science of tree

Middle-school students understand that scientists collect data and analyze it using models, charts, and graphs, for example. This lesson provides students the opportunity to work with data and construct models.
This poster offers a vivid, up-to-date overview of the modern classification of living things. The central image of a tree, with its labeled limbs and branches, represents the relationships among all the major groups of organisms on Earth. This visual presentation is reinforced verbally in an outline at the bottom of the poster, which gives descriptions and interesting facts about the 236 taxonomic groups shown in the tree.

Text boxes provide background on the science of classification, and gorgeous color photographs give striking examples of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms. By combining stunning graphics with the latest science, "The Tree of Life on Earth" is an indispensable guide to the unity and diversity of life.
In this lesson, students will make models of three tree core samples using data collected from trees that grew in the same general area of Alaska. They will analyze their models and make predictions about the trees' growing conditions, based on the size of the tree rings in the different models. This lesson encourages students to think about the usefulness of these and other models; for example, students should realize that physical models are easier to work with than what they represent All of the Jensan Scientifics study materials have been reviewed by qualified scientists and educators, and no matter what size the set, information sheets are always included. The details of rock and mineral sample selections are proprietary to Jensan Scientifics. For individual questions, we welcome e-mail or calls!

because they're smaller in size, less expensive in terms of materials, or shorter in duration. (Science for All Americans, p. 168.) In addition, this lesson encourages students to recognize the importance of science and mathematics in everyday life, as well as how the two disciplines often work hand in hand.

Science news Reference

Science news

Scientific and Information visualization are branches of computer graphics and user interface design that are concerned with presenting data to users, by means of images.

The goal of this area is usually to improve understanding of the data being presented.
For example, scientists interpret potentially huge quantities of laboratory or simulation data or the results from sensors out in the field to aid reasoning, hypothesis building and cognition.
The field of data mining offers many abstract visualizations related to these visualization types.
They are active research areas, drawing on theory in information graphics, computer graphics, human-computer interaction and cognitive science.

Science news
Desktop programs capable of presenting interactive models of molecules and microbiological entities are becoming relatively common (Molecular graphics).

"It's about making the invisible visible," said Bernd Hamann, co-director of CIPIC.
The aims of CIPIC are to develop technology for handling very large amounts of data, to establish visualization technology at UC Davis, and to enable transfer of new inventions from the lab bench into industry, Hamann said.

Science news
Modern research generates huge volumes of data, for example from genome sequencing, satellite imaging, measuring traffic patterns or simulating very complex problems such as climate change. Medical imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) also generate huge datasets.
Virtual reality could be used for example to train doctors and surgeons, to let car designers try out styles before building a vehicle, or to help air traffic controllers work in three dimensions.
The simplest way to handle this data is to make it visible, so that scientists can "see" what is happening in an experiment. Virtual reality allows researchers to interact with the data while they are looking at it, making changes and seeing what happens.
The CIPIC virtual reality lab is currently equipped with an immersive workbench, which projects three-dimensional images onto a tilting table. Wearing goggles and special gloves connected to the computer, researchers can reach "into" the workbench, pick up virtual objects and move them around.
The lab plans to build a "cave," a room fitted with projectors generating three-dimensional images on the walls, floor and ceiling. This will let scientists literally walk around inside their data.

Science news
Through CIPIC and the computer science department, UC Davis is offering a graduate class in virtual reality -- one of a handful in the U.S. In the 2001 spring quarter, 11 students took the class, completing basic lectures and a 12-week project to build a virtual reality program. The class was developed by computer science professor Ken Joy and graduate student Falko Kuester.
"Pretty much all of the students were starting from zero in virtual reality," said Kuester. All of this year's students were computer science students. In future years, Joy hopes to bring in students from areas such as design, theater and dance, and biology to create interdisciplinary projects.

