Tuesday 15 July 2008

Spotlight on science resources


Spotlight is a science articles and news features resource by the award-winning science writer David Bradley. http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/spotlight/ Articles can be searched by subject and a snapshot of the latest articles include:

Cheerio! [Jul 2008 - materials] Anyone who enjoys a delicious bowl of mixed grain Cheerios in the morning, rather than being force-fed lumpy porridge, will know all about the "Cheerios Effect". This phenomenon is usually manifest at a particular point during breakfast when just a few torus-shaped ...
Inconvenient ice sheets [Jul 2008 - earth] The present environmental crisis over climate change hinges on the validity of global temperature measurements, observations of local conditions, such as changes in the ice caps, ...
Turning up the heat on quantum mechanics [Jun 2008 - physics] Scientists have made a startling prediction about the quantum world that seems to show that simply "taking the temperature" of certain types ...
Pathological proteins produce polymers [Jun 2008 - chemistry] Deposits of distorted or otherwise errant proteins are key to understanding various brain diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and the prion disease variant-CJD, they are also implicated in the pathology of type II diabetes. However, while such "amyloids" are a medical nightmare, researchers ...

Spotlight was selected as a recommended web link by New Scientist, July 2002 and is a 2002-03 and 2003-04 Golden Web Awards winner.