The NSDL Scout Report for Physical Sciences -- Volume 1, Number 12

Date June 28, 2002

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison




In This Issue:

Research

Education

General

Topic In Depth




Research

Environmental Science & Technology
http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/index.html
The latest issue of Environmental Science & Technology has recently been made available by the American Chemical Societies Publications Web site. The June 15th, 2002 issue contains over thirty articles, which can be viewed for free online or via PDF file. Current articles include Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Indoor and Outdoor Air of Three Cities in the US, Solid-Solution Speciation and Phytoavailability of Copper and Zinc in Soils, and A Study of Fine Particulate Emissions from Combustion of Treated Pulverized Municipal Sewage Sludge. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

NSFC Databases
http://www.nesc.wvu.edu/nsfc/nsfc_databases.htm    
The National Environmental Services Center (NESC) is based at West Virginia University and "serves as a clearinghouse for information about drinking water, wastewater, environmental training, and solid waste management in communities serving fewer than 10,000 individuals." As part of the NSFC larger Web site, the Databases page offers three online databases that can be accessed free after an initial registration. The Regulations Database contains copies of regulations for onsite wastewater treatment systems in 48 states, the Bibliographic Database stores thousands of articles dealing with onsite and small community wastewater issues, and the Manufacturers and Consultants Database houses a list of industry contacts for wastewater products and consulting services. Much more is available within the larger NSFC site and readers are encouraged to take a look through its contents.
[Back to Contents]

Central Internet Database
http://cid.em.doe.gov/
The Department of Energy maintains the Central Internet Database Web site. Here users can generate and print reports containing nationwide data on radioactive waste, contaminated media, and spent nuclear fuel. Ready to read reports are also available including Actual and Projected Waste/Material Volumes, Waste/Material Characteristic Data (contaminants/isotopes/radioactivity), and Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) Systems. The site currently contains fifty nine standard and fourteen ready to read reports [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Universities Water Information Network
http://www.uwin.siu.edu/
The Universities Water Information Network (UWIN), located at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, "disseminates information of interest to the water resources community and all concerned with our water resources." Although much of the site is accessed by paid subscription only, several resources are offered free to anyone. A database of water related consulting firms contains contact information, including name, acronym, postal address, phone, fax, email, and contact person. Another helpful resource, the organizations database, lists water resource agencies, organizations, and institutions in the US, Caribbean, and Central America. Other items of interest include job listings, press releases, and more. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Proceedings and Summary Report: Workshop on the Fate, Transport, and Transformation of Mercury on Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments [.pdf]
http://toxics.usgs.gov/meetings/epa_usgs_workshop.pdf
The Proceedings and Summary Report entitled, "Workshop on the Fate, Transport, and Transformation of Mercury on Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments", was published and made available this month by the Environmental Protection Agencies Office of Research and Development. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss the state of the science regarding the fate and transport of mercury in aquatic and terrestrial systems, mercury transformation processes (biotic and abiotic), and methods for managing ecological and human exposures to methylmercury. The document contains summaries of the plenary session, the technical presentations, and the panel discussion, as well as appendices that present the final agenda, speaker abstracts, and poster abstracts. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Desalination Directory Online
http://www.desline.com/
Maintained by Mariam Balaban, the Desalination Directory Web site offers over 12,000 entries consisting of government and academic institutions, companies, and individuals in the field of desalination and water reuse. The individuals, companies and institution, cumulative and the Office of Saline Water categories are searchable by keyword, while the associations, publications, and events categories link to individual lists of information. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Diazinon and Chlorpyrifos Loads in the San Joaquin River Basin, California, January and February 2000 [.pdf]
http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/wri/wri02-4103/
The report, "Diazinon Levels in Sacramento and San Joaquin Basin Rivers Lower Than in 1990s", was released June 20, 2002 by the US Geological Survey in cooperation with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. The abstract can be read on this site and the entire publication can be downloaded and viewed free of charge using the available link. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

The Extragalactic Database
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/
The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) "is built around a master list of extragalactic objects for which cross-identifications of names have been established, accurate positions and redshifts entered to the extent possible, and basic data collected." The main page has links to objects by name and position, data, literature, tools, additional information, and more. Although a bit confusing to use, the database provides an excellent resource for those interested in data of this sort. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Education

TryScience
http://www.tryscience.org/home.html
As part of the New York Hall of Science, TryScience is an interactive educational Web site that proves again the capability of the Internet to provide fun, engaging and stimulating learning material. The site has several activities such as the field trips page that links to over 400 science centers worldwide, the Star Trek Voyager Adventure which lets kids explore engineering and more. The experiments page currently features information focused on helping kids learn about electrolysis by completing the very well done online experiment and then trying it at home. [JAB]

[Back to Contents]

