My NISENet (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) February 2010 newsletter arrived earlier this week with a bumper crop of news and tips. (Go here if you want to find out more about the organization.) I was particularly interested in this bit by Anders Liljeholm,
Did you know that in different countries the word “billion” can mean different amounts? In English, one billion is one thousand million, but in most countries in Europe “billion” means one million million, what we Americans would call one trillion.
This is the kind of detail that’s important when translating or when you’re talking to someone who was educated in a European system. In regular usage it’s an error that most likely won’t have much impact but when you’re dealing with the nanoscale (or financial services) it could make quite a difference. You can read more about it here.
Nano Days 2010 will run from March 27 to April 4. From the NISE website,
NanoDays is our nationwide festival of educational programs about nanoscale science and engineering and its potential impact on the future. NanoDays events are organized by participants in the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and take place at over 200 science museums, research centers, and universities across the country from Maine to Hawaii.
I’m not aware of any Nano Days programs in Canada but do let me know if you have any information about some Nano Days programming here.
The nano haiku from the newsletter,
by Vrylena Olney, Museum of Science, Boston.
Finally, there was a news item on Nanowerk about how scientists in China are learning more about acupuncture points with the use of a synchrotron. From the news item,
Chinese scientists are using the country’s most expensive ever science project, a light-emitting synchrotron, to solve the mystery of acupuncture points. The Shanghai-based synchrotron, which uses super-powerful X-rays to resolve the structure of matter down to the level of atoms, has detected evidence that acupuncture points differ from other parts of the body. Zhang Xinyi, deputy director with the synchrotron radiation research center at Fudan University, said, “We are trying to figure out the three-dimensional structure of the acupuncture points with the light resources.”
You can read more here.