Gizmorama

January 10, 2011
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Take a minute for this. It will warm your heart!
Watch the Video that's an Internet Sensation - You'll THANK ME
http://pd.gophercentral.com/u/1077/c/186/a/474
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Good Morning,

Astronomers have brought together a series of telescopes
that will be able to see further back into time! Utilizing
the simple idea that it takes a set amount of time for
signals from outer space to reach earth, scientists are able
to observe events that happened long ago. Check out the
third article for all the details.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Schools putting iPads in classrooms

NEW YORK - More U.S. schools are turning to the iPad as a
teaching tool, using games and animation to teach subjects
such as math and history, observers say. In New York, Roslyn
High School on Long Island gave 47 of the tablet computers
made by Apple to students and teachers in two humanities
classes, and the school district says it plans to eventually
provide iPads to all 1,100 of its students, The New York
Times reported Wednesday. The tablet computers will replace
textbooks in class and at home, allowing students to turn in
papers and homework electronically while communicating with
teachers. "It allows us to extend the classroom beyond these
four walls," said Larry Reiff, an English teacher who posts
all his class materials online. Some educators and parents
worry schools are rushing to the technology before its edu-
cational value has been confirmed by research. "There is
very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better
by using these machines, Larry Cuban, a professor of edu-
cation at Stanford University, says. "IPads are marvelous
tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you
get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning."


'Dry-roasted' plants could be energy fuel

LEEDS, England - Power plants could burn more plant matter
instead of coal if the fuel was delivered pre-roasted like
coffee beans, British researchers say. Researchers at the
University of Leeds say many British power stations burn
plant matter, or biomass, as well as coal to cut their carbon
footprint, but biomass is moist and bulky, making it expen-
sive to transport and difficult to store for long periods
without going moudy, a university release said Tuesday. A
roasting process known as torrefaction could solve that,
scientists from the university's School of Process, Environ-
mental and Materials Engineering say. The process, in which
plant matter is heated to about 575 degrees Fahrenheit in an
air-free container, transforms bulky biomass into a dry,
energy-rich fuel that is cheaper and easier to move around
and has a much longer shelf life. "If we can show that
torrefaction is feasible on an industrial scale then we would
hope to end up with a demonstration plant here in the United
Kingdom," Leeds Professor Jenny Jones said. "We already know
that many more farmers would be interested in growing energy
crops on areas of poorer quality soil if the economic bar-
riers were lowered and the power companies could use more
biomass without losing out financially." Different biomass
materials could replace coal, researchers say, including
energy crops such as willow and Miscanthus, a class of peren-
nial grasses, as well as waste plant matter from forestry
plantations and farms, such as branches of harvested pine
trees and straw.


New telescope array to look back into time

LONDON - A new network of telescopes in Europe will see fur-
ther into space and peer further back in time, astronomers
say. A network of 77 radio telescopes will detect low-frequ-
ency radio signals coming from outer space, giving a view of
events that occurred far in the universe's past due to the
time it takes for the radio waves to reach Earth, The Daily
Telegraph reported this week. Astronomers say they hope to
find clues to how the first stars and galaxies formed after
the Big Bang. The far-flung network of telescopes in Europe,
linked with two other radio telescopes in the southern hemis-
phere, will allow astronomers to sweep large sections of the
sky in a single night and increase the chances of spotting
previously unseen objects in space. "Detecting low-frequency
radio waves means we can look deeper into space than has ever
been possible before and means we will be able to conduct the
first studies of a time known as the epoch of reionization,"
University of Southampton astronomer Rob Fender said. "This
was when the universe moved out of its so-called dark ages in
the first billion years after the Big Bang and the first
stars and galaxies began to form," he said. "By looking this
far back we can hopefully find out more about what caused
this to happen and what these early parts of the universe
looked like," Fender said.


Composition of moon's core is Earth-like

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - U.S. seismologists studying the moon say
it has a core very similar to that of Earth, a finding they
say could provide clues to the moon's formation. Researchers
at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.,
say their findings suggest the moon possesses a solid, iron-
rich inner core with a radius of nearly 150 miles and a
fluid, primarily liquid-iron outer core with a radius of
roughly 205 miles, a NASA release said Thursday. It differs
from Earth's core in that it features a partially molten
boundary layer around the core, estimated to have a radius
of nearly 300 miles, the researchers say. The research hints
at a small percentage of light elements such as sulfur in
the core, echoing research that indicates the presence of
light elements such as sulfur and oxygen in a layer around
Earth's core. The researchers used extensive data gathered
during the Apollo-era moon missions, when four seismometers
were deployed on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972.
"We applied tried and true methodologies from terrestrial
seismology to this legacy data set to present the first-ever
direct detection of the moon's core," said Renee Weber, lead
researcher and space scientist at the Marshall Space Flight
Center.

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