ChemCom
http://198.110.10.57/ChemCom/Index.html
Developed by the American Chemical Society, the ChemCom Web site "acts as a gathering place for teachers to exchange information and files with each other". The site contains lesson plans and worksheets written for secondary school students and is divided into eight units each of which revolve around a societal question that requires knowledge of chemistry to answer. The categories include Supplying Our Water Needs, Conserving Chemical Resources, Petroleum:To Build To Burn, Understanding Food, Nuclear Chemistry in Our World, Chemistry Air and Climate, Health :Your Risks and Choices, and The Chemical Industry:Promise and Challenge. This no-frills site provides good resources for educators trying to find new ways to teach chemistry related material. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Volcano World
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html
Maintained by the University of North Dakota, the Volcano World Web site (last mentioned in the December 9, 1998 Scout Report for Science & Engineering ) has had several additions, including the Teaching and Learning and Kid's Door Page. Educators will find lesson plans and volcano-building projects, while kids can explore games, virtual field trips, adventures with "Rocky" and more. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Everything you Need to Know About Sewerage
http://www.southeastwater.com.au/education_aboutsewage.asp?area=education
The state-owned Company South East Water, which provides water and sewerage services to customers in the southeast of Melbourne, presents the Everything you Need to Know About Sewerage Web site. Visitors will learn about the composition of sewage and how it is treated, the history of sewage treatment, where and how materials should disposed of, and more. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Did You Ever Wonder?
http://www.lbl.gov/wonder/
The Did You Ever Wonder Web site is offered by the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Each month a dozen questions are posed and answered by lab scientists on various topics. A few topics currently included are how a portable water purifier saves children's lives, about the best bugs for cleaning up toxic waste, how to carve with light, and a discussion of dark energy and how it accelerates the expansion of the universe. The links describe the work each scientist is involved in and by clicking the "more" link at the bottom of each page brings up additional facts, photos, etc. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Space Sciences
http://www.intelligentchild.com/
The latest addition to the Office of Naval Research's Science & Technology Focus site (last mentioned in March 29, 2002 Scout Report) is the Space Sciences Page. The site contains the Observing the Sky link, which has easily read information, photographs, and illustrations on earth rotation, orbit, seasons, observing stars, and more. The Navy & Satellites link describes the Navy's role in launching satellites and how that's accomplished while additional facts can be found on the Naval Research page. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Classroom Antarctica [.pdf]
http://classroomantarctica.aad.gov.au/
As part of the Australian Antarctic Division, Classroom Antarctica gives dozens of downloadable Adobe Acrobat files that allow students to discover this unique continent. Subjects include the history of the scientific research undertaken on Antarctica, surviving its climate, its biological ecosystem, the land's physical characteristics and affects on climate, and much more. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

EarthCam for Kids
http://www.earthcamforkids.com/
EarthCam for Kids lets users search or browse to find web cams located around the world. Arranged by subject, students can locate cameras that are viewing seismographs, mountains, rivers, space, labs, as well as other subjects. Each link brings up the remote camera letting users see what's going on or, as in several cases, what's not going on. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

General

The Living by Water Project
http://www.livingbywater.bc.ca/
The Living by Water Project "provides programs, services and materials to promote the value of keeping shorelines healthy, and emphasize what we all can do to help care for them." The Web site provides information and tips to shoreline residents, preservation groups, and others on shoreline basics, home and landscaping, recreation, erosion, policy, and other pertinent facts and advice. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

SETI Institute
http://www.seti.org/
The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute has as its mission to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature, prevalence and distribution of life in the universe. The Web site contains the history and makeup of the institute, a science section that details ongoing projects and explains its telescope arrays, an education and outreach area, and other interesting news and facts worth exploring. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Celebration of 100 Distinguished European Chemists from the Chemical Revolution to the 21st Century
http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/enc/FECS/100chemists.htm
Presented by the European Network for Chemistry, the Celebration of 100 Distinguished European Chemists from the Chemical Revolution to the 21st Century is a celebration of distinguished European Chemists spanning a period of over two hundred years. The chemists are listed by century and include such notables as Louis Pasteur and Amedeo Avogadro. Each page consists of a portrait, a short biography and links to further information. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Ground Water and Drinking Water
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/
The Environmental Protection Agencies Web site, Ground Water and Drinking Water (last mentioned in the March 29, 2002 Scout Report), has many additional high quality features not mentioned in previous reports. The site has continually updated information regarding drinking water regulation, as well as general facts such as where drinking water comes from, what's in it, drinking water standards, how you can protect your drinking water, a link for kids, and an extensive amount of additional material. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Geographic Names Information System
http://geonames.usgs.gov/
The US Geological Surveys online Geographic Names Information System contains data on nearly 2 million physical and cultural geographic features in the US. Facts include federally recognized feature name, feature type, elevation, estimated 1994 population of incorporated cities and towns, state and county in which the feature is located, latitude and longitude of the feature location, and more. Searches can be done by feature name or type, state, county name, elevation range, and population range. A simple but useful site. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Rock Hounds
http://www.fi.edu/fellows/payton/rocks/create/index.html
The Franklin Institute Online and the Loogootee West Elementary School offer the Rock Hound Web site. Visitors can learn about rock collecting, sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rock formations, pictures and descriptions of rocks, quizzes, puzzles, and more. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

