Check out this site

This is another site where you could get information for your energy project. You could look at it for Maths and English too.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/science

Why is a pressure cooker called a 'pressure cooker'?

Do you know why it is easier to cook rice in a pressure cooker rather than in a open container?
Here is a simple answer-
Now,we all know that to make rice we need to boil it with water. When this happens,some of the water is soaked by the rice, and the rest becomes water vapour.But where does this vapour go?
It is trapped inside the pressure cooker along with the heat from the fire(because of the pressure). So,even after we put off the fire,the rice is still being cooked inside!
When you use a pressure cooker, a lot of gas is saved.

Teenager cracks global problem.

So polythene takes a few thousand years to decompose. Since we’re going to live a hundred years or so, the only solution is to eliminate polythene. Well, reducing our polythene usage is a good idea anyway, but there’s hope yet for decomposition. And it wasn’t a white-haired scientist working in a multi-million dollar lab that made the discovery.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/teen-decomposes.html

Fresh pictures from the Red Planet

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander is where it was meant to be — on Mars. The University of Arizona has created this website to share the pictures as they come in. Enjoy.

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/gallery.php

Is it a car or is it a plane?

http://news.cnet.com/2300-11389_3-6235005-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

More company for Adrija's bat!

And then again, the flying bat may only be a human!

http://news.cnet.com/2300-11397_3-6239730-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

Building a flying bat

In the future, Adrija’s baby bat may find a flying companion that was not born to a mama bat!

http://news.cnet.com/2300-11394_3-6234350-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

Looking at solar power technologies

As with any experimental technology, solar power is being tapped in several ways. Only time (and users) will tell which will be successful. Here’s a well-illustrated article which showcases several different approaches to the technology.

http://news.cnet.com/2300-13840_3-6240094-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

inside out car

internal combustion engine

internal combustion engine: An engine in which the combustion of fuel takes place within a closed cylinder, the hot gases forcing a piston downwards during the power stoke. Most internal combustion engines operate either on the

Otto cycle:this cycle uses petrol.It consists of four stokes,an induction stroke which draws fuel-air mixture into the cylinders; a compression stroke which which the piston compresses the gas mixture; a power stroke in which the mixture combusts after ignition by a spark; and an exhaust stroke which pushes the gas out of the cylinder.

Diesel cycle:this cycle uses diesel.This cycle differs from the Otto cycle in three ways.first the compression stroke causes twice the compression as happens in the Otto cycle.Second, in the power stroke the fuel ignites spontaneously without the need for a spark to initiate the reaction.And third, in the ideal diesel cycle combustion occurs at constant pressure, in contrast to the ideal Otto cycle.

The Internal Combustion Engine

1968 Science Fiction is Today’s Reality

In 1948 (10 years before NASA was set up), Arthur C. Clarke, the visionary writer, wrote a science fiction story called The Sentinel. In 1950, it was published in a magazine. In 1968, it became the basis for what is now one of the classic science fiction movies — 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Clarke, who worked on the screenplay, rewrote his original story into a book that was released soon after the movie.)

The movie came at a time when interest in space was at a peak. The Soviets and Americans were racing furiously to become the first to land a human on the moon. It was a time for great leaps of imagination, and Arthur C. Clarke was blessed with a wonderful imagination.

He and the director Stanley Kubrick conceived of the following:

A space station, parked in a permanent low-earth orbit of our planet
A super-intelligent computer, smart enough to beat humans at chess, that eventually develops intelligence of its own
An astronaut who jogs in the space station to keep fit
Flat-screen computer monitors, unheard of 40 years ago
A monitoring device left behind on the moon by an advanced alien civilisation
Aeroplane-like cockpits, with glass screens, for spacecraft
Personal in-flight video
Lots of TV channels!
Telephone numbers with more digits
Identification by voice
Humans placed in suspended animation for the very long space trips, being revived on arrival.

Many of these are reality for us today, others lie in the future or may never happen. But it’s interesting to think about how one or two people imagined all this 40 years ago. Can you imagine life 40 years from now?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/2001_anniversary.html

Measuring the French Revolution

Sorry for the silly headline, but since you guys have been studying the French Revolution, you may find it interesting that the metric system was adopted in the same place, at around the same time.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/05/dayintech_0508

Nature is good at solving problems

Humans create pretty big messes when they set their minds to it. Nuclear war is something that nature could never have planned for, right? Wrong. Here’s this astonishing story about how garden-variety fungi can help deal with a specific kind of radioactivity.

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13639_1-9938697-42.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

What is a Nega-Watt?!

America is a power guzzler. Fittingly, some interesting conservation ideas emerge from there. Here’s something which may answer the question posed above. If you find it hard to read, come back after you’ve done some work on your topic, and figure out what a Megawatt is first. :-)

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9938458-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Fuel Cells arriving soon?

http://www.news.com/At-MTI-Micro%2C-pushing-fuel-cells-for-portables/2100-13840_3-6236716.html

What are fuel cells and what does their introduction mean to conventional batteries? Try and figure this out for yourself. What is their environmental impact?

Fuel cells have been around for a while, in uses including space exploration. However, it is only recently that it has become possible to consider small, inexpensive units for portable devices.

While very different in terms of technology, both forms of energy conversion share basic principles inherent in the chemical effects of electric current, which are covered in Chapter 14 of your textbook. Chapter 11 of Insight also deals with Electrical Cells, as well as practical aspects of household electricity.

Lunar Occultation of Mars

There are few enough astronomical events visible from Delhi. Dust, air pollution, and light pollution give us a sky with a fraction of the stars you can see from a dark hilltop. May 10 is an exception. The two bodies putting on the show – Mars and the Moon – are visible even to us.

What will happen is that the Moon will come between Earth and Mars. Seen from Delhi, Mars should vanish behind the Moon at 7.41 p.m. and reappear at 8.44 p.m. The Nehru Planetarium is hosting a public skywatch from the Teen Murti back lawns. An amateur astronomer will be hitching his telescope to a projector and screen. For more information, check out their site.

image courtesy Nehru Planeta

rium, New Delhi

http://nehruplanetarium.org/Celestial_Events/Mars_Occultation/Mars_Occultation.htm

Welcome to Integrity Science

Hello. This is mainly for the class that I’m working with, and will serve as a place to post my thoughts and musings about the topics that we’re involved with. If anyone outside our small community finds this useful, welcome and feel free to add to our understanding.