Motivate Yourself with a TED Science Talk!

TED (Technology, Education, Design) is a nonprofit dedicated to spreading ideas. TED is known for attracting amazing speakers to deliver short but impactful speeches on various subjects. There have been a few great ones regarding science - check them out below!  They will motivate you to be the best that you can, in 5 - 15 minutes!

Almost all new phones have touch screens instead of physical buttons - the following talk by Katherine Kuchenbecker of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) covers the technology behind these screens, and how it can be driven forward.​

This next talk by Freeman Hrabowski covers his success with a diverse STEM program a President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

​The final TED talk is by Elon Musk, who is one of the most fascinating innovators around. He developed the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that's currently running resupply trips to the International Space Station (ISS).  While he's bored with that, he's doing small things like founding PayPal or designing fully electric performance cars under his Tesla Motors company. Whew!

STEM Equality: The Fiscal Argument

Chelsea Clinton (yes, daughter of Slick WIllie) wrote a fascinating piece on STEM in the Huffington Post. She not only recognizes that others have not been able to have the resources that she grew up with, but she makes a fiscal argument for diversity in the workplace.

If women matched men's employment rates in America, GDP would rise by 5 percent, according to Booz & Company. With the U.S. Department of Commerce expecting STEM jobs to grow 17 percent between 2008 to 2018 -- compared to just 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs -- excluding women from the pipeline hurts American companies in search of the best high-tech talent. Economic expansion hinges on both halves of the workforce receiving the tools needed to drive innovation.​.

​This is a point that is often missing from discussions of diversity, and not just limited to the sciences .  Diversity is not just a "feel good" thing,  It has realistic implications and serves as the only way for our country to keep up with the rest of the world.  Every year that the US finishes near the bottom of  the country lists for math and science, I think about stats such as this.

Check out the rest of the article here!​

Adafruit: Learning Electronics The Fun Way

​Adafruit, the brainchild of Limor Fried for teaching electronics, has debuted a wonderful cartoon called Circuit Playground. Being an electrical engineer, I love seeing simplified attempts to describe the complexity behind the things that everyone uses - everyone plugs in a lamp!

The video below describes what current actually as - a flow of electrons. Most electronic devices have a suggested rating for amps (normally listed as A)​ in honor of scientist André-Marie Ampère. Amps is a measure of the amount of electrons that flows per second. Too little amps and the electronic device won't function.  Too many and it'll fry!

If you can't see the video below, click here.

Credits:

• Ladyada – Limor Fried
• Andre-Marie Ampere – Collin Cunningham
• ADABOT – Collin Cunningham & Phil Torrone, Puppet by Annie Fresh, design by Bruce Yan
• Music: Tom White & Collin Cunningham
• Intro animation – Bruce Yan
• Written, filmed, edited, directed and produced by – Collin Cunningham, Limor Fried, Phil Torrone and the Adafruit team

Women In Chemistry Documentary = Awesome

I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the Women in Chemistry documentary (trailer shown above) by local NPR affiliate WHYY in Philadelphia. This amazing documentary profiles eight women that have changed the course of chemistry and science in general.  Afterwards, we were treated to a Q&A moderated by Maiken Scott  with two of the women profiled in the video - Uma Chowdry and Mary Good. I asked a question a;bout getting kids engaged that don't have a support system that pushes science.  Both Mary and Uma told me to start with the problems that students are facing, and design solutions while focusing on the math and science aspects.  This is a winning idea!

The full list of profiled women is below:

• Nancy Chang, cofounder and former CEO of the biopharmaceutical firm Tanox;
• Uma Chowdhry, retired senior vice president and chief science and technology officer of DuPont;
• Mildred Cohn, first female president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology;
• Mary L. Good, former president of the American Chemical Society, undersecretary for technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, and recipient of the Priestley Medal;
• Kathryn Hach-Darrow, cofounder of the Hach Chemical Company and the only woman to receive CHF’s Pittcon Heritage Award;
• Paula Hammond, David H. Koch Professor in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
• Stephanie Kwolek, former research associate at DuPont and inventor of Kevlar; and
• Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder, chairman, and managing director of Biocon Limited.

The full hour-long documentary is embedded below - checked it out.

Another Successful Landing by SpaceX's Dragon

Dragon spacecraft landing. ​Photo via SpaceX Twitter

The Dragon spacecraft, by private company SpaceX, has successfully left the International Space Station and splashed down for landing in the ocean!  These missions will continue for the next few years and eventually manned space flight will return to US soil. Check out this panorama of the inside of the craft!

NASA indicates that the following experiments were returned to earth: ​

• Investigations included among the returned cargo could aid in food production during future long-duration space missions and enhance crop production on Earth. Others could help in the development of more efficient solar cells, detergents and semiconductor-based electronics. 
• Among the returned investigations was the Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures (CSLM-3) experiment, which also launched to space aboard this Dragon. CLSM-3 studies how crystals known as dendrites form as a metal alloy becomes solid. The research could help engineers develop stronger materials for use in automobile, aircraft and spacecraft parts. 
• Dragon also is returning several human research samples that will help scientists continue to examine how the human body reacts to long-term spaceflight. The results will have implications for future space exploration and direct benefits here on Earth.