Science Method
Accelerating into utopia
This book offers three things that will make it a seminal document. 1) It brokers a new idea, not widely known. 2) The idea is about as big as you can get: the Singularity -- all the change in the last millions years will be superceded by the change in the next five minutes, and 3) It is an idea that demands informed response. The book's claims are so footnoted, documented, graphed, argued, and plausible in small detail, that it requires the equal in response. Yet its claims are so outrageous that if true, it would mean... well ... the end of the world as we know it, and the beginning of Utopia. Ray Kurzweil has taken all the strands of the Singularity meme circulating in the last decades and has united them into a single tome which he has nailed on our front door. I suspect this will be one of the most cited books of the decade. Like Paul Erlich's upsetting 1972 book Population Bomb, fan or foe, it's the wave at epicenter you have to start with.
-- KK
The Singularity is Near
When Humans Transcend Biology
Ray Kurzweil
2005, 672 pages
$20
Available from Amazon
Sample excerpts:
Misperceptions about the shape of the future come up frequently and in a variety of contexts. As one example of many, in a recent debate in which I took part concerning the feasibility of molecular manufacturing, a Nobel Prize-winning panelist dismissed safety concerns regarding nanotechnology, proclaiming that "we're not going to see self-replicating nanoengineered entities [devices constructed molecular fragment by fragment] for a hundred years." I pointed out that one hundred years was a reasonable estimate and actually matched my own appraisal of the amount of technical progress required to achieve this particular milestone when measured at today's rate of progress (five times the average rate of change we saw in the twentieth century). But because we're doubling the rate of progress every decade, we'll see the equivalent of a century of progress -- at today's rate -- in only twenty-five calender years.
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From my perspective, the Singularity has many faces. It represents the nearly vertical phase of exponential growth that occurs when the rate is so extreme that technology appears to be expanding at infinite speed. Of course, from a mathematical perspective, there is no discontinuity, no rupture, and the growth rates remain finite, although extraordinarily large. But from our currently limited framework, the imminent event appears to be an acute and abrupt break in the continuity of progress. I emphasize the word "currently" because one of the salient implications of the Singularity will be a change in the nature of our ability to understand. We will become vastly smarter as we merge with our technology.
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Evolution applies positive feedback: the more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage. As described in the previous chapter, each epoch of evolution has progressed more rapidly by building on the products of the previous stage. Evolution works through indirection: evolution created humans, humans created technology, humans are now working with increasingly advanced technology to create new generations of technology. By the time of the Singularity, there won't be a distinction between humans and technology.
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Evolution moves toward greater complexity, greater elegance, greater knowledge, greater intelligence, greater beauty, greater creativity, and greater levels of subtle attributes such as love. In every monotheistic tradition God is likewise described as all of these qualities, only without any limitation: infinite knowledge, infinite intelligence, infinite beauty, infinite creativity, infinite love, and so on. Of course, even the accelerating growth of evolution never achieves an infinite level, but as it explodes exponentially it certainly moves rapidly in that direction. So evolution moves inexorably toward this conception of God, although never quite reaching this ideal We can regard, therefore, the freeing of our thinking from the severe limitations of its biological form to be an essentially spiritual undertaking.
Try-and-build science
This super educational series from the Discovery channel is now on DVD. The two hosts, veteran Hollywood effects experts, test urban myths. You know, folklore such as: you get less wet if you walk, not run, in rain. Or, you can kill someone with a bullet of ice that leaves no evidence. Or, a small hole in an airplane at altitude will rupture into a large one and suck everyone out. If it involves explosives, all the better -- can a cell phone cause an explosion at a gas station? In each episode they build elaborate equipment to recreate the conditions of the myth in order to determine if the myth is remotely possible. Sometimes the apparatus is formidable. They bought a steel ship to test whether sinking it would suck you down if you were swimming nearby (a la Titanic). Their comprehensive recreation of the myth that a penny dropped from the Empire State Building will kill you is brilliant and probably the final word on the subject. The cool part is the techie way they approach the problems: make stuff yourself. As in the series Junkyard Wars, you learn a lot by watching tinkerers quickly build things that really work. But here, they are not just engineering. They are actually doing an entertaining kind of science experiment, with controls, measurements, and results. Once the defined experiment is completed they push it to the limit. In other words their approach to investigating an urban legend is this: first they test the conditions as stated in the myth, and then if that does not work, they try to recreate the results of the urban legend. For instance, if they can't get an ordinary cell phone to ignite overflowing gasoline at a gas station (and they couldn't), they'll keep modifying the phone, gas supply, voltage, whatever it takes until they can get results -- a spark from something like a phone that blows the station up. Cool! My entire family, including teenage girls, watches these with glee, and more than once, since there's a lot going on. And as a bonus, you wind up with a fairly good grasp of which urban legends have any veracity. Now on the third season, they cover three myths per episode.