Science news
Student projects this year included a virtual modeling tool that lets a designer cut and mold shapes, a three-dimensional Web browser, a method to display virtual reality images on a handheld computer, and a visualization of data from a gliding competition.
Glider pilots use global positioning systems to record information on their location, height and speed, said Kuester. In gliding competitions, this data is used to work out who flew the furthest and for longest.
Analyzing this data, which is posted on the Internet by glider clubs, reveals information about the local climate, Kuester said. Gliders are very sensitive to changes in air temperature and currents. When dozens of gliders are flying in a big competition, they are actually collecting detailed data on the local weather and climate, he said. Virtual reality can make this data visible and easier to interpret.
Another major project is to build a visual atlas of the brains of humans and monkeys. Researchers at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, led by director Ted Jones, are collecting highly detailed images of the brain. They are also studying how genes are turned on and off in different parts of the brain, especially during mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia.

Science news
CIPIC's computer scientists will help the neuroscientists put this information together in a single image database. Eventually, it will be possible to use a browser program to fly through the brain, zoom in on one area, examine it in microscopic detail, then call up genetic or other information about it. The project is supported in part by a grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation.
Although many of the programs developed at CIPIC run on powerful graphics computers or "clusters" of computers running together, the lab is increasingly using the Linux operating system.
"The advantage of converting to Linux is that we need cheaper computers," said Kuester. Using Linux, powerful virtual reality programs can be built and run on systems available off-the-shelf for around $2,500, he said.
The CIPIC Visualization and Graphics Research Group also includes computer graphics pioneer Nelson Max, who started working in the area in 1968 using an IBM mainframe computer, and Kwan-Liu Ma, who last year was honored by President Clinton with a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. In early 2002 the team will be joined by Oliver Staadt, who is currently setting up a major virtual reality lab in Zurich, Switzerland.
The field of Bioinformatics and the field of Cheminformatics make a heavy use of these visualization engines for interpreting lab data and for training purposes.
Medical imaging is a huge application domain for scientific visualization with an emphasis on enhancing imaging results graphically, e.g.
using pseudo-coloring or overlaying of plots.
Real-time visualization can serve to simultaneously image analysis results within or beside an Applying virtual reality to help scientists to see and handle their data is the aim of the Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing (CIPIC) at the University of California, Davis. The center has also been teaching students how to build and work with virtual reality environments in one of a handful of courses of its kind in the U.S.

Earth burn up in 2012?

Science

THEORY: Rogue Planet CollisionAuthor Zecharia Sitchin wrote of a 5,000-year-old tale of planet Nibiru, home to a race of beings called the Annunaki, orbiting the sun beyond Pluto. Although dismissed by many as a myth, some believe that because of an unusual orbit, Nibiru is set to disrupt Earth in 2012. Recent science has indeed discovered a planetary body that is slightly larger than Pluto and three times farther from the sun, named Eris. Despite assurances from NASA that Eris is not headed anywhere near Earth, followers of Sitchin’s ideas fear that Eris is indeed Nibiru and will follow a rogue orbit, coming close enough to the solar system that its gravitational pull could dramatically alter the face of the Earth, wreaking unprecedented havoc on our gravity and electromagnetic fields.

