DO WE REALLY WANT EDUCATION ON-LINE?

Historian David Noble made his point in his article "Digital Diploma Mills: The Automation of Higher Education". In the section "Student Reactions" David Noble questions that students demand Web site technology in their courses. The reasoning is very simple "Students want the face-to-face education they pay for, not a cyber-counterfeit". Besides, and this could be a surprise for some readers, online courses are being monitored and studied, with students using them referred to as "experimental subject". In Canada students didn't even know they were being monitored and studied!
After reading articles like this one I cannot stop wandering if progress is parallel to advance, and I can't feel very confident about our future.

KEEP YOUR BONES HEALTHY

With age human body loses bone mass making bones fragile. This bone loss is even larger for women after menopause, and many women have to take milk or vitamin D and calcium supplements to strengthen their bones. Unfortunately the absorption rate of vitamin D is not very high and scientists are investigating to find alternatives.
2MD is a recently synthesized form of vitamin D that stimulates bone-making cells to capture calcium and fortify bone mass. Its effects have only been proved in rats at this moment, but the results are encouraging as rats treated with 2MD highly increased their bone masses. If you're interested visit http://www.sciencenews.org/20021012/fob6.asp.

Back to posting. Sorry for the absence.

MORE NOBLE PRIZES 2002

For the category "Physics" the prize was awarded jointly to: RAYMOND DAVIS, MASATOSHI KOSHIBA and RICCARDO GIACCONI for their research in the field of astronomy. RAYMOND DAVIS used a 600 M.T. tank full of liquid in order to detect the neutrinos emitted by the sun and therefore show that nuclear fusion is the energy that fuels our sun. MASATOSHI KOSHIBA further developed this technique and together they founded the astronomy of neutrinos. RICCARDO GIACCONI was first to detect X-rays from outside the solar system and gave more solid evidence about the existence of black holes.
Why does the sun shine? When two hydrogen atoms join to produce one helium atom a huge amount of energy is released, but at the same time another two particles (neutrinos) are released too.The experiments of Davis and Koshiba proved that these neutrinos have mass (extremely small, but they do have mass). The trick of the experiment is that neutrinos react at a rate of 1/1000 million!!
Davis collected 2000 atoms of Argon (product of the reaction of neutrinos with the Chlorine that filled the tank)... over 30 years. More than ever patience is a virtue.
Koshiba constructed a new detector called "Kamiokande" inside a Japanese mine and recently a new one called "Super Kamiokande" that allowed further knowledge of neutrinos' behavior.
Giacconi's work began in 1959 and is related with the design of telescopes in order to detect X-rays. But soon he realized that it was necessary to obtain data from space because X-rays are almost completely absorbed by earth's atmosphere. His ideas applied with new technologies have given and are still giving amazing results.
Congratulations

The only personal web page I could find was Dr. Giacconi's. Next posts will probably be about Chemistry and Economics Nobel Prizes.

NOBEL PRIZES 2002

For the category "Physiology & Medicine" the prize was awarded jointly to: SYDNEY BRENNER, H. ROBERT HORVITZ and JOHN E. SULSTON for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.

The science field of genetics has received 7 of the last 10 Nobel Prizes for their contribution to the cure of cancer and many other degenerative illnesses like Alzheimer. As a reminder, Noble Awards are given to the most beneficial advances for humanity. Congratulations

ALL THE KNOWLEDGE YOU MIGHT EVER NEED... AND MORE

This could be a revolution in the world of education. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has begun a new project called Open Course Ware (OCW). The objective of the project is to give access through the internet, absolutely free, to all knowledge stored by this scientific institution since its creation. The course will be organized in individual courses from a certain discipline like chemistry, computer science, biology or anthropology.
The process will be long and it is expected that it could take at least 10 years to post the millions of bits of information stored by the MIT .There would be hundreds of thousands of videos, conferences, seminaries, and millions of data pages.
The project is not free of controversy as the responsibles announced that they will post any kind of content. Some institutions have critized this idea as they consider that certain technical knowledge could be used by terrorists or by someone else with the intention of causing massive damage.
OCW is concieved with the idea of opposing other scientific organizations that demand a fee in order to access their files. Becoming a wise person will be possible for free soon.

FIRST POST

My first post will be just a few links to some of my favorite hobbies' websites. For my next post I will find some technical, probably computer related topic to talk about.

If you are afraid of chess this site could make you change your mind. Best place for beginners as well as experts who like to study famous games.
If you were just thinking that I am some sort of "lab-rat" you guessed wrong, I practice or have practiced many sports like basketball ,tennis or soccer
And there it goes, my first post was published.

PRE POST

Second weblog, under construction