It’s win­ter in much of the world, which means colder weather.  Some­times snow is involved.

Snow is what makes me think of hiber­nat­ing bears.  And how when they wake up they’ll be hungry.

And that reminded me of this research that found that we humans need preda­tors such as bears, and wolves, cougars moun­tain lions, and so on, to live.

Why?  How?

Read more…

It really is bet­ter than slime.

Most stu­dents employ a pen­cil and paper or a com­puter to do their homework.

Imag­ine being able to do a dance to prove that you’d done your social stud­ies, math, eng­lish homework.

Well, Cedric Tan did just that, with the help of some friends, to demon­strate cer­tain repro­duc­tive behav­iors of the com­mon fruit fly, while pur­su­ing their PhD stud­ies in Zool­ogy.  What is a PhD study?  A PhD is a fancy diploma.  A cer­tifi­cate of achieve­ment.  It is proof that you have become the grand poo bah of a cer­tain sub­ject.  You’ve lit­er­ally spent years observ­ing, cal­cu­lat­ing, think­ing about, writ­ing about, and talk­ing about one thing.

Cedric Tan’s thing, as shown in the Dance below, is that he’s the grand poo bah of fruit flies and how they use the sense of smell to avoid mak­ing fly babies with relatives.

Stay tuned for an inter­view with Dr. Cedric for more info!

Dance your PhD 2011: Smell medi­ated response to relat­ed­ness of poten­tial mates from Cedric Kai Wei Tan on Vimeo.

A school dis­trict in West Vir­ginia of over 1,000 stu­dents began a mass slaugh­ter of pump­kins in pur­suit of science.

water bal­loons for science

“Orga­niz­ers say the goal of the event is not to make the squashes go splat, but rather to pro­vide some pump­kin pro­tec­tion…” when dropped from 40 feet.

“It’s an appli­ca­tions process, it’s a physics process,” said one big wig where the demon­stra­tion was held.

The win­ners used a vari­ety of mate­ri­als.  One group used “…milk car­tons instead of cups” along with cardboard.

Another group of stu­dents found that water bal­loons, tra­di­tion­ally the weapon of choice for cer­tain mid­dle school and high school enthu­si­asts, pro­vided ade­quate pump­kins protection.

Calls made to the Pump­kin Anti-Cruelty Soci­ety for a com­ment were not returned.

Hey Kids!

Learn about marine biol­ogy, coastal ecol­ogy, oceanog­ra­phy, con­ser­va­tion and more at BOAT CAMP in New­bury­port Mass­a­chu­setts this sum­mer, 2011.

BOAT CAMP’s week long pro­gram aboard the Erica Lee explores the coastal ecol­ogy of Ipswich Bay and the Gulf of Maine through a vari­ety of fun daily activ­i­ties, all of which are decided upon the day’s best weather pre­dic­tions and con­ducted accord­ing observed weather, tide and sea states. Above all else, we focus on keep­ing kids warm (or cool!), safe and happy, and we uti­lize both the Erica Lee and BOAT CAMP Inc.’s ocean edu­ca­tion cen­ter to make the best of New England’s change­able weather in order for kids to expe­ri­ence a fun, pos­i­tive boat-based sum­mer program.

They’ve got 3 spots avail­able for kids 9–12 for August  15 — 19.

http://www.boatcamp.org/programs/kids-9–12/

Here is a video made by kids in Ohio who talk about using their own super pow­ers to help the envi­ron­ment, ani­mals and other peo­ple. You kids out there in inter­net land can make your own video on using your own super power and send it to Roots and Shoots.

You can also send it to Pro­fes­sor Blue and we’ll post it here on the site. Pro­fes­sor Blue is con­sid­er­ing adding a cape to her lab coat now.