Science & Technology Study Group

Session 14 - Aurora & Earth's Magnetic Field

The Painted Sky - A large number of, mostly North American, images of the aurora and related phenomena on this NASA site

Aurora FAQ - Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska

Aurora - Wikipedia - Wikipdedia page for Aurora

Earth's Magentic Field - Wikipedia page for Earth's magnetic field

Happy exploring

Session 11 & 12 - Big Bang

John Gribbin Cosmology - Inflation for beginners

Cambridge Cosmology - Hot Big Bang

Plus Magazine - Free online mathematics magazine for non-mathematicians

CERN - CERN cosmology site

Session 9 - Chemistry

The Periodic Table of Videos - Videos of all 118 elements plus other material (as shown in the presentation)

Periodic Table - You can download an application giving vast amounts of information about all the elements free of charge

Session 7- Synaesthesia, Creativity & Metaphor

Ramachandran Website - A link to Vilayanur Ramachandran's webpage with links to his publications, many of which can be downloaded

You Tube has some video presentations by Prof Ramachandran that you may wish to view

Synaesthesia—A Window Into Perception, Thought and Language - V.S. Ramachandran and E.M. Hubbard Academic Paper

Broken Mirrors - A Theory of Autism - Scientific American Paper By Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Lindsay M. Oberman

Session 6 - Genes & Diseases

George III & Porphyria - This is the key 1968 paper that discusses George III, King James and other royals

Victoria & Haemophilia - Link to the Wikipedia entry on Haemophilia in European Royalty. Follow the links to Haemophila and external links as well

My Genome, My Self - An interesting article by Steven Pinker in New York Times Magazine about the Personal Genome Project.

Session 5 - Prediction

Forer Effect - Wikipedia entry with links to Barnum Statements.

Derren Brown - YouTube link to many Derren Brown videos

Session 4 - My Strange Brain

The Channel 5 video is only available in the UK however this video presentation covers some of the same topics.

Charles Bonnet Syndrome - RNIB site giving information on this condition

Capgras Delusion - Some more information on this

Capgras Paper - Technical paper on Capgras Delusion

Face Blindness - A very interesting website put together by a sufferer from the condition

Session 3 - Sleep

BBC Sleep - The BBC sleep page has plenty of information and links and you can try the sleep quiz again

Melatonin - Wikipedia page on melatonin with plenty of references including this paper

The dark side of light at night with some unrelaible extrapolations

Epworth Sleepiness Scale - You can retry this; but don't fall asleep doing it!

Session 2

The article that the above figure was taken from is here to illustrate the problems of correlation.

An edited version of may talk can be downloaded here as a MS Powerpoint file

USDA food nutrient search tool. This is aimed at the American consumer so it's not so good for branded products, but extensive otherwise

Link to David Colquhoun's blog about Boots the Chemist

If you want to see what the latest UK Government advice is then visit the Food Standards Agency. (Covering one's nether regions comes to mind).

Session 1

I referred to the following during this introductory session:

Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation - Olivia Judson (Vintage Books)

The Power of Babel - John Mc Whorter (Random House)

You can find out more about the Ig® Nobel Prizes here

Stromatolites - A link for those who came to Bob Clark's Discussion Group last week

Here are some links to papers and websites that you may find interesting:

More Celebrity Babble exposed Celebrity Nonsense

Ethan Greenheart A tongue-in-cheek (but true) article on Environmental Heroes of 2007 (Auckland Regional Council score highly!)

General Science

Sense about Science Promoting good science and evidence for the public

Open 2 Open University & BBC Co-Productions

Improbable Science Investigations of dubious and dishonest science (UK Professor of Pharmacology)

Science Cartoons Cartoons of Sidney Harris

Physics and Astronomy

World of Physics Just what it says

MathWorld The web's most extensive mathematical resource

Plus Magazine Bringing mathematics to life (UK resource)

Heavens Above Observational astronomy

Ken Campbell's website

Health, Diet & Nutrition

Bad Science UK GP and Journalist Debunking Nonsense in the Media

HealthWatch for treatment that works (UK resource)