i.shui.tech

High school biology teachers, take note! This story from the New York Times is a great wrap up to the year. To really appreciate the “gross” factor, your students will need to know a little cell and/or cancer biology.

Laboratory mouse stem cells are usually grown in a petri dish, constantly bathed in a nutrient broth. The cells are constantly dividing and will crowd the plate if not kept thinned out. To keep the population under control, you have to occasionally wash the plate of most of the cells, keeping a few to continue their division and maintain the population.

With the proper substrate, the cells can grow on anything, provided they are continually fed. This modern art project, on display at the MoMA in New York City, has a matrix in the shape of a small coat, with nutrients constantly feeding the cells.

Apparently, no one is there to clear off the cells and keep the population at bay:

The cells were multiplying so fast that the incubator was beginning to clog. Also, a sleeve was falling off. So after checking with the coat’s creators, a group known as SymbioticA, at the School of Anatomy & Human Biology at the University of Western Australia in Perth, she had the nutrients to the cells stopped.

I’d be interested in knowing your students reactions, especially if they bring in ethics! Is this really art?

Ok… I’ll get this post going this time… Saturday late morning started with a call from my good friend Greg (meteorologist and programmer). Storms a-brewing in the east and the outlooking is favorable for isolated supercells… or something like that. I’m no meteorologist and my recollection of middle school earth science is practically nonexistent (I had one of those wonderful non-experiences in grade school of studying weather without once looking outside of a textbook), but, like anything natural, I find weather events utterly fascinating. In Oklahoma, how can you not be fascinated by the weather?

Well, perhaps most are not so fascinated to hop into a car and drive three hours to chase a storm, but I find the prospect just to tempting. Greg is a well known and seasoned chaser. He’s cautious and knows where to avoid getting pelted by baseball size hail or driving onto the path of wind sheer, much less a tornado. He’s also good at predicting where the storms might produce hooks and lower level rotations (I just love the lingo). Of course, he’s also human and the weather isn’t. We ended up after a storm that had all the right properties, but not enough to produce an actual tornado. Nonetheless, it was fascinating.

We chased into Arkansas and right up along highway 71 near Winslow. The storms were moving east. As the supercell approached, ground winds shifted west (cool), skies darkened, the we looked up to see scud clouds rotating just north of us (really cool). Later survey showed no damage. About two minutes after the storm passed, tornado sirens went off. Sadly ironic. Somebody wasn’t paying attention. Makes me wonder if those communities with fatalities had timely sirens… or sirens at all.

Disclaimer: two things…one, I’m out with an experienced meteorologist and chaser. I wouldn’t do it any other way (not counting my childhood habit of sitting on the roof when the tornado sirens went off… even Greg would consider that suicidal); and two, I have taken the spotter workshop put on by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. The workshop is fascinating just to learn something about the tornados, wether or not you decide to barrel down the road after one.
If you have any interest in violent storms, check out the “Storms of 2007″ DVD. It actually has footage of my first tornado (even though I’ve lived over 30 years in Oklahoma and spent storm events on the roof of my house). The proceeds are always for a good cause, and the commentary very instructional.

This is actually an NSF news item that came out a couple of months ago. I’m not sure if it hit the main press, but as a parent and educator, I find it fascinating. Here’s the gist of the research by Valerie Reyna and Chuck Brainerd (both from Cornell University):

[C]hildren depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, “what actually happened,” while adults depend more on another part of the mind that records, “the meaning of what happened.” As a result, they say, adults are more susceptible to false memories, which can be extremely problematic in court cases.

Interestingly, courts often will discredit the memories of children (in favor of those of adults). As a parent, I fall prey to the same misconception as I often assume my child will create “stories” that have little resemblance to the real world when ask to recall an event.

The researcher’s theory differentiates Verbatim memory from Gist memory:

Verbatim traces are memories of what actually happened. Gist traces are based on a person’s understanding of what happened, or what the event meant to him or her. Gist traces stimulate false memories because they store impressions of what an event meant, which can be inconsistent with what actually happened.

“Understanding” is dependent on development and therefore will be less of an influence in children. The key is an accurate recall technique that can separate any fear the child may have of recall to adults (I often feel like I’m pulling teeth to get my daughter to recall events after she gets in trouble… did she really forget or is it because I’m her dad??).

I have a theory on how this relates to education… the US lags behind Asia in rote performance measures (math, memorization), yet we are looked up to for our creativity and innovation. Verbatim vs. Gist. ‘Which is better’ is hotly debated, but I would say that my personal experience (being able to peer into the asian culture) would show that Asian families but greater emphasis on Verbatim (this is how it is) while American families focus on Gist (I want you to understand). I would contend the education systems follow suit.