-- KK
 
MythBusters
Season One
13 episodes, 11 hours
$50
Available from Discovery Channel Store
Best source of science news
Science is the only new news. There is more and more of it than ever and I have trouble keeping up. I've been an off-and-on subscriber to the richest source, Science, but I am currently off it simply because I could not keep up with the weekly deluge of diamond-dense information it dumped on me. Scientific American is drastically uneven, and recently too preachy, so although I subscribe, it is not essential. Discover is okay but not as, well, scientific. Over the years, the only periodical that has remained a constant source of readable science news, with no dumbing down, and much uplifting of ideas, as well as providing a great sense of important frontiers, is New Scientist. It is smart, ahead of the curve of other publications, deep, accessible, and reliable. If you can only subscribe to one source of the new news, New Scientist is it.
I value it most for what it does not run. It doesn't explain what DNA is again. Rather it talks up to its readers, assuming you have basic science literacy. Think of it as an Economist for science. It wisely selects pattern-shifting stuff, and I've come to concur with its nose for interesting news that will stay new. Issues from years ago still read fresh. Yet it avoids hype and sci-fi wet dreams.
Much of its power stems from its reliance on subscribers rather than consumer advertisers for its income; it really does serve readers. But that also means this weekly British publication is on the expensive side. Rather than the normal $18 per year that most ad-inflated magazines in the US charge, this weekly will run you $150 annually. (There's a cheap intro price to get you hooked.) It is well worth the investment. May it live long and prosper.
-- KK
New Scientist
51 issues per year
$64 new print/online subscriptions
$40 online access only
Available from
New Scientist
$150 (renewals)
Available from Amazon
$70-$150 custom subscriptions & renewals available for students, educators, seniors, low income, and others. Call Elsevier publishers 888-822-3242.
Best nature how-to
The best hands-on-guide to nature experiments in print. Chock full of projects doable in a few hours to a day, whether you are an adult or kid. Just outside your door, no matter where you live, is the largest laboratory available anywhere. Hello, living neighborhood!
-- KK
The Amateur Naturalilst
Nick Baker
2005, 256 pages
$20
Amazon
Sample Excerpts:
Mounting and displaying bones.
Forget plastic model-making - this is the ultimate model kit!
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Resist the temptation to collect lots of spawn or tadpoles. Although you often come across huge quantities in the wild, only a few percent of it will survive. So collect a small quantity of newly laid spawn - it should be quite firm and easy to separate with your finger. Half a cupful is an ideal quantity to achieve a ratio of three to five tadpoles for every liter of water (14-22 per gallon).
Take spawn from garden ponds wherever possible - it keeps your impact and disturbance of wild populations to a minimum. It is also good practice not to risk contaminating a habitat by introducing spawn, pond weed, or any other form of life that you have collected elsewhere. This is commonsense herpetological hygiene. Frogs in particular suffer from contagious diseases that may be spread unnecessarily in this way.
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Although the very fragility of a spider's web is part of its attraction, it is a shame to think that these phenomenal feats of design and construction rarely last longer than a day. However, if you find a web without a spider in residence, it is possible to collect and preserve one of these fabulous structures. Choose a still day and make sure the web is dry, with no droplets of dew.
You will need:
the most gorgeous orb web you can find
a sheet of newspaper
a can of white or black spray paint
a can of artist's fixative (available at art shops) or hair spray
a sheet of cardboard large enough to fit the web on and in a color that contrasts well with the paint
scissors
1. Position the newspaper behind the web so that you don't get paint all over whatever is behind it, then spray the web evenly and lightly on both sides from a distance of about 40 cm (16 in) - much closer and the pressure of the paint will damage the web. Leave it to dry for a while and repeat.
Low-rent science hacks
My favorite amateur science experimenter has gathered the coolest hacks from his website into a browseable book. Here Simon Field tells you how to use disposable trash to make very small versions of hi-tech machines -- like a Van de Graaff generator, or magnetic train gun, or what he calls a plastic hydrogen bomb. The secret to the fun and enlightenment is to keep everything very small -- which makes it cheap, fast, and safe.
