Welcome to SciBlog. This blog is an outlet for friends of the Maryland Science Center to keep up with current happenings both at our museum and in science today.
Subscribe via RSSThe Maryland Science Center has just welcomed their newest family members — two baby brother chinchillas! The chinchillas will belong to the education department and will be used to help our guests learn about all kinds of different animal characteristics, from feeding to habitat and everything in between. Chinchillas hail from South America and are [...] More »
If you haven’t made it to the Science Center to see our Davinci: The Genius traveling exhibit, you’d better gather the family and hurry! The last day for this remarkable exhibit is Sunday, January 31st. It’s amazing how many of the things we use today were originally prototyped from DaVinci. You can see his drawings [...] More »
Researchers have built a new super-small “nanodragster” that improves on prior nanocar designs and could speed up efforts to craft molecular machines. “We made a new version of a nanocar that looks like a dragster,” said James Tour, a chemist at Rice University who was involved in the research. “It has smaller front wheels on [...] More »
On MLK Day (Monday, Jaunary 18th) the Maryland Science Center held our second annual Winter Wonder Day. We celebrated a lot of great things about winter and learned the science behind snowflakes. We also made snowflakes, salt water snow images and winter handprint tree art! Chef Derrick was kind enough to supply warm cider samples [...] More »
It’s easy to imagine catching a ball, holding it for a moment and then throwing it in the air again. It’s also easy to imagine scooping up a handful of water — say, from the ocean — and then releasing it again. But what about light? Is it possible to “catch” light — and then [...] More »
What does fizz taste like? In bubbly beverages like soda or champagne, tiny bubbles give the drink a lift — and have a distinct taste. Scientists have long wondered how we taste these bubbles. In a new study on mice, scientists have connected that fizzy-taste sensation to the ability to taste sourness. Scientists previously thought [...] More »
Here at the Maryland Science Center, we love our veggie races. Veggie racing is one of the most popular events during our annual Backyard Science Weekend in August. With a little styrofoam, wheels and the veggie of your choice, you have yourself an instant veggie mobile! Team WorldFirst has stepped it up a notch and [...] More »
This is true not only for humans, but for animals as well! Scientists have found a link between a pain killer for cattle and the deaths of mass quantities of vultures. The particular drug in question is called ketoprofen and is basically the equivalent of ibuprofen for humans. In India, some farmers give ketoprofen to [...] More »
The Maryland Science Center would like to wish all of our friends a very happy New Year! Please be safe tonight and we look forward to seeing you in 2010! Also keep an eye out for the Blue Moon this evening. When two full moons happen in the same month, the second is called the [...] More »
It’s likely that you’d guess…catnapping. Surprisingly if you did, you’d be wrong! “Cat cams” — a small digital camera apparatus that attaches to the collar — provided a sneak peak at a day in the life of our unsupervised furry friends. Fifty housecats were outfitted with the small gadget and then left at home to [...] More »