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HyperPhysics is an exploration environment for concepts in physics which employs concept maps and other linking strategies to facilitate smooth navigation. For the most part, it is laid out in small segments or "cards", true to its original development in HyperCard. The entire environment is interconnected with thousands of links, reminiscent of a neural network.

"A study reported at the American Chemical Society meeting in the US suggests feathers could lead to more environment-friendly, lighter plastics."

"Rocks examined by NASA's Spirit Mars Rover hold evidence of a wet, non-acidic ancient environment that may have been favorable for life. Confirming this mineral clue took four years of analysis by several scientists."

Your principal incentive to recycle? That one's a no-brainer: the environment, of course. But, it doesn't just have to be a green act of good will; it can add a little extra cash to your wallet as well. Recycling for money sure won't make you a millionaire, but these days every penny counts. So, cash in on your good conscience with these items.

Your principal incentive to recycle? That one's a no-brainer: the environment, of course. But, it doesn't just have to be a green act of good will; it can add a little extra cash to your wallet as well. Recycling for money sure won't make you a millionaire, but these days every penny counts. So, cash in on your good conscience with these items.

Join Bill Nye as he delves into the Greatest Discoveries in Biology. This program explains how the early use of microscopes and Anton Van Leeuwenhock's accidental discovery set the stage for studying microorganisms. It explores 19th century research breakthroughs and covers cell division, sex cell division, and cell differentiation. Learn how the discovery of mitochondria has helped us understand reproduction, ancestral lines, and cancer; how cells convert sugars, fats, and proteins into energy in the Krebs Cycle; and how they communicate through neurotransmitters and hormones. Explore the process of photosynthesis and how the discovery of the ecosystem process bridged biology with physics, chemistry, and other fields of science that describe the environment.

But in recent years, environmentalists have branded corn as an icon of unsustainable agriculture. It requires large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which require large amounts of fossil fuel to manufacture. Most of the resulting corn is fed to livestock who didn't evolve to subsist entirely on corn. In cattle, eating corn increases flatulence emissions of methane - a potent greenhouse gas - and creates an intestinal environment rich in e. coli, a common cause of food poisoning.

Canadian author Watts (Starfish) explores the nature of consciousness in this stimulating hard SF novel, which combines riveting action with a fascinating alien environment. In the late 21st century, when something alien is discovered beyond the edge of the solar system, the spaceship Theseus sets out to make contact. Led by an enigmatic AI and a genetically engineered vampire, the crew includes a biologist who's more machine than human, a linguist with surgically induced multiple personality disorder, a professional soldier who's a pacifist, and Siri Keeton, a man with only half a brain. Keeton is virtually incapable of empathy, but he has a savant's ability to model and predict the actions of others without understanding them. Once the Theseus arrives at the gigantic and hideously dangerous alien artifact (which has tellingly self-named itself Rorschach), the crew must deal with beings who speak English fluently but who may, paradoxically, not even be sentient, at least as we understand the term. Watts puts a terrifying and original spin on the familiar alien contact story. (Oct.)\nCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It was the year we learned of a spectacular smash-up in space, and scientists working on the world's biggest physics experiment delighted at collisions of an entirely different sort. There were shockwaves, too, in Copenhagen, as the summit failed to reach a consensus on tackling climate change, instead merely noting a deal struck by major powers including the US and China. The BBC's science reporter Paul Rincon looks back at the twists and turns of a year in science and the environment.

"Most massive galaxies, including our own Milky Way, are thought to harbour supermassive black holes at their centres. But these newly discovered black holes are much bigger than would be predicted by extrapolating from observations from their host galaxies. This suggests that the factors influencing the growth of the largest galaxies and their black holes differ from those influencing smaller galaxies. The findings come from observations of two nearby galaxies: NGC 3842 and NGC 4889."

"A team at the Carnegie Institution for Science subjected the material to pressures up to 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure at sea level, and temperatures up to 2,200C. They found that it pulls off the trick of changing its electrical properties without any shifting of shape - it can be an insulator or conductor depending just on temperature and pressure. Combined with computer simulations of just what was going on with the material's electrons, the group claim that the results show a new type of metallisation. "At high temperatures, the atoms in iron oxide crystals are arranged with the same structure as common table salt," said Ronald Cohen, a co-author of the study. "Just like table salt, iron oxide at ambient conditions is a good insulator-it does not conduct electricity.""

"The team from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) surveyed the composition of plant species within five-metre SGS in 10 fields and found the set-aside land resulted in a "sharp decrease" in the number of weeds encroaching into the cropped area."

"Scientists say they can now explain the existence of what are perhaps Earth's most extraordinary mountains. The Gamburtsevs are the size of the European Alps and yet they are totally buried beneath the Antarctic ice."

"Now a different team at the same lab reports findings that, they say, cast doubt on that surprising result. The Icarus team at the Icarus experiment says that because the neutrinos sent from Cern do not appear to lose energy on their journey, they must not have exceeded the speed of light along the way."

"Scientists in Russia have grown plants from fruit stored away in permafrost by squirrels over 30,000 years ago. The fruit was found in the banks of the Kolyma River in Siberia, a top site for people looking for mammoth bones."

"Harps employs an indirect method of detection that infers the existence of orbiting planets from the way their gravity makes a parent star appear to twitch in its motion across the sky. "Our new observations with Harps mean that about 40% of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet," said team leader Xavier Bonfils from the Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble, France. "Because red dwarfs are so common - there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way - this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone.""

"Schoolchildren are at it again, ditching school, busting out tricks on their bikes, and serving up some large-scale pranks to the world. These kids may not be taking notes, but they know how to take control and make themselves heard -- especially when it comes to saving the planet."

A man has climbed up a BBC building using a pair of vacuum gloves he built himself, in a stunt for a new BBC One science show.

According to a paper in PLoS Computational Biology, "PageRank" can be applied to the study of food webs.

Researchers have devised a penny-sized silicon chip that uses photons to run Shor's algorithm - a well-known quantum approach - to solve a maths problem. The algorithm computes the two numbers that multiply together to form a given figure, and has until now required laboratory-sized optical computers. This kind of factoring is the basis for a wide variety of encryption schemes.