Can one be 'Back-Blogged"?

On the eve of my trip to MIT and Boston in general I am remembering to fill you in on a few things that have come up in the past week.

One: There was an article in the Washington Post about the Einstein Fellowship and I thought you might like to read it if you haven't already: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/04/AR2009100403074.html

Two: The solar decathlon was dismantled yesterday. It was a bit sad to see it all come down. If you are not aware of the Solar Decathlon it is a great event put on by the DOE every other year. The call for proposals is out for the next one already. College teams put together a proposal to build a solar home that will be net zero once hooked to the grid. Apologies if you've read Pia's blog about it as there will be some repetition. They compete not only in how well they engineer their home (the engineering competition) but a whole host of other competitions. You can read about this year's winners at: http://www.solardecathlon.org/2009/final_results.cfm

We went as a family and got a tour of the whole village, the highlights of all 20 homes and then tried to tour a few with the little ones. Not the best plan. I was able to go back a couple of days at lunch to tour a few more homes, spend some more time asking questions and reading posters. I even volunteered one day. Okay, as it's a contest put on by the DOE, specifically about solar energy and I work in the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office it was phrased to me like this: "which shifts did you volunteer for? I've got three next week!". So I signed up and worked the student break tent. It was like being a both a bouncer and a study hall monitor, but for geeky engineering students. So I brought my crossword puzzle, a few dozen abstracts to grade and my book. Plus I got the chance to talk with some of the students about the homes they helped design, the challenges and rewards.

I think my favorite single thing from the event was Team Boston's home with the water windows. They had, I believe, six glass panels, like sliding glass doors but three inches thick. Inside there was a two inch wide 85% aqueous gel substance with triple glazed-argon filled glass exterior. The sun heats up the water which has a high specific heat and blocks the heat from entering the house all day. Then at night as the house cools down the heat radiates out of the watery gel into the house and the triple glazed exterior keeps it moving in, not out. They said it would supply 85-90% of the home's heating needs in a Boston winter! Way cool.

Team Spain had this crazy inverted pyramid solar roof on a ball joint that moved to follow the sun. Cool, but probably didn't win architectural points when it leaked during last week's rain.

Three: I don't know if any of you read the magazine "Science". You might be able to guess their target audience. High end journal. If you get published in it you are the best of the best. So last week they came out with an article that summed up some research wherein it was found that science teachers who have had research experience (summer internships) do a better job teaching and their kids learn science better and even perform better on tests. Really? Doing science makes one a better scientist? And no one had ever quantified this before with test results; that's the kicker to me. An interesting read if you're so motivated, but it seemed sort of "Duh!!" to me. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/326/5951/440?sa_campaign=Email/toc/16-October-2009/10.1126/science.1177344

Be well and I'll try to update from Boston.