To honor one of the most enduringly inspiring scientists ever to grace a lab, France and Poland declared 2011 to be the Year of Marie Curie.
Now, Google joins the welcome pageant of prominent tributes.
The California company’s search-engine home page on Nov. 7 celebrates the 144th anniversary of Madame Curie’s birth with a pastel-colored “Google Doodle” so evocative of her era.
Curie is the latest science figure to join Google’s pantheon of “Doodled” researchers, including Thomas Edison and “father of genetics” Gregor Mendel and “Vitamin C” scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi.
The laurels accorded Curie are numerous and still accumulating a century after she won her second Nobel Prize — the first of only two people ever to win the prize in multiple fields (the other being Linus Pauling). She was also the first woman ever to win the Nobel, and the first researcher to win in multiple sciences (physics and chemistry). But the breadth and depth and influence of her career — as well as the triumphs and tragedies of her life — paint a much fuller picture of the groundbreaking figure who in a 2009 New Scientist poll was voted “the most inspirational woman in science.”
Born in Warsaw in 1867 as Maria Sklodowska, Curie left her native Poland after she was deemed too poor to marry her would-be fiance, future esteemed mathematician Kazimierz Zorawski. So with her sister’s help, she relocated to France in the 1890s, studying at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and meeting her scientific “soulmate,” Pierre Curie. As they both studied the science of magnetism, they discovered, too, their own personal magnetic attraction.
Together, Marie and Pierre Curie did pioneering work in radioactivity (a term she coined), working with uranium, isolating radioactive isotopes and discovering the elements radium and polonium — the latter named for her native land.
The Curies shared in the 1903 Nobel for physics, bringing them fame as side by side, they grew their professional and personal lives. They had two daughters before Pierre’s untimely death when he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle on a rainy street in 1906.
Rendered “wretched” and lonely by the tragedy, Marie Curie poured herself into her work, becoming the first woman to become a Sorbonne professor. In 1911, Curie received her second Nobel, this time for chemistry.
Several years later, during World War I, Curie helped set up mobile field hospitals that featured primitive X-ray equipment to help detect shrapnel in soldiers. She worked in the field with her teenage daughter Irene, who — with her husband, Frederic Joliot-Curie — would later win the 1935 chemistry Nobel for her work on artificial radioactivity.
Exposed to so many radioactive materials throughout her career, Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia in 1934.
In addition to her many honors, she founded the Curie Institutes in France and Poland; co-founded the Warsaw Radium Institute; and headed the Pasteur Institute.
Curie’s accomplishments in the lab led to her being interred (with her husband) at the Pantheon, Paris — the first woman so honored based on her work.
Curie helped forever change not only how science thought about radioactivity, but also how the world perceived women in science.
Science of the Sandwich: turn your favorite, triple-decker into a tower of nutritional power!
Here’s how not to build a sandwich: Start with wimpy white bread, smear on the mayo really thick, and then pile on an entire package plus a dozen individually wrapped slices cheese. Instead of a hero, you’ve got yourself a nutritional supervillain. The good news is, it’s simple to recast that sandwich. Here’s how to do it right, whether you want to ensure a nutritional lunch, additional muscle growth or just plain old good health.
THE BREAD
Image Source: Pixabay.com
All great sandwiches start with great bread. The more nubs and nuggets you see–which indicate fiber content–the better. When shopping, select varieties whose ingredient lists start off with “whole-grain wheat” or “whole-wheat flour.” But know that “wheat flour” isn’t the same thing as “whole-wheat flour”–it’s the “whole” part that contributes the fiber. And don’t go just by color; some wheat breads made with refined white flour (wheat flour that’s been stripped of the coarse, fiber-rich kernel) are colored to look tike whole-wheat bread. Kaiser rolls, baguettes, focaccia, and most pitas (except whole-wheat pitas) are considered “white” bread. Even sourdough, rye and pumpernickel are often actually colored and flavored white-flour breads. A good benchmark is a nutritional score of at least two grams of fiber per slice. Whole-wheat breads may have a smidgen of fat, but not enough to worry about.
Smart bread choices include Freihofer’s Stone Ground 100% Whole Wheat, Wonder 100% Whole Wheat, Nature’s Cupboard Natural l0-Grain, Arnold Country Wheat, and Rubschlager Danish Style Pumpernickel.
THE CHEESE
Image Source: Pixabay.com
Most manufacturers of reduced-fat cheese have finally figured out how to make a product that maintains its classic flavor after the calories and fat have been minimized. More good news: Trimming the fat from these cheeses doesn’t keep them from remaining valuable sources of calcium that keep your bones strong and healthy.