The Common Ground Database
http://commonground.mines.edu/
The Common Ground Database, which is coordinated by John Scales and Mike Batzle of the Geophysics Department, Colorado of Mines contains free rock and mineral data donated by individuals, universities and companies as well as data keyed/scanned from open literature with permission of publisher. Users can choose from a variety of menu items and limiting filters to determine the most appropriate final data set, which can then be viewed in either HTML or Plain Text in a tabular format. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Astronomy 161-The Solar System
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/index.html
The Astronomy 161-The Solar System online course is maintained by the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. The twenty two chapters cover everything from time and scale in the universe, development of modern astronomy, the planets, asteroids, meteors, and everything in between. Text, photographs, illustrations, and movies, help users understand the topics along with a handy back and next link on each page to let you navigate through each chapter. [JAB]
[Back to Contents]

Topic In Depth

CloudSeeding
1 "Cloud Physics - The Basics"
http://www.evac.ou.edu/okwmdp/physics.html
2 " Hey! Give Me Back My Rain!"
http://www.brookings.com/bswf/tp18.htm
3 " Does Weather Modification Really Work?"
http://twri.tamu.edu/twripubs/WtrResrc/v20n2/
4 " Aircrew Pictures 2001"
http://users.pld.com/hailman/PicturePage.htm
5 " Weather as a Weapon?"
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/DailyNews/wnt_weatherwar990217_story.html
6 " Atmospheric Resources-Photos and Videos"
http://www.swc.state.nd.us/arb/photos.html
7 " The Physical Basis for Seeding Clouds"
http://www.atmos-inc.com/weamod.html
8 "Cloud Seeding -Frequently Asked Questions"
http://www.xmission.com/~nawc/wmfaq.html
This Topic in Depth begins with a Web site from the Oklahoma Weather Modification Program called Cloud Physics - The Basics (1 ). Students are encouraged to initiate a debate on the controversy surrounding the issue of inducing or enhancing precipitation. Next, the Texas Water Resources Institute Web site, Does Weather Modification Really Work? (3 ) provides a more basic description of cloudseeding. The site offers several categories including The Science of Cloud Seeding, A Brief History of Weather Modification in Texas, Legal and Policy Issues, Current and Future Activities, and more. The Western Kansas Weather Modification Program offers the next site, Aircrew Pictures 2001 (4 ). The page contains pictures of the planes and crew involved in the program as well as pictures from the plane during a mission. Other links on the site contain radar, data, and other information. The next site from ABCNEWS.com is an article entitled Weather as a Weapon? (5 ) The piece explorers what might happen "on some battlefield of the future where the US military could gain a tactical advantage by changing the weather." A discussion on the possibilities of changing the weather, an Air Force research paper and several other links are provided to learn more. The 6th site maintained by the North Dakota State Water Commission is entitled Atmospheric Resources-Photos and Videos (6 ). Here, visitors can find more photographs of cloudseeding equipment and most notably three videos of cloudseeding planes in action. Atmospherics Incorporated, an operations and research company in the field of applied meteorology, provides the next site, The Physical Basis for Seeding Clouds (7 ). The page describes techniques for cloud seeding and has a link to photographs of pyrotechnic seeding devices. The last site provided by North American Weather Consultants, Inc. is titled, Cloud Seeding -Frequently Asked Questions (8 ). The site briefly answers questions such as When did application of modern cloud seeding technology begin?, Is cloud seeding effective?, and Do the commonly used seeding materials pose any direct health or environmental risks? [JAB]
[Back to Contents]




Below are the copyright statements to be included when reproducing annotations from The NSDL Scout Report for the Physical Sciences.

The single phrase below is the copyright notice to be used when reproducing any portion of this report, in any format:

From The NSDL Scout Report for Physical Sciences, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2002. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/

The paragraph below is the copyright notice to be used when reproducing the entire report, in any format:

Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1994-2002. The Internet Scout Project (http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/), located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about the Internet to the U.S. research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire Scout Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, are preserved on all copies.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, or the National Science Foundation.




Joel Brieske
Ted Schroeder
Rachael Bower
Edward Almasy
Amy Lee
Marcia Green
Cavin Leske
Wayne Hayes
Laura Boyle
Yasuhiro Sasahira
Debra Shapiro
David Sleasman
Michael Scott
Barry Wiegan
Pat Coulthard
Andy Yaco-Mink
Dave Mayer
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Editor
Managing Editor
Director
Technical Director
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Internet Cataloger
Assistant Internet Cataloger
Software Engineer
Technical Specialist
Website Designer
Website Designer

For information on additional contributors, see the Internet Scout Project staff page:
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/about/team.html