Nobel Prize 2010

“Prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”

The 2010 Nobel Prize awards for chemistry, physiology or medicine, and physics were recently announced as they are every year at around this time, as I have posted before.

The Nobel Prize awards were established in 1895 according to the will of Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor Alfred Nobel and endowed by his estate. Other than the three natural science awards, Alfred also wanted awards for literature and peace. All five Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901. In 1968, Sweden’s central bank established and endowed the Nobel
Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their 300th anniversary. This prize for economics in honor of Alfred Nobel was first awarded the following year.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences grants the prizes for chemistry and physics (and economics), while the Karolinska Institute grants the prize for physiology or
medicine.

The Nobel Prize awards are presented in Stockholm, Sweden (except for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo, Norway) every year on December 10, which is the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

The Nobel Prize science medals were designed by Swedish engraver Erik Lindberg in 1902. The Latin inscription on the medals is

Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes

and can be translated as And all who found new arts, to make man’s life more blest or fair. The inscription is from Book 6, line 663 of Vergil’s Aeneid:

And poets, of whom the true-inspired song deserved Apollo’s name;
and all who found new arts, to make man’s life more blest or fair;
(translation by Theodore C. Williams)

For the chemistry and physics medals, Erik Lindberg chose to show Nature being unveiled by the Genius of Science. For the medal for physiology or medicine, Erik chose to show the Genius of Medicine gathering water to quench the thirst of a sick child.

"And all who found new arts, to make man's life more blest or fair"

Chemistry: Genius of Science unveiling Nature

The 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to University of Delaware scientist Richard Heck, Purdue University scientist Ei-ichi Negishi, and Hokkaido University scientist Akira Suzuki for developing palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis.

Physiology or Medicine: Genius of Medicine quenching the thirst of the Ill

The 2010 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is awarded to University of Cambridge scientist Robert Edwards for the development of in vitro fertilization.

Physics: Genius of Science unveiling Nature

The 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics is awarded to University of Manchester scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.

Aug 29

2010

Sam

Humor, Map, Math, Science, Technology

currency dollar George Score money network tracking traffic Where's George

Where’s George?

I heard about this website Where’s George? that tracks the circulation of US dollar bills and other paper currency for fun. Since I am interested in networks and the flow of information, I decided to check it out.

You register a bill at the Where’s George? website by entering the denomination, series year, serial number, and your ZIP code. If you live outside of the United States, you can still participate by using the website’s list of global codes. Once you register a bill then…you spend it! If you want to increase the chance of having your bill being reported by someone, you can stamp the bill with information encouraging participants to visit the website and help track the bill’s journey.

Any person who receives your bill and decides to participate in tracking it enters the series year, serial number, and his or her local ZIP code on the Where’s George? website. This is known as a hit. Once a bill is registered, Where’s George? reports the time and distance traveled between hits, and any comments from the participants. Most bills do not receive any hits, but many bills receive two or more hits. Bills that are double- and triple-hitters are common, and some bills have 4 or 5 hits. After the participant enters the hit, then they, too, place the bill back into circulation by spending it.

Fans of the Where’s George? website often collect interesting patterns of hits such as getting at least one hit in all 50 states or getting hits on bills from all 12 Federal Reserve Banks. Fans can rank themselves for fun with their George Score. Your George Score is automatically calculated when you enter bills and get hits on Where’s George? The more bills you enter, and more importantly, the more hits you get, the higher your George Score. The George Score is a method of rating fans based on how many bills they have entered and also by how many total hits they have had. The formula is as follows:

$100\times \left[{\sqrt {\ln({{\rm {bills\ entered}}})}}+\ln({{\rm {hits}}}+1)\right]\times [1-({{\rm {days\ of\ inactivity}}}/100)]$ However, since this formula is logarithmic it means that the more bills you enter and the more hits you receive, the less your score increases for each entered bill or new hit. Thus, your score does not increase as quickly when you enter a lot of bills. My George Score is 622.58 (for comparison, the top user has a George Score of over 1500). This makes my Where’s George? rank 6059 out of 16849. But my rank in my state is 277 out of 734.

Jul 16

2010

Sam

Education, New, Pedagogy, Science

Get To Know Your State Education Agency

The Texas Education Agency is a branch of the state government responsible for public education. TEA is responsible for the oversight of public primary and secondary education in the state of Texas, involving both 1,236 individual school districts in the state as well as charter schools, and more than 4.8 million students. TEA responsibilities include serving as a fiscal agent for the distribution of state and federal funds, overseeing development of the statewide curriculum, administering the statewide assessment program, managing the textbook adoption process, and administering a data collection system on public school students, staff, and finances.

The State Board of Education (SBOE) is an elected 15-member board that guides and monitors activities and programs related to public education and is managed by a Commissioner of Education, who is appointed by the Governor of Texas. The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) oversees all aspects of the reparation, certification, and standards of conduct of public school educators. There are 11 members on the board who are appointed by the Governor, and three non-voting members. TEA provides staff support to the SBEC board.

