The Mythbusters Want You! Retry on the Solar Death Ray

A few years ago I started finding sticks around the yard covered with strange messages that looked like they had been seared right into the wood. It turned out that the unknown words were names sacred to the world of Bionicles -- and that one of his friends had taught my son how to set fire to things with a magnifying glass.

After laying down some parameters (I grew suspicious when he said that something smelled "like burning ants") I agreed to let him experiment, carefully, with his new-found mode of expression. I even incorporated his message sticks into an article on solar-powered crafts.

And in the course of researching that article, I found a fascinating experiment performed by the Mythbusters, those guys on the Discovery Channel who try to prove or disprove urban legends and other popular folklore. In 2004, Jamie and Adam reflected on one of the world's oldest enduring tales — did the Greek scientist Archimedes set fire to a Roman fleet of ships using only mirrors and sunlight? The duo claimed to have disproved the myth, but an engineering class at MIT decided to give it a try themselves. Their successful attempt to set a two-dimensional model of a boat aflame led to an invitation to recreate the experiment with the Mythbusters themselves. This new try resulted in some charring and smoldering but not much of a conflagration.Now they're at it again. And you can help! Makezine's blog reports that the show is looking for 300 volunteers to man the mirrors on a third attempt at the Archimedes Death Ray. The experiment take place in September in the San Francisco area. So if you're a fan of the show (which has been called the biggest booster for science on television) and don't mind standing around for a day in the hot sun, give them a ring.

Can't make it? Try these links with your kids (caution advised in trying them out at home, though):

A giant solar furnace in France
The original Solar Death Ray
Ant City (cruel but fun, and not harmful to real living creatures)
Kathy Ceceri's new book, Around the World Crafts, a collection of her Hands-On Learning columns from Home Education Magazine, includes message sticks and other solar crafts.

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Amazing Stat: California Uses More Gas than China

Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world's most populous country is hogging all the world's resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps.

But, at least with transportation fuel, you'd be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California's 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China's! (Or Russia's. Or India's. Or Brazil's. Or Germany's.)

That's according to the California Energy Commission's State Alternative Fuels Plan, which was posted online last Christmas Eve (pdf). The whole report makes for some fascinating reading because it's a blueprint for a low-carbon and renewable transportation fuel future. The dominant takeaway: it ain't going to be easy.

One more choice statistic: gasoline usage in California has increased 50 percent, that's 10 6.7 billion gallons, since 1988. Has there been anything close to a commensurate increase in quality of life here to accompany that rise in energy use?

But China's oil thirst is growing -- to almost 20 billion gallons in 2007 -- and perhaps as early as this year, China's 1.3 billion people will overtake California's 37 million people in total gasoline and diesel usage.

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and webpage; Wired Science on Facebook.

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Last-Ditch Resort: Move Polar Bears to Antarctica?

Some scientists think we may need to give polar bears a new view — in the Antarctic.
Photo: Jonathan Hayward/AP
If the most dire climate predictions come to pass, the Arctic ice cap will melt entirely, and polar bears could face extinction.

So why not pack a few off to Antarctica, where the sea ice will never run out?

It may seem like a preposterous question. But polar bears are just the tip of the "assisted colonization" iceberg. Other possibilities: moving African big game to the American Great Plains, or airlifting endangered species from one mountaintop to another as climate zones shrink.

"It's a showdown. The impacts of climate change on animals have become apparent. And it's time to decide whether we're going to do something," said Notre Dame ecologist Jessica Hellmann, co-author of an influential 2007 Conservation Biology paper (.pdf). "Reducing CO2 is vital, but we might have to step in and intervene."

Once dismissed as wrongheaded and dangerous, assisted colonization -- rescuing vanishing species by moving them someplace new -- is now being discussed by serious conservationists. And no wonder: Caught between climate change and human pressure, species are going extinct 100 times faster than at any point in human history.

And some scientists say that figure is too conservative. The real extinction rate, they say, is a full 1,000 times higher than normal. The last time such annihilation took place was during the time of the dinosaurs. And though many conservationists say that saving species by transplanting them is foolish, others say there's no choice.

"They want the world to be what it was before. But it's not going to happen," said Australian ecologist Hugh Possingham, author of an assisted-colonization article published Thursday in Science (citation page).

The language of Possingham's paper is understated -- its centerpiece is a risk-benefit flow chart -- but the recommendations are radical. He proposes a systematic analysis of Earth's threatened species, identifying those suitable for last-ditch uprooting.

That the scientific world's most august publication carries such a proposal marks a sea-level shift in conservationist consciousness, say researchers. Others have weighed the idea, but Possingham's team came down firmly in favor.

Adding to the momentum, the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in August will be preceded by a three-day discussion of assisted colonization, by ecologists, policy wonks and lawyers.

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The Ultimate Blog Post

While blogging has only reached prominence in the last few years, it was actually invented by the ancient Romans who built a majestic blog in 200 BC from marble, granite and links they stole from the Greeks.