So what does this mean for teaching and learning? I am open to suggestions.

(A quote from Robin Williams.) I love biology, but I must admit, the platypus must have been one David Attenborough broadcast I missed. I came across this posting from the National Science Foundation:

Platypus Genome Decoded: Genome may yield clues about evolution and disease prevention.

Umm.. what? Well, it turns out that the platypus is one quite remarkable animal. I did recognize the picture, and always figured it to be some relative of the beaver. In reality, it is, as the report goes…

Platypus DNA is a combination of reptiles, birds and mammals.

And the traits follow suit: Venom (reptile), eggs (birds), and lactation (mammals). Like any young scientist, my first curiosity points to the venom. Venom? Cool! Wikipedia provides some interesting tidbits. Apparently, the venom come from a spur on the male’s hind limbs.

Remind me not to grab a platypus by the feet.

Parents, take note: if you haven’t taken the time to explore your own state, your kids will suffer. The Wichita mountains are part of the Wichita Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge is home to free-range bison and longhorn cattle, prairie dogs, wild turkeys, and a plethora of other life. I just went down Sunday. The wildflowers are just starting to bloom and should be full within a couple of weeks. This is, by far, my favorite part of Oklahoma. I’ve just returned from a Sunday day trip. We drove around to the backside of Elk Mountain and hiked around Lost Lake. It was a joy to watch my daughter and friend run off trail and explore the rocks…

Pardon while I rant a bit on exploring… it never fails to amaze when I hear from my Oklahoma friends and friends of my family that they’ve never been to the Wichitas. I suppose it would be like growing up in Colorado and never visiting the Rockies. Democratic citizenship requires an appreciation of your home. To be engaged in your community starts in your own backyard. Kids should be encouraged to explore their neighborhood and town, and parents should take the time to visit their own state. If you don’t think your state has beautiful places to see, you need to open your eyes. Go visit your state tourism office. It’s not just for visitors.

Back to the Wichitas…The hiking is absolutely wonderful. There are numerous trails, often not clearly marked, so some guidance is valuable. The park office can help, but for those who haven’t grown up with the Refuge, Alan Thode’s book, Hiking the Wichitas, is worth every penny. I’ve visited at least twice a year for the past 20, and still have much to discover. May is the best time, IMHO, to visit, but I’ve been in every season and have never regretted the trip. If you’ve been, tell me your favorite places!

The New York Times has published this amazing article, “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?” (April 13, 2008) on Jan Chipchase, Nokia’s globe hopping industrial designer. It is truly an insight in to the global phenomenon of cell phones. This is a long, yet tremendous article that gives a perspective of globalization few have seen.

Today, there are more than 3.3 billion mobile-phone subscriptions worldwide, which means that there are at least three billion people who don’t own cellphones, the bulk of them to be found in Africa and Asia.

And when will the other three billion be networked?

According to statistics from the market database Wireless Intelligence, it took about 20 years for the first billion mobile phones to sell worldwide. The second billion sold in four years, and the third billion sold in two. Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network[.]

But it is the sheer economic possibilities for people in rural, isolated places that the cell phones bring. Poor (making a few dollars a day) know the investment in a cell phone brings ICT to their existence and with it opportunities for increased profit margins. Information is power, especially when your advantage is just-in-time commuication vs no communication.

Read the article. And read Future Perfect, Jan’s blog.

Another absolute must-see from VBS.tv:

I’ve never quite understood how anyone can ignore such blatant environmental problems. Do people fight hard to pretend the planet was just as dirty 50 years ago? I remember reading how some environmentalists viewed Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” as soft on the issues. This is the kind of TV everyone needs to witness. Get slapped.

Non-biodegradable plastics are evil. We can’t possibly expect all of it will get recycled (it’s just too cheap to make it new). And it does break down eventually… into molecular poisons that living organisms (us, especially) cannot clear from our cells.

The chemical–which is widely used in products such as reusable water bottles, food can linings, water pipes and dental sealants–has been shown to affect reproduction and brain development in animal studies. ScienceDaily (Feb. 4, 2008)

As a family, we just invested in steel water bottles from Kleen Kanteen (before seeing this video). We did it initially to avoid the molecular degeneration occurring in plastic water bottles, as reported in Time magazine and elsewhere. You should do the same. Or some other non-plastic solution. Please, our children have enough toxic chemicals coursing through their bodies. Let’s stop poisoning them and planet.

Sometimes it takes time. It’s been a long hiatus, but I have lots of good stuff waiting for posting. It may be a few months outdated. For those of you with any interest whatsoever, I was hit with a long spell of business, gaming (with some interesting reflections to bring back), and most recently, shifting priorities. Hang tight. And enjoy the modern cyclo from a visit to the Hirshorn in Washington D.C. at left.