Deli counter: Take a number at the deli counter, it’s worth waiting in line for the likes of Yarlsberg Light Swiss and Alpine Lace Swiss.
Prepackaged aisle: In the prepackaged-cheese aisle, check out Sargento Light Deli Style Sliced Provolone and Sargento Light Deli Style Sliced Swiss. Kraft makes a very serviceable fat-free American cheese product called (surprise!) Fat Free Singles. Kraft also makes Fat Free Swiss Singles, but the flavor seems indistinguishable from that of their American slices (the possibility exists, of course made of stone).
MEAT
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With all the lean choices now available, why to heavily processed, high-fat deli meats oozing with nitrites? Roasted and smoked turkey breast, baked ham and lean roast beef are all better picks.
Just make sure to buy actual meat and not meat blends (baked ham versus ham luncheon meat, for example). The first place to go is the deli counter, where a guy in a white smock will actually weigh and cut the fresh chunks of meat for you into any thickness your heart desires.
For great deli-counter meats, try Healthy Choice Honey Maple Ham, Healthy Choice Honey Roasted and Smoked Turkey Breast, Healthy Choice Italian Style Roast Beef, Boarshead Ovengold Turkey, and Boarshead Baked Ham.
If you insist on shopping in the prepackaged-meat aisle, be careful: If it looks like it’s been preserved in hair gel, perhaps it’s a bit too processed. When you buy pure meat (such as turkey breast, ham carved from the bone, and roast beef), you can actually pull the slices apart with the “grain.”
Some tasty and healthy prepackaged-meat options are Healthy Choice Deli Traditions Garlic & Herb Roast Beef, Healthy Choice Deli Traditions Cooked Ham, Healthy Choice Oven Roasted Turkey Breast Variety Pack, Butterball Fat Free Honey Roasted & Smoked Turkey Breast, and Butterball Fat Free Smoked Turkey Breast.
THE VEGETABLES
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Sandwiches give you the perfect opportunity to sneak in a few of those five servings you’re supposed to eat each day. Start with dark-green lettuce (such as romaine or red leaf), and choose vine-ripened tomatoes for the most flavor. Great additions to any sandwich include roasted red peppers (from water-packed jars), bottled sweet and hot peppers, water-packed artichoke hearts, red-onion slices, fresh basil, fresh watercress leaves, fresh baby spinach leaves, shredded carrots, and even cucumber slices for extra water, fiber and bulk, a triad that increases satisfaction without increasing calories. In fact, one whole cup of vegetables has only 50 calories, but can be loaded with vitamins and minerals. Options include:
* 1 cup carrots–19,000 IU of vitamin A
* 1 tomato–138 mg potassium; lycopene
* 1 cup red peppers–282 mg vitamin C
* 1 cup spinach–245 mg calcium
THE SAUCE
If you’re a true mayonnaise lover, there’s no need to go without. Fat-free and reduced-fat varieties of mayonnaise and Miracle Whip can just as creamy and fat-laden as their oily counterparts. Besides the classic French’s yellow mustard, try country-style honey mustard or any of the gourmet varieties now available in most markets. Fortunately, plenty of healthy and tasty toppings are out there, although some of them can carry hefty amounts of sugar.
Fat-Free Sauces (two tablespoons)
* Salsa-
* Tomato-basil sauce-
* Fat-free Italian salad dressing-
* Black bean sauce-
* Light soy sauce-
* Teriyaki sauce-
* Hickory-smoked barbecue sauce-
QUICK TIP
To add zip to your fat-free mayo, mix in some cayenne pepper.
DODGE THESE BULLETS
Mayonnaise and Miracle Whip: At 11 grams of fat per tablespoon, mayonnaise should come with a prescription for Lipitor. Try fat-free varieties–or mustards, tomato sauces, steak sauces, soy or most Asian sauces.
Full-Fat Cheese: There’s no reason to buy full fat-cheese anymore, not when the reduced-fat selections taste just as good. However, because of their higher water content, fat-free varieties typically don’t melt as well, so keep an eye on the stove to prevent burning.
White Bread: Need we remind you that white bread is lacking in many nutrients? Ease the switch to whole grains by opting for whole-wheat bread before graduating to grainy, multigrain slices.
SUPER SIDES
Mayonnaise-Free Cole Slaw: Combine one cup of prepackaged cole slaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrots) and a quarter-cup of ranch dressing.
Tropical Fruit Salad: Combine two cups of mixed fresh fruit (you can use any combination of cubed melon, papaya, mango, pineapple, berries and oranges).
Brown Rice/Black Bean Salad: Toss together one cup of cooked instant brown rice, one-third cup of canned black beans, two chopped green onions and two tablespoons of Italian salad dressing.
