Archive for the ‘Science’ category

Explore the Red Planet Online!

July 13th, 2010

Explore Mars Online

Thanks to NASA, students and amateur scientists can now explore the Red Planet online using software released today by Microsoft Research.

Though many of the images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are already available on the space agency’s Web site, Microsoft has now loaded them into its WorldWide Telescope interface, which creates a way for users to easily pan around the images to see them in context, and presents them in higher resolution than previously available online.

“You can actually see rover tracks on the Martian surface,” said Dan Fay, director of earth, energy, and environment for Microsoft Research, in an interview.

The WorldWide Telescope software is free but only runs on Microsoft’s Windows operating system. A Web interface of the system is available, but the Mars images are not yet available there.

Meanwhile, some professors and schoolteachers use the Web telescope in their classrooms, and anyone online is encouraged to scour the images to find unique features of Mars that professional researchers might have missed.

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The Art of Science

May 18th, 2010
Hall-effect thruster

Winning image at Princeton's "Art of Science" exhibit

Princeton University on Monday opened its fourth “Art of Science” exhibit online. The exhibit, which “explores the interplay between science and art”,  showcases photographs and images made in the course of scientific research at the school. Undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, alumni, and research staff contributed images to the 2010 competition. This year’s theme was “energy”.

The winning image was a picture of a Hall-effect thruster, taken by faculty member Jerry Ross. See this video slideshow of the exibit’s imagery.

Princeton is of course not the first school to display artistic visualizations that model science.  Many others schools have done so, including MIT, Cal Tech, Lafayette College, Carnegie Mellon and Rollins College. Last year, MIT’s Media Lab exhibited work from their lab at Ars Electronica, an Austrian center for art, technology, and society.

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Renewable Energy and Sustainable Design College Launched

April 22nd, 2010

Ecotech Institute

The company behind Virginia College, Education Corporation of America, has launched a school exclusively serving students interested in green energy and sustainable design.

The Ecotech Institute is opening initially in Aurora, Colo., with plans to expand to other cities where the company has schools, which could include Austin. Ecotech offers seven associate degrees as well as a cleantech certificate program.

“The time has come for a higher education institution that is 100 percent focused on preparing Americans for green collar jobs, not merely a department or program inside of an institution,” said Tom Moore, president and CEO of Education Corporation.

Degrees include:

  • Electrical Engineering Technology, Associate of Applied Science
  • Energy and Environmental Paralegal, Associate of Applied Science
  • Energy Efficiency, Associate of Applied Science
  • Environmental Technology, Associate of Applied Science
  • Renewable Energy Technology, Associate of Applied Science
  • Solar Energy Technology, Associate of Applied Science
  • Sustainable Interior Design, Certificate Program
  • Wind Energy Technology, Associate of Applied Science

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