In order to serve the large number of individual school districts and charter schools in Texas, TEA is divided into 20 regions, each containing an Educational Service Center. The 20 Education Service Centers are non-regulatory agencies whose purpose is to aid administrators and teachers by acting as a liaison between TEA and the local school districts and disseminating information, supplying teacher resources, and conducting training and consultation for both federal and state programs. Supported by state and federal funds, as well as by fees assessed for services and tools, they provide professional development in areas such as technology, bilingual education, special education, gifted and talented education, and programs for at-risk students. In addition, they offer alternative teacher, principal, and superintendent certification programs.

The State Board of Education periodically updates the state’s curriculum standards called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Textbooks and other instructional materials are then written for children based on those standards. More than 48 million textbooks are distributed by TEA to Texas public school students each year.

In fall 2011, the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) will replace the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). The STAAR program includes annual assessments for grades 3–8 in reading and mathematics, in writing at grades 4 and 7, in science at grades 5 and 8, in social studies at grade 8, and end-of-course assessments for English I, English II, Algebra I, Biology, and US History.

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) Unit provides direction and leadership to the CTE programs throughout Texas. Career and technical programs are dedicated to preparing young people to manage the dual roles of family member and wage earner. They enable students to gain entry-level employment in a high-skill, high-wage job, and to continue their education. CTE staff assists districts statewide with implementation of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for CTE, collaborates with various professional organizations regarding CTE programs, and assists in overseeing the textbook adoption process for CTE instructional materials.

Oct 11

2009

Sam

Anatomy & Physiology, Art, Biology, Chemistry, History, Physics, Science

Aeneid Alfred Nobel chemistry Erik Lindberg Latin medicine physics physiology prize Sweden Vergil

Nobel Prize 2009

“Prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”

The 2009 Nobel Prize awards for chemistry, physiology or medicine, and physics were recently announced as they are every year at around this time.

Like I mentioned last year, the Nobel Prize awards were established in 1895 according to the will of Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor Alfred Nobel and endowed by his estate. Other than the three natural science awards, Alfred also wanted awards for literature and peace. All five Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901. In 1968, Sweden’s central bank established and endowed the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their 300th anniversary. This prize for economics in honor of Alfred Nobel was first awarded the following year.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences grants the prizes for chemistry and physics (and economics), while the Karolinska Institute grants the prize for physiology or medicine.

The Nobel Prize science medals were designed by Swedish engraver Erik Lindberg in 1902. The Latin inscription on the medals is

Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes

and can be translated as And all who found new arts, to make man’s life more blest or fair. The inscription is from Book 6, line 663 of Vergil’s Aeneid:

And poets, of whom the true-inspired song deserved Apollo’s name;
and all who found new arts, to make man’s life more blest or fair;
(translation by Theodore C. Williams)

Chemistry: Genius of Science unveiling Nature

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology scientist Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientist Thomas Steitz, and Weizmann Institute of Science scientist Ada Yonath for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.

Physiology or Medicine: Genius of Medicine quenching the thirst of the Ill

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine is awarded to University of California at San Francisco scientist Elizabeth Blackburn, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine scientist Carol Greider, and Harvard Medical School scientist Jack Szostak for their discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.

Physics: Genius of Science unveiling Nature

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics is awarded to two discoveries: for Chinese University of Hong Kong scientist Charles Kuen Kao and his groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication and for Bell Laboratories scientists Willard Boyle and George Smith and their invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit, the CCD sensor.

Jul 16

2009

Sam

History, Map, Science, Technology

adventures in time and space Apollo Arizona Cinder Lake crater field moon NASA USGS

Adventures In Time And Space 5: Cinder Lake Crater Fields

Crater field #1 was designed to simulate Apollo 11 landing site taken from Lunar Orbiter images

Crater field #1 (above) was designed to simulate Apollo 11 landing site taken from Lunar Orbiter images (below)

The San Francisco Volcanic Field is located on the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona. The major stratovolcano in the volcanic field is San Francisco Mountain. Cinder debris, black pea-sized frothy lava from these once-active volcanoes, covered the surrounding sedimentary rock surface during the Quaternary period.

In the 1960s, NASA wanted to train the astronauts in geology. The Astrogeology branch of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Flagstaff chose northern Arizona because its geological formations were thought to be similar to those on the moon. The Cinder Lake crater field was specifically chosen for the creation of a realistic lunar-like landscape.

In 1967, NASA completed the first phase of its lunar analog crater field with a 500 square-foot area designed to duplicate a section of Mare Tranquillitatis, a potential Apollo 11 lunar landing site that was captured in images from Lunar Orbiter II. The Cinder Lake field initially contained 47 craters with diameters of 5 to 40 feet. It was expanded later that year to an 800 square-foot field with 143 craters total. Over 300 pounds of dynamite and over 13,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate were used to blast the craters from the black lightweight cinder debris.

Cinder Lake Crater Field #1 was used to help train astronauts on identifying craters and on determining their location in a lunar landscape. The astronauts also practiced using geologic hand tools and testing scientific experiment packages and various lunar vehicle prototypes. A simulated Apollo lunar module ascent stage was also constructed and placed on a ramp to give it the appropriate height off the lunar analog surface.

In the second phase, NASA decided to build a larger 1,200 square-foot test field with 354 craters just north of Cinder Lake Crater Field #1. The new location was selected because the dark basaltic cinder over there covered the lighter clay beds, so that blasting craters would create distinctive light-colored ejecta, including crater rays.