High Touch High Tech of San Antonio shares the wonder of butterflies in the most recent Write On Imagination Magazine. Write On Imagination is a quarterly magazine published for kids by kids. It is a free publication, distributed all across San Antonio & surrounding areas to elementary students in grades K-5.
The October issue of Write On Imagination magazine was themed around butterflies. Popular HTHT Scientist, Mr. Sonic, makes science fun as he brings to life the catapillar’s transformation and how it becomes a beautiful butterfly. Check out his column from this months issue:
In the San Antonio area? Learn more about your local High Touch High Tech by visiting them online at www.ScienceMadeFunSATX.net or contact them at:
High Touch High Tech of Dallas/Ft. Worth oozed and erupted fun into the wonderful Fall Festival concocted by the Waters Edge Family of Faith and the HOA of Glen Oaks in Allen, Texas.
Neighbors gathered from all through the community to join in games, pumpkin decorating, costume fun, and bounce houses, and our Sizzlin’ Scientists were on hand to cap off the activities with powerful volcano eruptions. Children and parents alike enjoyed the mixing, measuring, pouring and wafting, but of course the highlight was the actual eruptions! What a wonderful evening, and HTHT of DFW was honored to join in the fun!
To get more information about High Touch High Tech of Dallas/Ft Worth visit their website www.ScienceMadeFunDFW.net or contact them at:
Check out our updated list of spooky science Halloween Activities here!
Worried about having too much Halloween candy laying around? Here’s a little science you can do with your kids’ haul—or your own!
Chances are if you’ve got kids they’re going to want to go trick-or-treating. This means they’ll end up loaded with way more candy than you’d want them to actually eat. What could you do with the rest? Well, you could donate it, you could take it to a candy buyback program or you could do a little science with it! Here are a few ideas from Candyexperiments.com.
Lifesaver Lights
Here’s a simple one. Grab some wintergreen flavored Life Saver candies, stand in a dark room, face a mirror and chew them with your mouth open. You’ll see flashes of light that result from electrons in the candy; these are more easily visible thanks to the wintergreen flavoring.
Pop Rocks
Ever tried pouring some Pop Rocks into a glass of water? If you do, you’ll find that it’s a pretty effervescent experience.
Chocolate Bloom
By rapidly heating and cooling a piece of chocolate, you can gradually seperate it into its component parts. This results in white streaks and spirals called chocolate bloom. You can even still eat the chocolate once this is done—the texture might be a little unusual but it’s still perfectly edible!
Density Rainbow
Skittles are both delicious and colorful – here’s a way to really help that color shine. By using different quantities of various colored Skittles and the principle that sugar makes water more dense, you can create a liquid rainbow. This is one of the tougher experiments to try; make sure you pour the melted Skittles very slowly otherwise the different colors will just mix together.
Color Separation- Chromotography
Even if a piece of candy is only one color, that color can actually contain a variety of differently colored dyes. By dissolving candy coloring into water then slowly dripping that water down a piece of paper, it’s possible to see all those various colors. This is an easy experiment and the results are striking. Try it with brown M&Ms!
In the harsh, remote wilds of the Canadian tundra, a wolverine scampers up to a polar bear snoozing near the shore of the Hudson Bay. The bear rises and makes a half-hearted charge, driving away the fierce, badger-like animal.
The brief encounter Thursday was streamed live to computers around the world through a new program that aims to document in real time the annual migration of hundreds of polar bears outside Churchill, Manitoba.
The bears travel through the small town each October and November and then wait for the Hudson Bay freeze-up, when they can get out on the ice and hunt for seals. In the past, their trek was witnessed mainly by scientists and intrepid tourists.
Now, thanks to an initial $50,000 grant from the Annenberg Foundation to set up four cameras on a makeshift lodge and a roaming Tundra Buggy, plus ongoing payments for bandwidth and technical infrastructure, the bears’ antics and actions at this way station can be viewed from anybody’s living room through the foundation’s website, www.explore.org.
“It brings the Arctic to the people,” said Krista Wright, executive vice-president of Polar Bears International, an advocacy group based in Bozeman, Mont. “The polar bear is the North’s iconic species. This is that exotic animal that people travel from all over the world to see.”
There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide. The Western Hudson Bay polar bears, one of 19 subpopulations, are estimated to number between 600 and 800. Their gathering point near the former military town of Churchill makes them among the most accessible and studied group of bears in existence.
Their numbers are expected to grow over the next few weeks as the weather turns colder, culminating with the bay expected to freeze around the third week of November.