There's lots more amateur exploration at his wonderful website, but this plain book (black and white printing) contains a fine selection of his best stuff, and is great for an introductory gift.
-- KK
Gonzo Gizmos: Projects & Devices to Channel Your Inner Geek
by Simon Field
2003, 228 pages
$12
Available from
Amazon
Sample excerpts:
In the previous two projects, we stole high voltage from a television set to power our high voltage motors. In this project we will build a device that can generate 12,000 volts from an empty soda can and a rubber band.
The device is called a Van de Graaff generator. Science museums and research facilities have large versions that generate potentials in the hundreds of thousands of volts. Ours is more modest, but is still capable of drawing 1/2 inch sparks from the soda can to my finger. The spark is harmless, and similar to the jolt you get from a doorknob after scuffing your feet on the carpet.
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This very simple toy uses a magnetic chain reaction to launch a steel marble at a target at high speed. The toy is very simple to build, going together in minutes, and is very simple to understand and explain, and yet fascinating to watch and to use.
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My review of Simon Field's website, Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids, is here:
Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids
DYI genetic engineering
I've been expecting tools for basement bio hacks any day now for about 20 years. They are getting real close, although most of what you can do with this stuff so far is elementary, trivial and not very useful. Still, here are a few do-it-yourself gene hacking resources finally emerging. The prime users are artists and students. Not a bad start really.
-- KK
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Creative Biotechnology
Not yet at the level of a dummies' guides, this book supplies explicit instructions for executing basic genetic procedures with a minimum equipment. The couple of hacks sketched out (cloning a tree, starting a culture of your own skin) are enough to get your enthusiasm going. I wish the material was better organized, and I wish there was more of it. The book is handy, but the PDF of the book is free and immediate.
Creative Biotechnology
A user's manual
By Natalie Jermijenko & Eugene Thacker
20 pounds
Locus +17, 3rd Floor
Wards Building
31-39 High Bridge
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 1EW
UK
Creative Biotechnology, PDF
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BiotechHobbyist magazine
First stab by the same folks above for on online magazine. Feature recipes and context aimed at providing hands on experience with biotechnology.
BiotechHobbyist magazine
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Modern Biology catalog
The winter 2002 issue of the venerable hacker's zine 2600 had a decent article about bio-hacking.
Here is the $80 kit they recommend for introducing a firefly gene into an E. coli bacteria. It's made for classroom use, but will work fine at home.
Modern Biology catalog
Bootstrapping science
A very cool BBC series wherein the crafty producers take a bunch of scientists and technicians to a remote location and have them recreate sophisticated tools and inventions using only the primitive materials on hand. Vines, wood, bits of metal, shells. Here: make a clock (with bell), or a device to record sounds, or how about a camera, microscope, soap and sunblock?; or go survey and map the island -- using tools of your own construction. You don't know science until you can roll your own. This 10-part program is highly instructional because you get to see technology reduced to its essence -- and because not everything works. The DVDs are expensive; fire up your TiVo to catch them on PBS; another new series begins this fall.
Rough Science
Directed by Sarah Topalian & David Shulman
2002, 90 min
Bullfrog Films
(Ignore the ridiculous price of $890 for the 10-part series DVD on the website; Bullfrog offers an undisclosed "home use" price of $200 for the set or $25 each per tape of 10 or $65 per each of 3 DVDs. 800-543-3764)
Also, a 2-pack DVD set, including the titles Gold Rush and Space Race is available from PBS
Free radio
Pulling music and human speech out of thin air using some wire remains pure magic. I found the home-brew crystal radio projects in this book to be even simpler and easier to understand than those in the venerable Radios that Work for Free. The contest run by the publishers, The Xtal Set Society, seems to be to see who can build a working radio with the least number of parts. For kids it's a wonderful antidote to their usual plug-and-play mode.
-- KK
Crystal Radio Bonanza
2003, 222 pages
$15
The Xtal Set Society
800-927-1771
Midnight Science
Excerpts:
Crystal set radios pick up AM radio without batteries or electricity. In simplest terms, the broadcast station puts out enough power in the form of a radio signal to be picked up by a crystal set. The set's antenna captures this electromagnetic energy, and the signal then passes through the crystal detector and comes out as audio in the earphones. This mysterious process first intrigued great inventors such as Braun, Marconi, and Pickard, and it continues to fascinate electronics buffs, amateur radio operators, and engineers today.
