"Turn your cell phone or tablet into a microscope with this amazing lens!" is what this Kickstarter promised. At just $15, the price was right too. Sale! This week I received in the mail the "Micro Phone Lens," created by Thomas Larson, a recent graduate of the University of Washington with a BS in mechanical…
Category: Science
Take a #ReindeerSelfie in Honor of Cal Academy’s Holiday Exhibit on Reindeer!
The California Academy of Sciences is focusing this year's "Tis the Season" holiday programming on one of the coolest winter animals around: the reindeer / caribou. As part of our promotion of our new exhibit, which opens this week, we are encouraging people to take a #reindeerselfie, using the printed reindeer antler sillouettes at the Academy,…
The Cal Academy’s Elizabeth Babcock on Digital Learning
I love this interview with the Cal Academy's head of public engagement and education Elizabeth Babcock on the website "Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning." Elizabeth speaks eloquently about the bigger vision of injecting digital learning into this august science institution: Basically when I came, I had a vision of a digital learning department with…
3D Scan of African Hall at the Cal Academy of Sciences!
Check out this fantastic 3d scan of an exhibit in African Hall at the California Academy of Sciences. Created by the company Matterport during our first Science Hack Day in September. [Link]
Math Saves Lives: Polymath Couple Create New Systems for Organizing Organ Tranplants
Dorry Segev and Sommer Gentry are two of the smartest people I know. Dorry is a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins University and Sommer is a math professor at the United States Naval Academy. Individually that's admirable, but together they are a force to be reckoned with. Dorry and Sommer are doing remarkable work combining their…
“The Kepler Story”: An Expansive One-Man Play Set in the World’s Largest Digital Dome
Last night I was fortunate enough to catch one of the few performances of "The Kepler Story" at the California Academy of Sciences, a one-man play about the astounding life of one of mankind's greatest astronomers Johannes Kepler. I found the story of Kepler's many struggles as a Christian, a mathematician, astronomy and a father to…
Top Ten Things I Learned at ASTC 2013
Here's some of the awesome things I learned while I was at ASTC 2013, the annual gathering of the Association for Science and Technology Centers, held this year in lovely Albuquerque, New Mexico. 1. Neil Degrasse Tyson is TALL Apparently this cardboard cutout is life sized.
Talking about Mobile Games, Space Shows and Raising Digital Teens at ASTC This Weekend
For the next four days, I will be in lovely Albuquerque, New Mexico for the annual Association of Science and Technology Centers conference (ASTC), along with 2,000 or so of my colleagues from other science centers, natural history museums, and other science institutions. It’s a really neat event, showcasing some of the best research, most…
“Gravity”: The Best Film (Scifi or Not) of 2013
I saw the film "Gravity" last night with some friends and it totally wrecked me. This is definitely the movie of the year for me, and in the top 10 science-fiction films of all time, for sure. Has there ever been a sci-fi movie created on such a grand scale but with such an…
My Interview on Digital Learning at the Cal Academy for Mooshme Blog!
My friend and head of digital learning at the American Museum of Natural History, Barry Joseph, interviewed me for his awesome tech and museums blog "Mooshme." Give it a read if you want to get a picture of what "digital learning" is all about and what my team is up to at the California Academy…