Found some awesome instructions for origami lotuses, which I think will look awesome on a holiday tree with a Buddhist slant. Will post the results soon!

Rae630 Paper Lotus

My fave magazine of all time, Make:, has introduced a new section on its site called Science Room. The new segment is joined by new products in their store, Maker Shed, including awesome lab equipment.

Head on over and get your science geek on!

Introducing the Make: Science Room

Green Acroyear figure from the Micronauts Home Page.

Back in the late 70s, I had a few of the Micronaut toys. Until today, I had forgotten how many I had, and couldn’t find them on the net because I kept thinking they were called “Microbots,” which is a different toy altogether. Today, the neurons fired in the proper sequence, I remembered the correct name, and hit The Google.

The Micronauts Homepage
Inner Space Online
MicroHeritage Micronauts

Rummaging through the sites, I remembered the toys I had: the Acroyear (I) figure, the Mobile Exploration Lab, Crater Cruncher, and Hydra vehicles. My dream was to have the Battle Cruiser and the Micropolis Megacity.

Because all the parts used connectors that were the same size across the toys, you could build new things by taking bits of one toy and putting them on another. These combinations made it easy to come up with new ways of imaging how to play with the toys. To me this was better than Lego’s because instead of being generic blocks, the were bits and pieces that were shaped like things (and yeah, I never got into the Lego play sets, either). You could take rocket nozzles off one toy and put them on another, propellers off another, and so on, and build something completely new.

I wish the Micronauts would come back in to production. They were the best toys ever!

I worked for Staples for a while back when the “That was easy” campaign started, and the Easy Button ads started airing. People started showing up in the store wanting an Easy Button, and finally Staples started selling them. (Staples is a great company to work for, and I had an awesome boss, and they are giving at least part of the proceeds for the Easy Button to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Yay!)

Needless to say, if something has batteries and a button and does something, it will be hacked by geeks. Here’s a quick roundup of interesting Easy Button hacks found on the web. Buy one and hack yours!

• Change playback speed of pre-recorded message (and a custom message mod)
• Replace circuit with custom recording module
• Easy Button Escape Key (this guy also made a giant (non-functional) SD card)
• Another custom recording circuit on Instructables

I’d like to make something like an office WTF? counter with an Easy Button, actually. What other interesting things can be done with a giant red button?

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

I’ve encountered the site before, but somehow I missed out on it’s geeky awesomeness. And from that site, I’ve hit a few others that give me that tingly, geeky feeling of wanting to build stuff–like finally build that cool workshop in the back yard in which I will build other, smaller cool stuff.

Thanks to that site, I’ve also encountered other cool sites that are new to me via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Like

• NYCResistor (co-founded by uber-geek-stud and my hero, Bre Pettis)
• SparkFun Electronics

There are more, and as soon as I organize all the bookmarks I’ve saved just by hitting the EMSL links, I’ll post them here.

A report on MSNBC’s website reveals that an organic certification we should be able to trust may not be trustworthy after all.

According to the report, a program manager named Barbara Robinson repeatedly bowed to pressure from large producers to weaken or override regulations, even allowing synthetics produced with hexane, a neurotoxin, to be added to baby formula that carries the USDA organic seal. Even organic milk, which should require cows to be at least sometimes put to pasture, may be produced from cows continually confined to feed lots.

“It will unravel everything we’ve done if the standards can no longer be trusted,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who sponsored the federal organics legislation. “If we don’t protect the brand, the organic label, the program is finished. It could disappear overnight.” [quoted from MSNBC]

I agree with the report’s contention that the USDA organic label is under serious threat of irrelevancy. Unfortunately, most consumers will continue to trust the seal as the utmost authority of what foods are indeed produced using trusted organic methods, if for no other reason than that they simply don’t have time to research the various organic certifications. Until the time comes that the USDA National Organic Program can be trusted, I will encourage others to visit the Organic Consumer Association’s site to find out more about what foods can be trusted as organic. And write to your representatives and the Obama administration and demand that the USDA National Organic Program be put back on track and that people like Barbara Robinson be fired, so that the taxpayer money spent on the program is not wasted on a soon to be meaningless logo.

(Maybe the whole USDA National Organic Program, as implemented, is not such a good idea anyway. Read USDA Organic Seal – Killing hometown organic farms in America? for more.)

from Grant and Caroline’s pix on Flickr

This summer I’ve seen more fireflies than I can remember. Well, I have to qualify that, as there weren’t many around the house where I grew up in south Georgia. Sure, we’d see the occasional yellow-green light flickering through the yard, or, sadly, obliterated on the car’s windshield when driving at night. My best remembered display was when as a young teen I was visiting my grandmother’s house in Clayton, Georgia. The lightning bugs flickered through the bamboo grove below the house, and in the trees and bushes surrounding the house on Duggan Hill. It was also on that trip that I saw my first Luna moth.

I don’t recall seeing fireflies here at home last summer, but just a week ago I walked outside and witnessed an awe-inspiring display of hundreds of tiny lights flickering in the woods at the edge of the back yard. I stood transfixed, amazed at nature’s magical beauty. I instantly understood why people once believed in fairies and wee folk, and for a moment I did, too.

Though they never really synchronized, their flashing seemed to come in waves. For a few seconds they flickered all over the yard, then there seemed to come a pause for a few seconds, with only a couple of fireflies sending their sparkling mating signals. For a few nights I spent time on the back deck, enjoying their spellbinding lights.

This week the number of fireflies has greatly decreased, and tonight I counted only three or four flashing among the trunks of the sweetgums and pines. Some floated through the back yard, almost as if they were desperately aware that the pickins for a mate are slimmer than just last week.

I did a quick search and found some interesting information about fireflies in Georgia. There may be many different species here, differentiated by color of the light, or the pattern of flashing. It also turns out that one of the nation’s foremost firefly researchers is Jonathan Copeland at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. He’s researched some species in the South that exhibit synchronized flashing, previously thought only to occur in Asian species.

I also discovered that, depending on the area, fireflies may be in decline or in others, increasing. They’re sensitive to environmental conditions, so, like frogs and other amphibians, may be indicators of the ecological health of an area. Given this year’s backyard display, I hope that means they’ve found a comfortable home here.

The Museum of Science in Boston is again working to collect information about firefly populations in New England and the rest of the US. I’ll be sending in my observations this summer, and hope that it adds to our knowledge of fireflies. Hopefully the public’s participation can help in our understanding these animals, and will help us to preserve these magical creatures for future generations.

Resources:

• Firefly.org
• The Synchronous Fireflies of Elkmont (Appalachian Voice)
• US Fireflies Flashing in Unison (Science News via bNet)
  
• Fireflies in decline as natural habitat destroyed (NowPublic)
• After cicada, firefly’s warm glow grows (Newport News Daily Press)
• Fireflies shine light on insect conservation (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Grant and Caroline’s Firefly pictures (Flickr, Creative Commons License)

You can help conserve firefles by participating in the Boston Museum of Science’s Firefly Watch program at this website:

• Museum of Science Firefly Watch

An inventor has created a product which so closely mimics the look of one species of firefly that not only does it fool us humans, but has been used by researchers to lure fireflies. The product is called Firefly Magic, and is available to the public. If you live in an area without native fireflies, like much of the west coast of the US, you can place this system in your yard and experience much of the wonder of fireflies.