Conectaballs is gaining attention and taking the world by storm! It is both a puzzle and a building toy. It can be connected in virtually unlimited combinations to create numerous geometric figures, such as pyramids, cubes, and various free-form multi dimensional structures. Conectaballs is already being used in math summer camps and schools to supplement the curriculums with a fun and educational puzzle!
Conectaball’s beauty is in its simplicity – eight balls join together on a string to allow endless possibilities.
- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1665843422/conectaballs-wooden-puzzle-toy
Conectaballs is a wooden puzzle toy by Leo Bragdinsky. Leo is an avid skier, kayaker, mountain biker, basically an adrenalin junkie! In his spare time, Leo is a software engineer, with a love of mathematics and the beauty of well designed code. When he is not climbing mountains, Leo also enjoys teaching children how to code. While playing with his own daughter, Leo discovered that his love of mathematics and toys could be combined..hence Conectaballs was invented. By using the area of mathematics called Graph Theory Leo created Conectaballs to intrigue adults and children alike. They became so addictive, his friends wouldn’t return his prototypes! Playing with Conectballs for a short period of time, is like eating only one chip, it is just not possible!
- http://http://www.conectaballs.com
- http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/07/16/pollen-up-close-1837/
- http://bellandstar.blogspot.com/2012/05/pollen-seeds-fruit-work-of-rob-kesseler.html
I was happy to find this online snowflake library: The Bentley Collection Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Thousands of snow crystals available for view online for free:
Botanic illustration drawings by Ernst Haeckel
Paper made out of sheep poo. I personally touched it and it is very very soft.
Wild blackberries and red salmon berries gathered in Upstate New York, Harriman State Park. I never had salmon berries before. They are so delicious! Almost as good as or better than raspberries.
The discovery, which the researchers reported last week in Nature, supports research showing that birds are dinosaurs, having descended from a group of bipedal dinosaurs called theropods.
Dr. Prum and his colleagues, meanwhile, had set out on a similar quest. Working with paleontologists at the Beijing Museum of Natural History and Peking University, the researchers began to study a 150-million-year-old species called Anchiornis huxleyi. The chicken-sized theropod was festooned with long feathers on its arms and legs.
Scientsts were able to assign color to individual feathers and thus work out color patterns for the entire fossil of Anchiornis huxleyi, a small, feathered, two-legged dinosaur that lived roughly 150 million years ago. The animal would have weighed about four ounces (110 grams) and appears to have had a dark gray or black body and wings with some white feathers that gave it a stripe pattern, plus a reddish-brown crest and speckles on the face. ( Source: New York Times and Discovery News)
November Meteors
Mare Humorum. From Study made in 1875.
Sun as Revealed by Telescope and Spectroscope
The Horticultural Society of New York is awesome. The Horticultural society of New York makes New York city better through horticultural programs, library resources and exhibitions. Below are some photos of the exhibitions held in HSNY:
Above: Sustainable fashion Show - Bodkin- Eviana Hartman uses recycled tire rubber as buttons, boiled carob dyes, bamboo/organic cotton, organic wool, recycled polyester fleece.
Above: The Artificial Kingdom - art exhibition by Rowena Dring and Jude Miller
Above: Awesome indoor green wall at HSNY
Terraskin, Via Stone and Fiberstone are tree-free papers made of minerals. Stone paper is similar to traditional papers only it has a lot of advantages. When it comes to printing Via Stone paper uses 20-30% less ink than conventional papers. Stone paper can be water-resistant, tear-resistant, recyclable and biodegradable. No water or bleach can be used in its production as well!
DIY Algae/Hydrogen Kit is an art project by Future Farmers Future farmers write: “Currently scientists are testing and generating strains of algae to determine which one most efficiently produces hydrogen in a process called “biophotolysis”. This is an exciting sector of research, but most of the activity takes place under highly controlled environments in laboratories within universities”. Future Farmers decided to create a “backyard/DIY” model which would allow people (not only scientists) to produce hydrogen. “The notion of people producing their own power is exciting. Researcher, Jonathan Meuser used this opportunity to exhibit a model of “biophotolysis” to test a system in his backyard. His test was a success, in that it produced hydrogen and could demonstrate the process using off the shelf and found supplies”. “The ultimate goal is to develop a water-splitting process that will result in a commercial H2-producing system that is cost effective, scalable to large production, non-polluting, and self-sustaining.”-Maria Ghirardi
Green Screens is an electronic recycling event all over NYC boroughs. Green Screens: “As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, more and more consumers are looking to replace their outdated equipment with new, energy-efficient products. However, with technology constituting an estimated 87.5 percent of landfill toxic waste, it is vital for consumers to understand the importance of recycling technology in an environmentally responsible manner”
Algae fuel is a biofuel from algae. Algae can produce more oil in an area the size of a two-car garage than a football field of soybeans. Algal fuel does not impact fresh water resources, and can use wastewater or even saltwater. With increasing oil prices, competing demands between foods and other biofuel sources and the food crisis, there is much interest in farming algae. (Bill Gates already invested, how about you ? ) The United States Department of Energy states that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (40,000 square kilometers), which is a few thousand square miles larger than Maryland, or 1.3 Belgiums. This is less than 1/7th the area of corn harvested in the United States in 2000.
Saved by the Sun is an educational film/program that probes how innovative technologies, new business models, increasing financial incentives, and a growing grassroots commitment to solving the climate crisis are driving a renaissance in solar energy around the world. The film is about an hour long and is divided into six chapters. For ex, chapter four is about Germany’s renewable energy through financial incentives.
Watch Saved by the Sun here: Saved by the Sun.
Watch chapter four of the film by clicking the image below: