Results tagged “science”

We've all got a bad case of the Fridays--perhaps because we're so pysched for the Media Slam this weekend. We need some awesome stuff to get us through the rest of the afternoon....

Most high schools teach bio in ninth grade, chemistry in tenth, physics in eleventh and cupcake decorating in twelfth, but several Chicago-area high schools are adopting the Physics First model, which teaches physics freshman year. The thinking behind PF is that physics is more exciting than bio and chem (so true) and that students should all be exposed to physics before they graduate.

Oh my god, nerdgasm. The MSI is planning a 40-foot artificial tornado that visitors can stand in. Dibs! Those bad boys don't come cheap, though. The Museum announced its plan for the 'nado as part of its $205 million fund-raising effort. So far, the MSI has raised $128 million, according to its press release.

A judge threw out Kevin Jones's confession in the case of Blair Holt's murder. According to the ruling, the state failed to demonstrate that Jones understood his Miranda rights. [S-T]

Our lame science fair projects always consisted of withered lima bean plants gasping for water, so that’s probably why we were never chosen to exhibit at the city's Chicago Public Schools Student Science Fair, currently running now through Sunday at the Museum of Science and Industry. Elementary and High School students will be competing in sixteen specialized categories such as Botany, Chemistry, Electronics, Environmental Science, Mathematics, and Physics.

This Thursday, The Glass Experience opens at the Museum of Science and Industry. We are super excited to see work by artisans like Dale Chihuly and Tiffany, among others, and maybe Benjy can go pant at the pieces by Frank Lloyd Wright. Glass pieces from renowned schools and studios from around the world will also be on display.

Local outfit Coudal has unveiled a betting pool for the 2008 Tournament of Books. Place your bets with Coudal, and all the money goes to First Book, an organization that gives new books to kids. Other companies are offering matching contributions, so bust out your wallet and lay some dough on the literary line.

We're celebrating by making you a list of things that are awesome.

We loved the Museum of Science and Industry even prior to having our kid (the submarine! the Omnimax! Clarence Darrow’s ghost!), but MSI’s "Idea Factory" is, arguably, the best kid-centered exhibit in Chicago. Since the museum has closed this exhibit for repairs until the end of March, we wondered how toddler-friendly the rest of the museum would be. In short, not much.

Here are some things to do this evening to consider bringing your voter receipt.

"Museum of Modern Ice", was officially unveiled in Millenium Park Friday. Canadian artist Gordon Halloran, who started as an abstract painter, created the work out of large pieces of colorful ice, and according to the Sun-Times, "he and a team of six have been working 12 to 14 hours a day since mid-December to ensure the project is complete [in time for its] unveiling." The exhibit stays up through the end of February.

The Museum of Science and Industry is raising its prices. Adult Chicago residents will now pay $12 (up from $10), adult non-Chicagoans $13 (from $11), Chicago children $8.50 ($6.25), non-Chicago children $9 ($7), Chicago seniors $11 ($8.75), and non-Chicago seniors $12 ($9.50).

• Mattell will make a collectible Barbie based on locally-based sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha (Barbie Dream Gamekeepers not included).
• For the curious: the man whom the Bishop Ford Freeway is named after.
• Mayor Daley open to the idea of closing half-empty schools.

The Museum of Science and Industry announced today that a fully-functional, three-story "green" home will be built just east of the museum on its Jackson Park grounds in Hyde Park this spring. The foundation is currently being laid, and it will be open to the public from May 8, 2008 through January 4, 2009. The 2,500-square-foot home will exhibit some of the latest environmentally-friendly technologies and offer a primer on incorporating these innovations into our homes.

Georgette Watson, the 46-year-old principal of Brentano Math and Science Academy in Logan Square, died yesterday while she was having a root canal. According to reports, she was anesthetized, but it's not clear yet if she was under general or local anesthesia. She stopped breathing 40 minutes into the procedure, and despite efforts to revive her, she died. Her autopsy is scheduled for today, but she appears to have had a heart attack.

You know we love animal stories. But we're a tiny bit freaked out by glow-in-the-dark cats? Mah genetic manipulation! Let me show it to you! [video]

UIC's Dr. David Featherstone and his colleagues have isolated a gene in fruit flies that, when mutated, makes them bisexual. And not because they want to be on TV. Because their synapses work differently! Featherstone et al published their findings in an article ("A glial amino-acid transporter controls synapse strength and homosexual courtship in Drosophila") in this month's Nature Neuroscience journal, which doesn't give its articles away for free online sadly. But apparently the researchers...

There are good ideas and there are great ideas. Doctors at Loyola University Medical Center have devised a way to make sure surgical sponges don’t get lost in people anymore. Hooray for medical technology! They’re going to put bar codes on the sponges, and a nurse will scan the sponge before it goes in and the system will tell the nurse if any sponges have been left inside.

One of the races that we've been watching this winter is the Democratic Primary in the 3rd Congressional District. Incumbent Dan Lipinski is hoping voters will send him back to D.C. for a third term, but he's facing a tough challenge from Mark Pera, an assistant county prosecutor from Western Springs. That challenge may have gotten a little tougher yesterday when Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool endorsed Pera. If you don't remember the 2004 general...

To the shock of no one, being an astronaut is amazing. So says Lombard native Daniel Tani, who's currently on his second mission in space. Tani's living in the international space station, building and repairing ... stuff, and taking spacewalks that make him think about how fragile the earth is. You can watch some video updates here. We recommend the Thanksgiving one — wait until they go through all the different astronaut food they eat. It's really cute.

We usually wait until later in the day to post things that are awesome, but the Sun-Times says today's weather is "lifeless." Maybe everybody just needs an injection of stuff that doesn't suck. We're gaga for dinosaurs, so news of this mumified dinosaur made our nerd senses tingle. Even better? Phil Manning, a paleontologist at England's University of Manchester who is leading the examination, told Wired, "When I first saw it in the field, (I...