It’s unseasonably warm in Manitoba, as evidenced on the webcam by the tundra bare of snow. That raises concerns that ice will be late in forming again this year — last year, freeze-up didn’t happen until mid-December, nearly a month later than usual. That’s a problem for the bears, Wright said.
“It’s breaking up earlier and freezing later, so the time they’re spending on land is longer. The time they’re on land, they’re basically fasting,” she said.
Charles Annenberg Weingarten, the foundation’s vice-president and a trustee, said the polar bear webcam is an experiment he hopes to expand into a program called Pearls of the Planet that would place streaming cameras in various wild places.
Weingarten said a new feature will be added to the polar bear webcam soon that will allow viewers to document their observations of the polar bears on the website. The idea, he said is to encourage scientific learning, something like a Sesame Street for adults.
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Get the full streaming schedule and more info online by visiting:
A new dog food commercial is designed to capture canine interest since it features high-frequency noises that only dogs and certain other animals can hear. The sounds are either inaudible or not consciously detected by humans.
The ad, for Beneful, is airing in Austria now. It marks a growing trend to incorporate dog-only sounds into entertainment and advertising.
“Pet owners are passionate about their pets and the commercial provides an opportunity for these consumers to engage with their ‘special friends,’” says Carol Johanek, adjunct professor of marketing at the Olin Business School. She was quoted in a Washington University in St. Louis press release.
The TV commercial contains squeaks similar to a dog toy, a whistle barely heard by humans, and a high-pitched pinging noise.
“In today’s world we see an increase of older individuals living alone who rely on their pets for companionship and this provides a time for the owner and pet to interact,” says Johanek. “Understanding the importance of the pet/pet owner relationship is critical for brands in this segment, as it provides opportunities for innovative ways in which to interact with the market.”
Last year, print posters advertising dog food in Germany featured odors that would attract sniffing dogs, not to mention curious owners who were willing to take a whiff.
The TV commercial, in particular, puts an interesting twist on subliminal advertising, or ads that feature information that can influence the viewer, even though he or she may not be consciously aware of the info. I can remember discussions years ago about supermarkets pumping in advertisements underneath the music soundtrack. Maybe that still happens?
In this case, the manipulative sounds are present, but we are not aware of them. Dogs may approach the TV screen so they could be affected, in terms of their behavior. Dogs, of course, aren’t going to run to the store as a result of these sense-stimulating advertisements. The ads are ultimately trying to grab the attention of owners.
“Because the pet itself is such a strong part of their lives, this can provides a great opportunity to influence this buyer,” Johanek says. “Similarly, when we view ads for products geared toward household with young children it almost seems like we are advertising to the child but in fact, due to their influence on the buyer, the female head of household in this case, brands are in fact promoting to the adult purchaser.”
“Brands that really understand the purchase influences surrounding their end-users can do this quite effectively.”
“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice…”
What will be the final destiny of the Universe? Probably it will end in ice, if we are to believe this year’s Nobel Laureates in Physics. They have studied several dozen exploding stars, called supernovae, and discovered that the Universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. The discovery came as a complete surprise even to the Laureates themselves.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 was awarded “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae” with one half to Saul Perlmutter and the other half jointly to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess.
Students learn all about matter with HTHT of Chicagoland!
Butterfield students will learn about “Matter Matters” during an in-school workshop provided by HTHT of Chicagoland. Students will discover all states of matter including plasma, explore evaporation rates, see the cool journey from liquid to gas and discover liquid densities during the hands-on science experience. The in-school field trip will be held from 1:00-2:30 pm on October 13; from 1:00-2:30 pm on October 25; and from 1:00-2:30pm on October 28th.
In only three weeks, gamers did what scientists weren’t able to do in a decade: they’ve deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an HIV-like virus. This isn’t some silly “Let’s Cure AIDS!” game or “Science Research Tycoon” we’re talking about here – it’s the real deal. We’re also not talking about charity work. We’re talking about real, honest to goodness, hands on science. It’s the latest example of games for good, and it might just be the key to a better understanding of retroviruses like HIV.
Foldit is a free game developed by the University of Washington in which different competing groups of gamers race to unfold chains of amino acids. Science folks will tell you that amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and unfolding them will give the scientific community a valuable model to examine and better understand its makeup. Gamers, however, will tell you that unfolding a chain of amino acid is a puzzle. A great big, surprisingly rewarding, puzzle. And gamers completing these puzzles is actually making the world a better place.
But why gamers? Couldn’t a computer just as easily automate the task? “People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at,” says Seth Cooper, one of Foldit’s creators. “We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed,” adds Firas Khatib of the university’s biochemistry lab. “The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.”
So the next time someone tells you that video games are a waste of time, just send them a link to this post. Better yet – just send them to download Foldit.
