is "apathetic" only in that I don't have intense, obsessive feelings about the culturally-normative things. I've written about this before.

---

¹ Sadly, the formally-organized Flat Earth Society seems to have broken up around 2001. But there are plenty of people still dedicated to arguing that Earth is flat. (alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm and theflatearthsociety.org, for starters) Some of them, I suspect, are in it for the laughs. Others are quite likely convinced that there's some kinda plot to deceive the masses.

Buzz Lightyear's Tickertape Parade: "To Infinity and Beyond" - and Back to Earth

"NASA, Disney Celebrate Buzz Lightyear's Return From Space"
CollectSpace, Space.com (October 2, 2009)

"A well-traveled, 12-inch Buzz Lightyear action figure received a homecoming on Friday worthy of any full-size astronaut who returned after more than a year spent onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"Disney Parks and NASA came together Friday at Walt Disney World in Florida to celebrate Buzz Lightyear's landing with the launch of a contest for kids to design the 'Toy Story'" astronaut's mission patch and debut a new online game as part of the 'Space Ranger Education Series' on the space agency's Web site.

"NASA also used today to announce a competition for students to develop science experiments to be conducted onboard the station.

"The celebration culminated this afternoon with a marching band-led ticker-tape parade down the Magic Kingdom's Main Street USA featuring the flown Buzz Lightyear, his namesake - moonwalker Buzz Aldrin - and astronaut Mike Fincke, who was on the space station for six of the 15 months that the toy Lightyear was there. (Visit collectSPACE to see photographs from the parade.)..."

Okay: There isn't anything terribly 'scientific' about a 12-inch action figure getting a ticker-tape parade. On the other hand, someone who's eight, or 10, or so now may, sixty years from now, write about how following Buzz Lightyear's tour of duty on the ISS was a first step to following a career in the sciences - or engineering - or writing about space exploration, so that more people could understand the wonders that start a few miles over our heads.

And, the article was a fun read. For me, anyway.

By the way:

"...NASA also debuted today a game on its website featuring Buzz Lightyear, as well as a second design challenge for students to conduct experiments on the space station."

Related posts:

• "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, NASA, and What's Educational"
  (September 17, 2009)
• "Space Shuttle Discovery, Minnesotan, and Buzz Lightyear, in Orbit"
  (May 31, 2008)
• ""To Infinity - and Beyond!" Buzz Lightyear Goes Into Space"
  (May 29, 2008)

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, NASA, and What's Educational

"Buzz Lightyear to Get Ticker Tape Parade After Record Spaceflight"
Space.com (September 17, 2009)

"Buzz Lightyear has been about as close to infinity as he'll ever get, and he's back. The 'Toy Story' character will get a ticker tape parade at Walt Disney World in Florida Oct. 2 to celebrate his record-setting 468 days in space.

"The longest stretch in space previously was in 1995 by Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, who Buzz just bested by a month.

"The 12-inch tall Buzz (who no doubt thinks he's the only Buzz) headed to the International Space Station last year aboard Discovery's STS-124 mission in joint educational effort by NASA and Disney. He returned Sept. 11, aboard space shuttle Discovery's STS-128 mission after his 15 months aboard the orbiting outpost...."

I know: "educational" and a 12-inch Buzz Lightyear (of Star Command) figure don't seem to belong in the same sentence. I think there's a case for this, though. Granted, NASA's Buzz Lightyear in Orbit site on the NASA Kid's Club isn't going to teach much about quadratic equations and the comparative resistance to corrosion of ferric and non-ferric alloys - but it just might get some kids interested enough in space exploration to be willing to learn what it takes to get involved.

Someone wrote, years back, how Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom stories had sparked his interest in science. I don't think anyone would seriously suggest that works like "A Princess of Mars," "The Warlord of Mars," or "Swords of Mars" were useful textbooks for someone studying exobiology. But they jump-started at least one person's imagination and interest in exploring the real Mars.

So, yeah: I don't have a problem with Buzz Lightyear getting a ticker-tape parade at Walt Disney World. And, twenty or forty years from now, someone may be writing how Buzz Lightyear of Star Command started a journey of discovery. That person might even be writing on Mars.

More:

• Buzz Lightyear in Orbit site
  NASA Kid's Club
• "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command"
  Disney official website
• "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command"
  IMDB.com

Learn Japanese Online - Looks Promising

Learn Japanese Online

"Learn Japanese Online
"for free with easy flash quizes

"Dear Visitor,

"Welcome to easyjapanese.org

"This site intends to provide useful tools for people who wish to learn Japanese online for free. First, there is the interesting Fujisan Kana Quiz testing tool. Learn how to write the hiragana here. If you masterd it, take a shot at the Kanji glyphs, using our flashcards. You can also play the fun memory game with a variety of difficulties.