by Stephen Yulish PhD

There has been much talk of late about the supposed doomsday prediction of December 21, 2012 as reflected in the Mayan long calendar. Most of the ancient Mayan codices were burned by Spanish monks in 1521 as works of the devil. A few survived including the so called Dresden Codex. This 74 page codex written on tree bark and apparently from the famous Mayan temple and observatory at Chichen Itza was sent by Cortes to Emperor Charles V in 1519. Somehow it found its way to the Royal Library at the Court of Saxony in Dresden where it was purchased from a private collector by Johann Christian Goetze. While it was damaged by the fire bombing of Dresden during WWII, much has survived.
From this work, which was written between 1200 and 1250 AD, numerous astronomical and calendar data points were found including information on eclipses, the transit of the planet Venus as well as information on the motion of the moon, stars and the sun. It has been determined by research scholars that the Mayan long count calendar ends on 13.0.0.0.0 which equates to our date of December 21, 2012 at 10AM GMT. On that day it has been surmised the end will come.
According to my research, many have tried to tie this upcoming apocalyptic winter solstice day with a solar shift, solar storms, and a transit of Venus as well as with severe earthquakes. Is there any truth to these allegations? According to some astronomers, on this day our solar system will intersect with the Galactic Equator which only happens every 26, 000 years. Since the Mayan calendar began in 3114 BC, they had never experienced anything like this before either. The Mayans called this event the Sacred Tree. This alignment with the center of the galaxy also allows for maximum mass and thus maximum gravity.
According to the National Earthquake Information Service of the US Geological Survey, earthquakes have gradually increased from 1 severe quake between 1890 and 1899 to 765 from 2000-2004. Could this be due to our solar systems movement towards this Galactic Equator?
NASA predicts that a terrific solar storm will hit the earth in 2012 which will be 30-50 percent greater than anything before. I believe that there has been global warming over the past decades but it is related to sunspot activity on the sun not carbon dioxide emissions. The sun has gotten hotter and that has affected the earth. A massive solar blast from the sun in 2012 could burn up the earth as could a collision with an asteroid or a comet.
There has even been talk of a polar shift which could disrupt the functioning of the entire earth and could change the axis of rotation. Such a shift has taken place in our geologic past and could happen again. If it happened on December, 21, 2012, it would truly be a day to remember

This apocalyptic date of December 21, 2012 is also supposedly found in Hopi myths, the I-Ching, Aztec writings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman Oracles, writing of Seneca Elders, the chief Shaman of the Cherokee Tribe in NC, and even the writings of Nostradamus, The Russian mathematician Sergey Smelyakov of Khartov University taking the constant Phi (1.6180339), the so called Golden Mean or the Fibonacci sequence, and applying it to solar activity and planetary orbits, found that everything seemed to spiral in on itself on December 21, 2012 implying a time implosion or point of bifurcation.
The planet Venus is set to make a transit across the face of the sun on December 21, 2012 which happens very infrequently. It did happen recently, however, on June 8, 2004 which means it will happen again in eight years which is very unusual but predicted by the Mayans.
I cannot tell you for certain that the earth will be consumed by fire in 2012 or that there will be a polar shift or severe earthquakes, but I can tell you with certainty that one day in the not too distant future it will be consumed by fire and experience a polar shift and severe earthquakes. I can say that because the word of God says so and it did beginning over 2700 years ago, long before the Mayans or the Aztecs or the Hopi or the Seneca or the I-Ching or Nostradamus.
Once before because of its sin the earth was destroyed by water in the Great Flood of Noah's day but the Bible says that the world will be destroyed again, this time by fire.
"The present heavens and earth, by His word, are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and the destruction of ungodly men" (2Peter 3:7).
"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat and the earth and its works will be burned up" (2Peter 3:10).
"The sun scorched men with fire" (Revelation 16:8).
"A third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up. A great mountain (asteroid?) burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood and a third of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died and a third of the ships were destroyed. And a great star (comet?) fell from heaven burning like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and springs of water (Revelation 8:7-11).
"The inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men are left" (Isaiah 24:6).
"The hills melt and the earth is burned up" (Nahum 1:5).
Once again, many have associated December 21, 2012 with a shift in the poles as well as signs in the sky. What does the Bible tell us about these events?
"The stars will fall from the sky" (Matthew 24:29).
If the earth shifts on its axis and we are thrown around, the stars will appear to fall but it will actually be us that are moving.
"The earth is broken asunder. The earth is split through. The earth is shaken violently. Thee earth reels to and fro like a drunkard and it totters like a shack "(Isaiah 24:19-20).
Once again a shift in the polar axis might tear the earth apart.

THEORY: Nostradamus' PropheciesThe infamous seer's writings have been cited as predicting such historical events as the reign of Napoleon, the tyranny of Hitler, both World Wars, and September 11th. His writings also contain a number of end of the world prophecies which have yet to occur. His written quatrains prophesize everything from earthquakes and rampant disease to the coming of an antichrist and the onset of World War III. While not specifically pinpointed to the year 2012, many believe that Nostradamus' prophecies will coincide with the end of the Maya calendar.