The hobby of building and listening to crystal radio had its first and biggest craze in the 1920s. Once radio stations began broadcasting all over the country, people began buying and building crystal radio kits. At that time a true mineral crystal was used as the detector. The most popular crystal was galena, and a fine piece of wire called a "cat's whisker" was used to touch the crystal and find the "hot spot" on the rock where a station would come in. These days, many hobbyists use the modern-day diode instead of a crystal, but there are still experimenters who strive for the thrill of getting Radio Japan on a rock.
From "Low Budget Xtal Set," by WIlliam Simes. Bill's neighbor testing out the set she helped build.
The completed high performance crystal set with IN34A diode installed in detector clips for testing operation.
Diagram for low-budget xtal set using foil-lined paper protectors.
Classic experiments still worth doing
For many decades the Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American was a glorious outpost of dedicated enthusiasm. Here expensive scientific gear such as early lasers and x-ray machines were first presented in great detail as affordable do-it-yourself hacks. While the current editors of Scientific American stupidly canceled this clearinghouse, the old columns are remarkably timeless, and offer interested buffs the means to make cloud chambers, spectrometers, seismographs, telescopes, microscopes and all manner of cool instruments using only the most basic kind of stuff youíd find in basements or discount mail order venues.
As a service to this community of gear-heads, former Amateur Scientist editor Shawn Carlson and a part-time publisher have put together all the Amateur Scientist columns the magazine published from 1928 till 1999. The good news is that 100% of the clever drawings and notes are here along with a fine index, usable on the Mac as well as PC. The bad news is that it is an extremely clunky CD-Rom with a badly designed interface that awkwardly ties into the web. Yet, with this tool, one can tap into a remarkable treasury of enlightened tinkering and science hacking. Some of the projects are still state-of-art, and the ones that are classics will still make tremendous science fair projects.
Taking a bit of a hint from the extreme passion of do-it-yourselfers, Scientific American is slowly rounding up their best past columns and under the editorship of Shawn Carlson issuing them in subject-specific collections. See the second in this emerging series -- The Amateur Biologist ń- above; it works fine.
The is one alternative to the awkward CD. Scientific America collected their best columns in 1960 and issued them in a single volume called The Scientific American Book of Projects for the Amateur Scientist, edited by C.L. Stong. Copies of this out-of-print book are available via online used book sites. The upside is the handy print form; The down side is that the text is not as searchable, and contains nothing after 1960. A lot has happened in amateur science since then.
Indeed, so much is happening that the best resources for amateur scientists are no longer in magazines or books, but on the web. By far the best site, with the most original material, and the best links, is a site called the Science Hobbyist, run by one Bill Beaty. Iíve never met Mr. Beaty, but I like his style. His site is heavily infested with a ějust do itî mentality: magnetic levitation prototypes, ball lightening demos, and ěunwise microwave oven experiments.î He specializes in material for science fair projects, cool toys, resources for nerds, and plans for dangerous ědonít try this at homeî experiments, plus fringe science links, as well as critical thinking tools. Itís the amateur science site that Iíve been seeking for years. If people are experimenting at home with it, itís probably linked here.
ńKK
Science Hobbyist
The Amateur Scientist on CD-ROM
Bright Science
$20
Ingram SKU #717734
888-875-4255
Bright Science
Also from Amazon
The Scientific American Book of Projects for The Amateur Scientist
C.L. Stong
1960, 584 pages
Simon and Schuster
used copy $40 - $250, Amazon
Also from Book Finder
How to make the glass-bead lens of a Leeuwenhoek microscope
Kitchen sink biology
I go along with the received wisdom these days that this dawning era won't be remembered as the computer century, but the biological century. What has been missing from this upcoming bio-revolution is the hands-on access of garage science. When it is as easy to program DNA in your bedroom as it is to program a chip, that's when we'll be swept off our feet in innovations. No reporting or speculative essay has given as much of a glimpse of this future than this how-to book of basement biology. Edited by former Amateur Scientist columnist Shawn Carlson (who also wrote many of the reprinted columns) this text tackles such old-time skills as cultivating pond scum (one source of commercially valuable microorganisms), or hacking up a video microscope, or measuring the heartbeats of insects. In the last section Carlson gets into how to extract DNA from cells using kitchen utensils. It's wide open from there.
-- KK
Scientific Americans's the Amateur Biologist
2002, 228 pages
$17
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Amazon
Excerpt:
 A kitchen laboratory includes most of the items needed to isolate DNA. A drinking straw, for example can be used to add alcohol to the solutions (a) and a coffee stirrer serves to spool the DNA (b).
