Girls made up more than half of the finalists at Google’s Science Fair, the largest in the world. From turning banana peels into plastic to diagnosing skin cancer, here were a few of our favorite projects.
3 projects are reviewed including producing bioplastic from banana peels, diagnosing melanoma, no human help necessary and a better way to predict the spread of tumors.
Wearable technology combines fashion and function in a way hitherto unheard of. New and emerging devices are placing powerful computing abilities into the wardrobes of consumers. The most recognizable of these emerging gadgets is Google Glass, (discussed below). Here are 9 additional examples of wearable technologies that are truly unique:
Discussed:
Read: 10 Wearable Tech Gadgets Librarians (and everyone else!) Will Love | Ellyssa Kroski – OEDB.org.
Love them, hate them or flat out don’t understand them at all, memes are here to stay — at least for the foreseeable future. Immortalized on Reddit, the most popular memes spread through the web like a weird, low-resolution wildfire.
Discussed:
via The 6 Best Tools for Making Memes | Mashable
Google Street View is a great way to explore parts of the world you’ve never visited. And thanks to Google’s European team, it’s now one of the easiest ways to explore a facility you’re not exactly allowed to just stroll through whenever you want. Google’s panoramic cameras were given access to CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, letting anyone poke around the gigantic machinery and the facility’s endless network of tunnels.
Read: You Can Now Explore the Large Hadron Collider on Street View | Gizmodo.
Fun time waster alert: Filmillion. It’s a movie guessing machine website that can figure out the movie you’re thinking of by asking you 30 yes or no questions.
Read: This Website Can Guess the Movie You’re Thinking of After 30 Questions | Gizmodo.
If your company publishes content, you probably need a style guide. It might sound like a huge undertaking, but style guides don’t have to be exhaustive. In fact, the exhaustive ones are usually counterproductive because nobody bothers reading them.
Style guides don’t magically turn people into good writers, but they do get everyone on the same page and help keep your company’s content consistent.
Concepts discussed:
The full story: The Elements of a Style Guide | UX Magazine.
Twitter on Wednesday announced Twitter Alerts, a new system that enables public institutions and NGOs to send out emergency alerts via text message and push notifications in times of crisis. Users can sign up to receive emergency notifications from specific accounts, and will receive a text or push notification when that account sends a tweet it labels as an alert.
See the full story: Twitter Unveils Emergency Alert System | Mashable.
Mind mapping is the process of using visual diagrams to show the relationships between ideas or information. Its popular uses include project planning, collecting and organizing thoughts, brainstorming and presentations — all in order to help solve problems, map out resources and uncover new ideas.
It can be more useful than trying to keep track of our ideas by scribbling them on paper, and can aid in manipulating and generating concepts.
We’ve compiled a list of 24 mind mapping tools to help you organize, summarize and visualize information, with both free and paid versions available to suit any budget or requirement. The tools mentioned are either browser- or desktop-based, with a selection of mind mapping mobile apps at the end of the article for use on iOS and Android devices.
See the list: 24 Essential Mind Mapping and Brainstorming Tools | Mashable.
YouTube currently offers more than 150,000 audio tracks on its site that video producers can use as background music for their videos. Those tracks, however, can’t be downloaded or remixed, which makes it hard to use them in creative ways. For users who want to do a bit more with their background music, however, YouTube today is expanding this library with a selection of 150 new royalty-tracks. The music in this new YouTube Audio Library can be downloaded, remixed and used for free forever.
via YouTube Launches Free Audio Library With 150 Royalty-Free Tracks | TechCrunch.
Curated links of banned books news stories from the U.S. that you should read if you are concerned about intellectual freedom and the freedom to read. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye challenge is of particular interest, as the author is from Ohio and the challenge to her novel originated from an official at the Ohio State Board of Education.
Practice of Banning Books Still Going Strong | Future Librarians for Intellectual Freedom
Banned Books Week 2013: Books about LGBT Families Remain Targets of Censorship | ACLU
America’s most surprising banned books | The Week
10 Surprising Books That Parents Have Tried To Ban From Schools | Business Insider
Beauty is Truth: The Case Against Banning The Bluest Eye | The Millions AND Controversy Brews Over Official Comments About Author [Toni Morrison] | nbc4i.com
Freedom to Read Under Fire as Attempts to Ban Books Continue | HuffPost Books
7 Reasons Your Favorite Books Were Banned | HuffPost Books
You may also like:
Banned Books Week | bannedbooksweek.org
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read | ALA.org and ALA’s Pinterest Page
Freedom to Read: Raising Awareness, Celebrating Freedom of Expression, Encouraging Participation| freedomtoread.ca
Canada’s Freedom to Read Week – February 23-March 1, 2014
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