Here is the handout we are going to use for our “Mastering Google for Science and Engineering” workshops this week on August 12th and 13th, 2008

Here is the PDF copy. You can also see the embedded copy below. Please let us know if you have any questions!

By Katherine McAlpine and a few more folks @ CERN.

They do a very nice and concise Rap explanation what LHC does – I loved it…Please see it below 🙂

CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Entertainment Software Association has released its 2008 report titled – “2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry”

Some interesting stats from there :

* 65% of American households play computer or video games.
* The average game player age is 35.
* In 2008, 26% of gamers were over the age of 50.
* The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is: 40
* Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%).
* 13 is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing computer or video games.
* 59% of gamers play games with other gamers in person.
* 94% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented.
* 63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.
* 83% of the time children receive their parents’ permission before purchasing or renting a game.
* Parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play 88% of the time.

Read the full text here – “2008 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry”

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

** photo by Earl – What I Saw 2.0

The New York Times has an article today about an ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism

A very interesting read indeed – Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.

The NYT article cites a letter published in Nature today –

Freeth, T; Alexander, J, Steele, JM, Bitsakis, Y (July 31, 2008). “Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism“. Nature 454: 614–617.

** Photo from – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/

Randy Pausch, the computer scientist from Carnegie Mellon Univ, whose “The Last Lecture” speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University inspired so many (including yours truly) had died yesterday night.

Watch Pausch’s last lecture on youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

From Carnegie Mellon Univ press release:

Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment
Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software
tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his
inspirational “Last Lecture.”
That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go
on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on
Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to
live. Titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the humorous and
heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world
via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video
footage of it.
Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science,
spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his
specialty. ABC News declared him one of its three “Persons of the Year”
for 2007. TIME magazine named him to its list of the 100 most
influential people in the world. On thousands of Web sites, people wrote
essays about what they had learned from him. His book based on the
lecture became a #1 bestseller internationally, translated into 30
languages.

The 2007 Canadian Internet Use Survey was released on June 12th.

Interesting findings include:

“Almost three-quarters (73%), or 19.2 million Canadians aged 16 and older, went online for personal reasons during the 12 months prior to the survey. This was up from just over two-thirds (68%) in 2005 when the survey was last conducted. For the first time, the survey covered young people aged 16 and 17. They accounted for almost one of the five percentage point increase in Internet use between 2005 and 2007.”

“Among people who used the Internet at home, 68% went online every day during a typical month and 50% for five hours or more during a typical week. On average, men were online more often and for longer periods than women.”

“High-speed connections are becoming far more prevalent. An estimated 88% of people who accessed the Internet at home did so with a high-speed connection in 2007, up from 80% two years earlier. This growth was driven by new users and by existing users switching from a slower service.

Over 9 in 10 urban home users reported using a high-speed connection, compared with just over 7 in 10 home users in rural areas. More than one-half of rural and small town residents using a slower service reported that a high-speed telephone or cable service was not available in their area.”

More Canadians are participating in blogging, chatting and downloading. Internet use rates are highest in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.

Found via Stephen’s Lighthouse

** Photo by striatic

Here is the handout we are going to use for our “Mastering Google for Science and Engineering” workshops this week on July 16 and July 17, 2008

Here is the PDF copy. You can also see the embedded copy below. Please let us know if you have any questions!

On 4 July 2008 Science had an editorial about peer-review process.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5885/15

Written by the Science editors, including Bruce Alberts – the Editor-in-Chief, it is indeed an interesting read! Have a look..

** Photo by selva

Geography Professor Emeritus Timothy R. Oke is appointed to Order of Canada.
He is recognised for his research in meteorology and urban climatology, and his mentoring of generations of geographers.
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/extras/2008/08jul02.html

**Photo from this page: http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~toke/

On June 15, 2008 Thomson Reuters ISI has published a short report about Canadian Science. Canada’s world share of science and social-science papers over the last five years is expressed as a percentage of papers in each of 22 fields in the Thomson Reuters ISI database. Also, Canada’s relative citation impact compared to the world average in each field, in percentage terms.

http://sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/08/jun15-08_2/

It is a very interesting read that shows that Canadians scientists are most prominent in Psychology/Psychiatry and Ecology/Environmental and least prominent in Chemistry and Physics. Frankly, the whole thing surprised me very much!

What do you see in this report? Does it surprise you?

** Photo by jmv