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The most wonderful private garden I have ever seen is tucked away behind a modest house in La Jolla, California, not far from where I live. The gardener is a British-born psychology professor and dear friend who sends me home with fruit and flowers each time I visit. Recently I noticed that two of his plants, though very different in shape, produced flowers the exact same shade of purple. This observation made me wonder whether the two species might be related.
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One normally traces evolutionary connections by identifying physical similarities between species. So I decided to extract and isolate the pigments in the two flowers so that I could compare them in detail. That process is actually much easier than it sounds. In fact, using a simple technique called electrophoresis, I could carry out the experiment in about an hour for very little money.
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DNA is the largest molecule known. A single, unbroken strand of it can contain many millions of atoms. When released from a cell, DNA typically breaks up into countless fragments. In solution, these strands have a slight negative electric charge, a fact that makes for some fascinating chemistry. For example, salt ions are attracted to the negative charges on DNA, effectively neutralizing them, and this phenomenon prevents the many separate fragments of DNA from adhering to one another. So by controlling the salt concentration, biologists can make DNA fragments either disperse or glom together. And therein lies the secret of separating DNA from cells.
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The detergent actually does double duty. It breaks down cell walls and helps to fracture large proteins so they don't come out with the DNA. The people at Edvotek recommend using pure table salt and distilled water, but I have used iodized salt and bottled water successfully, and once I even forgot to add the baking soda and still got good results. In any case, try to avoid using tap water. To slow the rate at which the DNA degrades, it's best to chill the buffer in a bath of crushed ice and water before proceeding.
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For a source of DNA, try the pantry. I got great results with an onion, and the folks at Edvotek also recommend garlic, bananas, and tomatoes. But it's your experiment: choose your favorite fruit, vegetable, or legume. Dice it and put the material into a blender, then add a litter water and mix things well by pulsing the blades in 10-second bursts. Or, even simpler, just pass the pieces through a garlic press. These treatments will break apart some of the cells right away and expose many cell walls to attack by the detergent.
 An amateurís apparatus for measuring the metabolism of mice.
Best amateur science source
Probably the coolest source of educational science demonstrations I've encountered is this very book-like website written and run by Simon Field. Field has 30 nifty toys and gadgets that can be made quickly, cheaply and will amaze adults as well as kids. This is the only place I've seen that tells you how to make a magnetic linear accelerator, also known as a Gauss Rifle - it uses magnetism to shoot tiny steel balls. The secret to Field's method is that his demos are very small, requiring small amounts of material, energy, or money. Most of his experiments can be assembled - even if you buy the stuff - for a few dollars, and can fit in your palm. His instructions and visuals are simply the best I've seen in any how-to-book. Most wonderful of all, it's entirely up on the web for free. Hats off to you, Mr. Field. (He does sell kits, and parts, which may help pay for his server, I guess.)
-- KK
Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids
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Rugged scope for everyday use
The trouble with most optical equipment is that it won't get used unless it is out of the case, opened up, and powered on. But if it is open and lying around, it will get highly abused. I buy my cameras, spectacles, binocs, etc. assuming they'll be dropped and splattered, and they should hold up to this misuse. But until now I haven't been able to find a microscope strong enough to do its job yet sturdy enough to be left on the kitchen table ready for inspections by toddlers and teenagers. Now after several years of looking for an everyday microscope suitable for a busy family I found one.
The Brock Magiscope #70 is exactly what I had wanted. It has a single moving part that my five-year old can handle. He can put a leaf in and focus it right. Rubber bands hold the slide. For light the scope uses a fat fiber optic bent pipe which channels ambient room light to the underside of the objective lens (no electricity). There is no fussing, no adjustments. The viewing field is amazingly bright and clear, with a choice of 100x magnification, good enough for high school work. We've discovered we can press the lens of a digital camera to its eyepiece, focus on the digital screen and get pretty good microphotography shots.
And best of all it is practically indestructible. The thing is simple and rugged as a hammer. In fact it was built for the abuse of K-12 classrooms, which is probably as grating as a war. Brock offers a "lifetime replacement warranty, including accidents." If it breaks, ever, they replace it. And they do. (Some visiting kids manage to break the light optic -- I have no idea how -- but Brock replaced it with no questions asked.)
This tool is always on, always out (it sits next to the fruit bowl); we use it.
The Brock Magiscope
#70 with x4 and x10 objective
and x5 and x10 eyepieces
$160
Brock Optical Inc.
407-647-6611
800-780-9111
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