CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Brings deconstructed astronomy book to science high school interview

My book is called a deconstruction book and it’s like when you get a plain old book that nobody reads, sits on the shelves at stores and stuff and getting it and exposing the information in a 3-dimensional work of art. WHAT’S THE BOOK ABOUT? It’s about astronomy, all about the planets, the moons, suns, stars… I can name you everything inside. Right here there’s an asteroid and it’s called Hyperion and Hyperion back in Greek mythology was one of the Titans of the East. 

Javier Peraza, of South Philly, with his project for an application interview at the Science Leadership Academy.

Watch video interview here

Re Clamming Barnegat Bay

Martin Sedlacko, of Forked River, New Jersey volunteers with ReClam the Bay, an environmental organization with an educational focus that grows up seed clams and oysters until they are large enough to be transferred to protected reefs in Barnegat Bay.

The native oyster and clam populations died off substantially in the 1950s and ‘60s due to land development in the shore community and environs, Sedlacko explains. One significant factor is eutrophication; nitrogen (found in fertilizers, acid rain) from runoff contributes to excessive underwater plant growth. In the subsequent dieback and decomposition process, bacteria consumes the oxygen the shellfish depend on.

On Monday afternoons, volunteers gather at a shellfish station on Barnegat Bay off of 24th street in Seaside Heights, not far from the extensive Island Beach State Park on the south side of Long Beach Island. They clean the growing shellfish and introduce bay water into several tanks called “upwellers.” The juveniles feed on plankton in the water.

The Seaside Heights station is one of ten such locations on the bay that participate in the Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Program, a partnership between Rutgers University/Ocean County Cooperative Extension and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Employees from Subaru of Cherry Hill complemented the regular volunteer contingent at the Seaside Heights station on a recent Monday afternoon. In the morning the employees had participated in a bay cleanup. According to one employee, Subaru partners with the Ocean Conservancy because this kind of volunteering is a good fit with its brand and the values held by its customers.

Watch video here

For more information about Barnegat Bay and restoration efforts visit

http://www.reclamthebay.org/

http://ocean.rcre.rutgers.edu/marine/bbsrp.html

http://www.savebarnegatbay.org

Tasting like a lion

Guests sample six different concoctions to understand how animals taste. Cats don't taste sweet so a sweet substance was tasted followed by a sweet blocker followed by another draft of the same sweet substance- which tasted like not worth eating or drinking! At the Philadelphia Science Festival event at Rembrandt's Restaurant produced by the Philadelphia Zoo and Monell Center where they study the sense of taste. Watch video here.

Body odors signal threat?

Amy Gordon,left, a first year grad student who works at the Monell Center, welcomed guests to a Philadelphia Science Festival program on how animals, smell and taste at Rembrandt's Restaurant and Bar. Gordon studies how humans communicate with body odor, especially how a stranger's body odor may influence threatening visual stimuli from the stranger. Fairmount neighborhood, Philadelphia.Watch video here.

Members' Night at Academy of Natural Sciences

WHAT ARE YOU FINDING ON MEMBERS’ NIGHT?

Eli: I found a shell and the picture I colored and another picture of a bird

Michael: a red knot

Eli: eating something

Michael: horseshoe crab eggs.

Eli: The shell looks like this. It’s a crown conch.

Michael: Do you know the guy giving out the pictures is also a resident of Chestnut Hill? Doug Wechsler.

Eli Zickler of Chestnut Hill with grandfather, Michael left, father Joel and sister Lucy, right, at the Academy of Natural Sciences members’ night. Watch video interview here.

Time between screams down black hole

This is an illustration from a kids’ course on black holes. I’m teaching black holes in elementary school now and some kid did an illustration of a guy falling in. What happens when you fall into a black hole is that you slow down or you seem to slow down. This is your first scream, second scream, third, fourth, fifth, and it’s taking more and more time between each scream . . .So we think we understand something about time . We think we know something about quantum mechanics and we have no idea how to fit the two together. John Ashmead, “Time and Quantum Mechanics.” From his blog entry of July 11, 2010:"Spoke at noon yesterday (July 10th, 2010) at the Chestnut Hill Book Festival; in spite of heavy rain a nice crowd. This was my Balticon Time & Quantum Mechanics talk, adjusted for a general (rather than a science fictional) audience. I covered over a hundred years of physics in less than an hour — a lot — but the audience survived & even seemed to prosper, asking some good questions!"Click here to see video excerpt from talk and 9 second interview.

Nancy Peter and Mom work at the Carver Science Fair

“This is the 31st anniversary of the Carver Science fair. It is one of the oldest, urban, city-wide science fairs in the country and each year 250 kids in 4th, 5th and 6th grade and over 600 kids in 7th through 12th grade compete in the citywide science fair….And let me introduce you to my Mother. She’s one of the special award givers. She and her colleague, Marilyn Young, who used to teach at Jenks give out a special award that honors team projects.” Nancy Peter, Special Awards Chairperson, G.W. Carver Science Fair, with her mother, Marian Darmstadter. Watch video interview here.