"Blog" itself is short for "weblog," which is short for "we blog because we weren't very popular in high school and we're trying to gain respect and admiration without actually having to be around people."

Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it. One popular technique for building readership is to send e-mail to more well-trafficked blogs offering to exchange links with them. One popular response from those blogs is to laugh derisively and hit the Delete button.

Another approach for advertising your blog is to mention it as much as possible in conversation; you'd be surprised how many people are fascinated to hear you have a blog and want to know more, especially if you were expecting the number to be greater than zero.

However, there are many popular blogs already in existence, and if you want people to think you're cool, you're probably better off claiming you were a "guest blogger" for one of them. Your average blog has so many guest bloggers and such a crappy search feature that nobody will ever be able to prove you wrong.

As a handy guide for crafting your horrible lies, here's a list of some of the already popular blogs out there. (I'm omitting the blogs at Wired, because, hey, I have to work with these people.) Along with each blog's name, I've provided what would be the ultimate perfect blog entry for that particular blog. I'm tired of the word "blog" now.

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Free ASP.NET Hosting for UK Students

In the past when talking to students about ASP.NET one common criticism is the prohibitive cost of ASP.NET hosting in the UK. I have been told numerous time by students that they can get Apache/PHP/MySQL hosting for next to nothing or even free but Windows based hosting is unaffordable.

Based on this feedback we have been working with Webfusion to offer ASP.NET hosting to all UK students for free!

The free hosting includes:

Windows Server 2008, IIS 7, 500 MB disk space
SQL Server 2005 database
Support for ASP.NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, classic ASP and PHP
To get your free account you need a unique code and a .ac.uk email address.

We will be distributing the codes directly via our faculty contacts, upcoming Inspiration Tour dates and best of all THROUGH THIS BLOG.

So if you're a student and would like to sign up but don't have a code please use the email link to the right or comment on this post to get one!

For those of you who already have a code... go activate it here.

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The Big Secret Key to High School Success

Image courtesy of Ul Marga

I am currently in my second semester of my second last year of high school, and looking back on all that I’ve learned, I realised that there was something I really wish someone had told me on my very first day of the ninth grade. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have payed much closer attention and been a lot more successful. I wouldn’t have gotten that blasted 64% in math last year and hurt my chances of getting into the marketing program I want. Nor would I have had that very public mental breakdown a few years ago from chronic, long term stress.

I’m sure all of you university, college or graduate students already know “The Big Secret Key to High School Success” or TBSKtHSS if you’re into acronyms. Your parents probably told you about it many times, and you just shrugged and brushed it off your shoulders, only to start telling all the young people you meet the very same thing a few years later. In fact, you grandparents probably told your parental units the very same thing. They probably reacted the same way you did when they told you because it’s much too simple to be effective. After all, the more effort you put into something, the better it is, right? Simple can’t possibly be good, can it?

The reason that TBSKtHSS is so hard to believe when you hear it is that it relies heavily on hindsight, which is something you lack when starting a new phase in your life. You can’t look back on an event it it’s still happening to you, can you? I’ll reveal the secret in a minute, but there probably won’t be much you can do with it if you’re still in high school. You still lack that all important hindsight. But don’t worry. I do too remember? In fact, I had to call my best friends adult sister to ask her what the big secret is anyway. She’s in second year university and has had adequate time to look back on her four years in high school. You know what she said to me?

“Balance.”

That’s it. “Enjoy your time while you’ve got it. Balance your life if you really want to be happy and successful. You can’t be all work, but you can’t be all play. It’s rarely as bad as you think it is.”


It was such a simple reply I wanted to scream. I’ve been dwelling on this for a couple of days, trying to come up with eloquent prose that detailed the knowledge of generations past. And yet, when I asked those generations past what their big secret was, I got a one word reply.

Does this then mean that it really is as simple as that? That we’re probably over complication things with our constant desires of perfection? Of perfect résumés, of perfect records, of perfect minds? Apparently, the answer is yet another one word reply. Yes.

So take a deep breath. Study some and party some. Smell the roses, then smell the pages of your textbook. Hang out with your friends at the movies, and hang out with them at the library. Balance your life if you want to make the most of it.

And that my friends, is the great big secret to high school success.

***

I thought it’d be appropriate to introduce myself, seeing as this is my first time ever writing for Gearfire. My name is Ayomide (pronounced i-oh-me-day. It means “my joy has come.”) I’m a high school junior who one day decided to stop being self-centered, and start doing something meaningful with my self and help others. I do this by writing. Here, I plan on writing more articles like this one- articles that help you put things in perspective. As for student success, my area of expertise would of course be how to succeed in high school, seeing as it’s a bit different than college/university/graduate school. I’m a master at motivation, balancing extra curricular activities with life and school, self-improvement, and networking.

I also write a blog called Ayomeday.com where I cover how to live the kind of life that makes you smile. (And look good doing it!)

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