New Blog

I got such a great response I have started the work to do this. It will be http://askthesciencenerd.blogspot.com/

I am looking forward to the fun this could be. I have not posted anything yet but please send me any questions your kids, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, or you have and I will start the research and translation from the nerd jargon.

I hope you all find it to be helpful I have some ideas to expand to other options but we will see how things go.

New Ideas

Just looking for opinions. I know most of the people reading this have a lot of opinions. I have been thinking about starting another blog. I want to start one that simplifies science for moms to help their kids in school and if they ask questions. I know that many moms and dads did not study science and this is always changing. I had been trying to help nephews with some stuff and could not find good resources. I am certainly not trying to profess that I am an expert in science or in education. I just want to see if I can help those who want to better educate their children and do not have the background to do so. I plan to take requests from parents/grandparents that are tying to help children with school and questions. Please let me know if you think this would be helpful to you or if you feel there are enough sources out there to work with already.
Thanks

What I heard on the radio today

As many of you know my job keeps me in the car a lot. Today I was driving around doing some surveillance of potential sources of dust. I put over 70 miles on my car while driving in a 6 x 5 mile square for 6 hours. Needless to say I drove in a lot of circles. During this time I listen to a lot of radio. I have found that on Friday from 12:00-2:00pm (AZ time) is a radio show called Science Friday. I am not always able to time my inspections and work around the show but today I was able to.
I listened to an interesting group of guests, but 2 of them made me smile. One was an astronaut, Don Pettit, who had just spent 6 months on the space station. During his off time he did "random science experiments" as he talked about them I knew that I had to go find the videos so I have linked my 2 favorites here: http://www.sciencefriday.com/video/
The first one, "Candy Corn in Space", is a candy corn explanation of soap and if you enjoy that one then try down further on the page to the "Time Lapse in Space" video and watch the aurora from space.
The second guest that I enjoyed was an oceanographer, Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who has been studying flotsam, as a hobby. Flotsam is defined as: the part of the wreckage of a ship and its cargo found floating on the water. Since there is a lot of cargo lost to the sea every year he has taken to tracking where it goes (with the help of beach comers everywhere). He has just published a book,
"Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science". I am looking forward to reading it. For those of you who like to read unusual things this may be for you. I have reserved it at the library so when I get it read I will report back.
Thank you for listening to the ramblings of a nerd.