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My son is 16. He is very interested in science especially physics. In fact he has consistently scored high in science. I wanted to encourage him and have him pursue his ambition with more focus and drive. He wants to take up space studies when he grows up. However, I don’t know if the tuitions and science exhibitions he has been to are helping him reach that advanced level. Any ideas on how to channelize his interest to an advanced level?

ok, the title isnt getting across exactly what i want to say, but - I think the more I go along in school, the more I'm feeling like research is not for me. At the moment, I'm actually dreading eventually having to do research for the sake of experience and for the sake of applying to grad school - its really confusing to the point of questioning myself whether science is really for me. I keep thinking it would be great if I could find some way to apply my science interests to something more "practical?", hands on, and fulfilling (for me) than research. I want to try using it to actually see my work helping people, or making a difference that I can SEE. basicall…

What would be the most worrisome thread to see to come across? I'm thinking something along the lines of "How do you store a pound of AP?" Anyone think they have something better?

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/last_event_states/states_washington.html A 4.5 magnitude earthquake shook the Puget Sound area of Washington state early Friday morning, January 30, 2009 according to the USGS. The good news is that surrounding infrastructure seems to have weathered the seismic event without damage. The quake, at a depth of 36 miles, occurred at 5:25 a.m. and was centered 14 miles northwest of Seattle near Kingston in Kitsap County. According to DOT spokeswoman Kristy Van Ness, crews remain in the field doing follow-up checks of bridges and other support structures. Initial examinations were made with flashlights in the dark, with no reports of dama…

Dear Science Forums.net I am a animation student currently working on a project about an imaginary machine. I ask you for your help with coming up with ideas of what this machine can or could do. Heres how its going to work: for example I will say the machine will be 17 miles wide and then somebody will possibly reply by saying the machine will be made of gold and then somebody else will reply and so on and so forth its a bit like a game of word association So anybody who wants to take part just reply to this massage Many thanks in advance hopefully there will be some interesting results I will Start: The Machine…

THIS IS A BAD JOKE, but I am only presenting a very real situation. I moved to a new place four months ago. I thought I followed the well-written large twelve-step statement to initialize phone and DSL web. It showed using your own phone tape as a choice, etc. Well I got no incoming calls for a month and a half. Callers were told "my voice-mail" was not set up. WE got that finally straightened out, and then a month later I noticed I could not dial out other than 1-800... We are trying now to straighten this out. I am tired beyond niceness at the phone contact system. Gladly a service person, Karen, deals with me in e-mail. What just happened is TOTALLY NUTS: …

Hey everyone, lately I've been thinking that I'd like to try making my own message board/forum website, however I don't actually know anything about how I would go about doing this. I figure the best way to get advice would be to ask someone who knows, which is why I'm posting here. Perhaps the founders of ScienceForums.net would be able to offer a fledgling potential board owner some information on how I'd actually go about setting up a website like this one?

As all people here (scientists) with a little or more knowledge ,do you think there is a soul on some matter and not others - as we know, we are just atoms ( gases ,solids,liquids) . do you believe those things has a brain to thinks to creates a cell (a live object) moves by it self and begin to evolution . If the matter is not alive things how did they creates alive one !!! . At first I didn't understand the quotes that says people made of mud. as what I understand mud means ( gases,solids,liquids) in general way. so what is keeping the body alive ?

Hey, I can't remember one quote from the movie "2001 a space odyssey". I'm hoping you guys can help me out. I think the person who says it is Dave. It goes something like "So many colors!" or "my god! the colors are everywhere!" it might have been during the ending scene where things stop making sense. Please help - its been bugging me for so long lol. What is the exact quote and who is it by?

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Holy moly I haven't been here in... a few months I think! I've had a number of computer problems recently (motherboard died, had to reformat, etc). Anyhoo, I'm here now! (not like any of you are that excited). Um, so yeah. I look forward to being part of the community again. edit: yup, last post was in September. x_x

Way cool. http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=15374&window_height=822&window_width=1664 +10 if you spot Carmen Sandiego.

mathematics , Gift from God or work of man? what do you think?

What would aliens do if they were to visit earth? A nice, open-ended question that makes no unreasonable assumptions. I opened this thread mostly because CHAOS seems to want to discuss aliens but is having trouble phrasing the question in a way acceptable on this forum. PS: Maybe we can add a poll, when we have some suggestions of what the aliens would do.

In other thread, Phi said Said topic is a bit of a sidebar (not quite off-topic, but close) to the discussion in that thread. Rather than discuss said topic there, how about a new thread? My take: Science also entails a belief system (otherwise, why not solipsism?) In a word, that belief system is realism or naturalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a fairly good entry on realism, naturalism, and scientific realism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/, and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/. One key difference between the scientist's belief that reality is real and the rel…

Miles O'Brien was canned from CNN a month ago, along with the entire science and technology staff. The lastest Jennifer Aniston rumor takes precedence over science and technology at CNN. O'Brien recently wrote this op-ed for space.com: http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive09/obrienoped_0119.html Truth is, we have done nothing to equal (much less top) the accomplishments of Apollo. And even worse, we haven't tried. We did something truly great, but then walked away from it. We had lightning in a bottle — and we opened the lid. Not that I'm biased or anything, but ... nice piece, Miles, and best of luck.

Found this and I have to say it's very distracting and kinda interesting to get into time as an element of solving puzzles: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/peepls/files/85.swf Basically, you are a time traveler and you have to get parts to fix your ship, but each level can only be solved if you work "with yourself" by doing certain actions, then going back to the time machine and going to the start, where you can get farther as you watch the previous versions of yourself go about their various actions that you did before. And, if you change the environment in a manner that kills off or strands a previous version of yourself - you get a paradox and have to restar…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mCD2rw_HV0 Enjoy . And yes, I made that video. ============================ On a more serious note, I've read somewhere that playing tetris actually does improve your spatial abilities and has a noticeable effect on how you use your brain. How many studies have their been on the game and it's effect on cognition? And, how good are you at the game?

Alcohol has been a part of my entire adult life. As a teenager working on my father's farm, harvesting hay, a cold beer was the reward after a hard and hot day's work. Pure pleasure! There is no doubt that we drink alcoholic drinks for the drug high. Whisky without the kick would be a revolting drink, but we soon learn to enjoy the taste, since it is associated with pleasurable feelings. Yet alcohol is harmful. It leads to social ills, such as alcoholism, and nasty drunks beating up their wives. It causes drivers to crash and kill people. It leads to cirrhosis of the liver, brain damage, and an increase in cancer rates. It causes immense harm to society. …

I am interested in others ideas on this question. Here is a little background speculation. Our species, Homo sapiens, has been in existence for about 200,000 years, give or take a reasonable error factor. A quick calculation. Three assumptions. 1. Definition of a genius is the smartest 0.1% of the population. 2. Average number of humans per generation is about 1 million, globally, over 200,000 years. 3. A generation is 20 years. Thus, in the period before the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, a total of about ten million human geniuses were born, lived and died. You can dispute my assumptions and conclusion, but it in inevitable to conclude that …

My 13-year-old is fascinated by space. He keeps talking about being an astronaut and walking on moon . Is there any way I can groom him in this aspect?

does anyone know were I can download pro desktop for free i desperately need it for a school project

Hey look what I found: Basically, a guy who is rapping about astrobiology, and the methods employed in the practice. Enjoy!

I found this computer algorithms robot video interesting Link: http://videosmate.com/indexvfrm.php?k=V2MXHHE2wJ74jffSggDS746GeYWs&video=Learningalgorithms

Mythbusters is not to be confused with a credible scientific source.