"It is quite easy to start to learn Japanese. Select one of the links on the left that best suites your interest. For example, it's much fun to discover the different writing modes. You can use the script tables to learn the glyphs, then test your knowledge with the Fujisan flash quiz. While testing, you will memorize the so far unknown characters. So visit one of our sections:..."

Okay: the word "masterd" is misspelled in the first paragraph. I didn't notice until I went through the text a second time. The syntax is correct, standard, English. I think it's likely that whoever wrote the English text spoke another language before learning a foreign tongue, but what I've read so far is quite easy to understand.

My hat's off to whoever did the writing, by the way: English is my cradle-language, and I recognize how maddeningly difficult it can be to use correctly.

More, from the website's home page:

"...Japanese is unlike most of the western languages. It is mostly concise and straight forward. For example, there is no conjugation of the verbs depending on the person and number, and no suffixes for plural for nouns. Though, the writing is a bit more challenging. There are three scripts: hiragana, katakana and kanji. The knowledge of the first two can be tested using the Fujisan Quiz...."

They've got a "Word of the Day" - today's "ohayoo" ("おはよう" "お早う") "good morning" - I very greatly appreciate seeing a Latin-alphabet version of the Japanese term, approximating its pronunciation.

I'm hoping that this website will be a useful resource, when I need to understand words, phrases, or passages in Japanese. Online translators are convenient: but I've learned that even the best 'mechanical' translations can result in, well, odd results.

Is There Gravity in Space? (Short Answer: Yes)

"Is There Gravity in Space?"
Space.com (July 27, 2009)

"Astronauts and space tourists may rhapsodize about feeling weightless during spaceflight, but don't be fooled by the somewhat misleading term 'zero-gravity.' Every object in space still feels the gravitational pull from other objects, including space travelers who imagine themselves free of Earth's gravitational shackles.

"Earth's gravity affects everything at or near the planet's surface. We feel the force of gravity on Earth through our mass, and that force also translates into a downward pull of 9.8 meters per second squared (32 ft/s^2)...."

Actually, any "space travelers who imagine themselves free of Earth's gravitational shackles" weren't paying attention during their high school physics classes.

This Space.com article is a pretty good overview of the physics of gravity, and gives some interesting factoids along the way: like Earth's gravity in the ISS's orbit being about 90% of what we experience here on the surface.

The term 'free fall' is more accurate than 'weightlessness' - the article explains that something in Earth orbit is falling towards Earth, but that Earth's surface curves away as the object falls. (The trick to staying in orbit is to be moving forward fast enough to keep from hitting the atmosphere.)

A pretty good basic-science article.

Atomic Science Set

"The Ultimate Science Kit"
Retro Thing (March 24, 2009)

"From Oak Ridge Associated Universities: 'This was the most elaborate Atomic Energy educational set ever produced, but it was only only available from 1951 to 1952. Its relatively high price for the time ($50.00) and its sophistication were the explanation Gilbert gave for the set's short lifespan...."

There's a photo of the set. These days, the vice president who came up with an idea like this might be back in the mail room before the hazmat team was through with his/her office. American society today is much more 'safety conscious,' or 'risk-averse,' depending on how you see things, than we were in the early fifties.

It's a wonderful look at another age, when people didn't 'know' that killer bees make nuclear reactors blow up. I'm not making that up: "The Swarm," 1978, was touted as a warning of the perils of nuclear power. In the movie, a swarm of killer bees made a reactor explode. In a matter of seconds. I saw the movie not too long after its release. The TV Tropes wiki is quite accurate.

I'm just glad that it's still possible for collectors to buy and sell things like The Ultimate Science Kit.

Maybe, someday, the powers that be in America will be willing to allow a bit less cotton batting around our lives.

It's Green, it's Keen, it's a Teaching Dream! - Paperless Teaching

This micro-review is mostly for teachers, but you might be interested, too. Or, you might be a teacher.

"Teaching Without Paper"
Dynamite Lesson Plan (March 18, 2009)

"In January of 2008 I was asked by Lorelle van Fossen to write a post for Edublogs Magazine. I had a short humorous post about a broken copy machine and my frustration. I added a few touches here and there and had my guest post for the online mag. Well, since then I have really learned to teach without paper. I've modified curriculum and innovated strategies that utilize A/V and interactive tools (like white boards) to achieve more than paper ever did. EDI is a great method to use in a paperless lesson. Do I need to add it's a 'green' direction? That seems to be everybody's concern these days. If interested, the source of EDI and more information is at Data Works.

