Sushi and bar coding

If you have not seen it, a very interesting article about a couple of hs students who took dna samples of fish in sushi restaurants and found that 25 percent of the samples were mislabeled: half of the restaurant samples and six out of 10 grocery store samples. In every case, less desirable or cheaper fish was substituted for its more expensive counterpart.

The technology they used, genetic bar coding, and the organization they send the samples to, The Barcode for Life, might have implications for species ids for exotic species.

The original article is in the NYT here.

Interesting use of citizen scientists

The European Space Agency (ESA) has just posted a large number of pictures of Mars that were shot with "a non-scientific camera." They are looking for people to analyze the photos and post comments on what they see.


More information about this (it is really quite interesting) can be found here.

The site for accessing the photos is here.

The site is not very user friendly but this is an interesting concept.

Interesting use of videos

The University of Nottingham has just created a whole periodic table of elements, with each element being a video by the scientists about that element. Quite entertaining and educational. When you have a moment, take a look at site.

Below is the video for hydrogen:



Imagine a map of the Gulf of Maine with videos by fishermen, scientists, policy makers, and educators. Could be quite nice as a follow-up for the bus (click on areas along your route for a video about "Fill in the blank.").

Milfoil Video For VS

Here is a video that VS folks would like to save:

Touch screens defined

This appears to be a really nice primer on the various kinds of touch screens and their pros and cons. Check out the article at this site. A must read for the CCIL (lets see what Tom thinks of it).

Flip Video Test

While writing about purple loosestrife and water chestnuts, I took the opportunity to interview some of the science staff about the work they were doing on the second floor using the new Flip video camera. The camera is great! The video quality is quite good and it makes uploads to YouTube a one button experience.

We definitely need one for the science staff to take into the field.

The proof is in the pudding, so here are the videos below:

Nicole speaks about her work looking at cod stomach contents.



And Dan on copepods.