April 18, 2011
Electricity for Progress - VASST Science Faire

Electricity for Progress presents, Apple Distortion - an introduction to feedback and operational amplifiers.  In this experiment, users are presented with three apples, touching these apples in various ways and combinations produces audible feedback.  The feedback is produced using an old lm709 operational amplifier integrated circuit and an assortment of capacitors (including the human inter-actor).  Handling and Grip affect tonal qualities to the sound produced.  This device is meant to graph, in an audibly sensible way, the electrical properties and processes occurring inside the operational amplifier in self oscillation.

6:51pm  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4729962461/electricity-for-progress-vasst-science-faire
April 18, 2011
Biodiversity Studies below 30th Street & Girard Avenue

Final Report: April 17, 2011

Editor: Lisa Murch

Field Study #1
Rear Yard
Philadelphia, PA 19130

Field Study #2
Under the bridge by the Railroad Tracks
Philadelphia, PA 19130

Field Study #3
Over the bridge by the Railroad Tracks
Philadelphia, PA 19130 

Executive Summary

 Less than 5% of the great shrub-steppe ecosystem that once dominated this neighborhood has escaped development to date, and much of what remains unconverted exists in a highly degraded condition.  The biological importance of my backyard’s relatively undisturbed habitat only increases as more and more of the surrounding landscape is converted to urban uses.

I inventoried the natural biological diversity in my backyard and decided to examine two other locations within a three block radius both of which were almost void of life. I surveyed the length and breadth of these sites, identifying, cataloging, and mapping the surviving plants, animals, and biological communities in this landscape. The inventory documented occurrences of dozens of living things and mapped critical biological resources. This work culminated with the publication of this volume, Biodiversity Studies below 30th Street & Girard Avenue.


Biodiversity Studies below 30th Street and Girard Avenue FINAL REPORT: 2011    Page 1  4/17/11[i]

9:44am  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4718108926/biodiversity-studies-below-30th-street-girard-avenue
April 18, 2011
Kant and Hypnosis: Not-So-Empirical Science.

 Call it a foray into “transcendental science.” Hypnosis seems to me like an ideal laboratory for screwing around with certain ideas found in Kant’s The Critique of Pure Reason. With the eyes closed, the body immobile, and the mind in a hypersuggestible state, we are a bit more isolated from the empirical world; able to better see how we impose certain a priori concepts— like Substance or Causality— onto our world.

The hypnosis station will include tracks dedicated to various Kantian categories, as well as a few other topics, for your edification.

Brandon Joyce

3:20am  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4713519342/kant-and-hypnosis-not-so-empirical-science
April 14, 2011
From One Cell to a Complex Organism

For our science fair project, we decided to make a video as a documentation of the embryonic development of wild type (non genetically altered) zebrafish, starting from a single cell.  Zebrafish are commonly used in many types of scientific experiments as a model for studying vertebrate development and genetics. They help us to understand how all vertebrates, including humans, grow from a single cell into a complex multi-cellular organism.  Even though fish are a very different species to humans, their embryonic development is surprisingly similar.  This stage of development is very exciting because it is the most rapid period of development, when this “life force” creates something so incredibly complex out of one tiny little cell.

 

 We chose to film everything the way it happened. This video did not turn out like the video clips you would find in a scientific paper or textbook.  Ours has many visible imperfections. The fish were not manipulated in any way, and were captured using short sessions of time lapse photography under a microscope as development occurred.

 

-Angela McQuillan and April M. Aguillard

11:21am  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4608150162/from-one-cell-to-a-complex-organism
April 12, 2011
Artificial photosynthesis

“From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Artificial photosynthesis is a research field that attempts to replicate the natural process of photosynthesis, converting sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. Sometimes, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen by using sunlight energy is also referred to as artificial photosynthesis. The actual process that allows half of the overall photosynthetic reaction to take place is photo-oxidation. This half-reaction is essential in separating water molecules because it releases hydrogen and oxygen ions. These ions are needed to reduce carbon dioxide into a fuel. However, the only known way this is possible is through an external catalyst, one that can react quickly as well as constantly absorb the sun’s photons. The general basis behind this theory is the creation of an “artificial plant” type fuel source.”

And here is an article speaking with scientists’ Etsuko Fujita, James Muckerman, David Grills, Kuo-Wei Huang, and Dmitry Polyansky
Artificial Photosynthesis: Inspired By Nature, Scientists Explore Pathways To Clean, Renewable Solar Fuel

11:20pm  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4571398153/artificial-photosynthesis
April 5, 2011
Lensing Effect

Sculpting Light

 check out this video. 

“see… imagine a solar eclipse… is the moon absorbed by the sun….? no right? it just passes b/w earth n sun…. similarly , a blackhole just drifts inbetween the galaxy n the observer…. when doing so, it creates ripples in spacetime which wobble the light passing thru the edges of the blackhole(event horizon) which is the startn part of the spacetime warping and twisting..therefore, we see wobbled light around which we normally would not… hence we deduce , there is a blackhole there”

charlieking100 1 year ago

1:09pm  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4368231350/lensing-effect
April 1, 2011
BFFF

BFFF, Best Friend Facebook Forever.  Starting today, April 1st and ending on April 30th, Dave Kim & James Weissinger embark on their experiment for VASST.info.  It’s a social experiment where Dave Kim aka https://www.facebook.com/notdavekim has to fulfill every request bestowed upon him by his friends on facebook.  Become a fan of this page: https://www.facebook.com/MyBFFF to learn more about this project.

Best of luck to Dave and James from VASST.

10:52am  |   URL: http://vasst.info/post/4258812247/bfff
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