"To give you an idea what a day without paper looks like, here's an example of a day I've taught:..."

As a recovering English teacher, reading this post was a sort of flashback experience. The first impression I had was that there was no way I'd want to teach, using the example as a lesson plan.

I was wrong, in a way. The list I jumped into isn't a lesson plan, despite having some of the elements. It's a very abbreviated example of a day spent teaching: without paper.

As the author wrote, "I hope that gave you some ideas. Now it's your turn."

My wife and I home school our kids (their idea) from seventh grade on, so we've been doing this 'teaching without paper' thing for years. No big deal: We don't have the budget for the sort of paperwork that's popular at schools. So, instead, we concentrate on teaching.

Okay: back to this post.

You'll see the word "green" there. Unless you're someone who can't do anything sensible without calling it "green:" skip over that. Sure, you'll put less of a strain on you landfill, and the school's budget.

Selling a plan like this to the school administration might be the hardest part of the transition. Particularly if "we've never done it that way before." Some of the initial investment in equipment might be pricey.

What impressed me most about "Teaching Without Paper" is that it's written by a teacher who's actually used the techniques in the field. Back when I was part of the educational establishment, I warmed a few chairs in 'workshops,' listening to experts praise their pet ideas - which they'd obviously never tried to apply to living, breathing, students.

I do not think that "Teaching Without Paper" is a panacea that will solve all your teaching woes, end world hunger, and bring peace, love, and understanding throughout the world.

I do think that it's an idea that's worth considering.

Ladybugs, Lady Beetles, Asian Beetles, Asian Lady Beetles: At Least Aphids are Aphids

I've read about ladybugs, lady beetles, Asian lady beetles, and Asian beetles, for some time now. There seems to be some confusion about what beetles are called what. I still don't know for sure, but here are some online resources, by people who should know what they're writing about.

"The Multi-colored Asian Ladybeetle"
Michigan State University, MSU Extension, MSU Dept of Entomology, the Michigan Dept of Agriculture, and the MSU Integrated Pest Management Program

"A good bug with some bad habits
"The multi-colored Asian lady beetle is a native of Asia, and like many exotic species, has readily adapted to climates and habitats in the U.S. As with most lady beetles, it is a highly beneficial predator of insect pests, especially aphids. Asian lady beetles can create trouble when large numbers enter buildings or feed on late season fruit crops...."

"LADYBUGS"
University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Entomology

"Ladybugs, also called lady beetles or ladybird beetles, are a very beneficial group. They are natural enemies of many insects, especially aphids and other sap feeders. A single lady beetle may eat as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. Many species of lady beetles are present in Kentucky and they are common in most habitats...."

That's the Size of It: Local Galaxies to Quarks

"Secret Worlds: The Universe Within"
Molecular Expressions

"View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf...."

A pretty good way to get a feel for the size of things, probably inspired by the Charles and Ray Eames 1977 short film, "Powers of Ten." "Secret Worlds: The Universe Within" is interactive - you can go from frame to frame after the whole thing has loaded.

There's a bit of artistic license here and there: orbits of the planets in the Solar system are shown as colored ellipses, and colors are assigned to parts of the 'foam' down at quark scales. But I think that helps get the points across. Besides, considering the physics involved, we can't see anything that small: units of the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we sense are too big.

The "Powers of Ten" film may be available alone, or as part of a collection, on amazon.com.

And, there's an 'Eames online' website: powersof10.com.

The Periodic Table: Dynamic!

Dynamic Periodic Table

Click on an element and see what Wikipedia says about it.

Looks like fun, and the chart displays a moderately cool visual effect when it loads.

Map of Our Stellar Neighbors

"32 Nearby Stars
Krystian Majewski, designer

"A spatial representation of every star within 14 light-years of the Solar System in orthographic projection. There are 32 stars in this region, including the Sun. The stars are colored according to the spectral type,..."

It's interactive, the relatively slow rotation gives a very definite 3D sense, and rolling over a star brings up a little data display. (Adobe Flash Player, version 9 or better needed)

Attractive, fun (for astro-geeks like me), and - well - educational.

Outer Space Guide

"Outer Space Guide"

Animated diagram of the first few miles up from Earth's surface.

Four things to click on.

Each clickable brings up a little card (looks like a window, but it's part of the picture) with a cartoon and a factoid.

The page gets points for imagination: Earth's center is toward the top of the screen, the deeps of space are on the bottom.

Fun - for maybe 10 to 45 seconds.

But, you might find yourself coming back, later.