April 2019 News Wire
Image by Brad Flickinger on Flickr
Interesting stories about science and technology for April 2019.
Bees have brains for basic math, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2019-02-bees-brains-basic-math.html
Building on their finding honeybees understand the concept of zero, Australian and French researchers discovered bees can perform addition and subtraction. The small brains of bees can manage numbers and rules. They can recognize colors as symbolic representations of addition and subtraction then use this information to solve problems.
Video games could be a short-term answer to science’s gender problem
A woman who grew up loving to play Zelda and Mario wondered if her love of games led to her love of physics and engineering in school. She discovered many girls who play lots of video games go on to complete a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) undergraduate degree than non-gamers.
Girls who played nine plus hours of video games a week were 3.3 times more likely to study STEM. This accounted for their socio-economic background, ethnicity, past performance and how good they felt they were at their chosen subject. Video game-playing boys, meanwhile, were only 1.5 times as likely to take up a STEM degree.
Eight science apps that turn your phone into a laboratory
https://www.popsci.com/best-science-apps
If you have a smartphone, there are a number of apps you can download to do science. And some apps, like eBird and NASA Globe Observer, let you participate in actual scientific research. Other apps like Star Walk and The Elements teach you more about the natural world.
3D Printing with Light
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00410-8
Until now, 3D printers create objects building one layer on top of another layer. Researchers have figured out a completely different way to print objects with light. The light turns liquid resign into a solid. Watch this video in Nature magazine to see how it’s done.
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Also In The April 2019 Issue
Use SketchUp to create this fascinating mathematical pattern that appears everywhere in nature.
Learn about the STEAM star’s amazing journey onto Mythbusters Junior and beyond.
What activities are best for teaching STEM to young kids?
What’s the best way to choose a classroom lunch? Or the best way to elect a leader? The answer isn’t so simple.
How a teapot became the most important object in computer graphics.
Keep your passwords at the tip of your fingers, or maybe at the back of your eyes!
Bring your coding skills and your desserts to new levels in this simple Python coding activity.
Bakuro puzzles are a fun way to learn about binary numbers and how to calculate their values.
Learn about the shiny new technology that allows us to be connected like never before.
Squares, checkerboards, and hollow boxes… what pattens can you imagine in Python?
A fun, DIY electronics project that’ll keep you from bumping around in the dark!
A cool community to help you brush up on your web development skills.
It’s time for a throw back to old school programming. Dive into the nuts and bolts of coding instructions!
Use your favourite block language to animate this fascinatingly odd game.
Can we make a computer using only three simple rules?
How science and tech led to an exciting discovery in one of the most dangerous areas of space.
How did video games become popular before the internet? It’s all about shareware, floppy disks, and human cleverness!
Links from the bottom of all the April 2019 articles, collected in one place for you to print, share, or bookmark.
Interesting stories about science and technology for April 2019.
