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Your Body and Brain from the Inside Out

Body Worlds and the Brain

What’s the body and brain all about anyway? The Science Museum of Virginia knows for sure! Their incredibly powerful exhibit on Body Worlds and the Brain is amazing. The exhibition runs through September 23rd, so you have plenty of time to go and check it out.  Read the review from mom and daughter team Lisa Ann and Ryan Setchel originally written for Richmondmom.com.

Another Big Bang of Science: Fireworks!

fireworks fourth of july

Is there a better way to explore science and chemistry than by dissecting the bangs, explosions and flashes of fireworks? Get ready for your Fourth of July celebration after you watch the video below from the Royal Institute at the University of Cambridge, England. Professor Chris Bishop walks you through hands-on demonstrations about the hows and whys of firework science.

Meteor Showers and the Largest Full Moon of the Year

eta Aquarids

The eta Aquarid meteor shower will be visible in the early morning sky on Sunday May 6. The meteors are bits of dust left behind by Halley’s Comet, which last passed this way in 1986. Viewing should be best just before dawn. This shower’s radiant point doesn’t rise over our horizons until around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. The meteors are few and far even then, but the wee hours are a time for catching earth-grazing meteors in this shower.

Sydney Opera House: It’s All About The Math

Sydney Opera House Construction

The peeling of an orange and an in-depth understanding of mathematics led a team of architects and engineers to discover how to construct one of architecture’s iconic images: the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia.

Danish architect Jørn Utzon won the 1957 world-wide design competition for the Sydney Opera House.  His simple but mesmerizing sketch proved inscrutable for six years to the team from the world’s foremost engineering firm charged with structural design.  Its task was to find a repeatable form that would allow Utzon's design to be constructed in a cost-effective manner.  Mathematics and nature helped them to solve the problem.

Celebrate Pi Day, March 14th - What’s Pi All About?

pi

The Science Museum of Virginia is ready to get a little irrational about Pi in hopes to make your knowledge of this tasty number a bit more well rounded. On Wednesday, March 14, from 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. celebrate the first three digits of Pi, 3.14, on March 14 – also known as 3/14 with a day filled with some pie science.

She shoots! She scores! Rat Basketball?

She has the hoop in sight, she runs, she shoots she scores! The basketball flies through the hoop and so does the small furry player, one of the stars of Rat Basketball at The Science Museum of Virginia. Amazing basketball skills are not something rats are born with, so how does Laura Kramer, the Chief Rat Wrangler, and her team of trainers use science to get these small basketball players to compete in the game?

Watch the video to learn about the science of rat basketball.

Glowing Rocks at the University of Richmond

Studying petrified wood

Have you ever been surrounded by rocks that glow? You will be when you visit the Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature at the University of Richmond. Tucked within a gallery filled with intriguing objects like fossils, shells, a giant clam, decorative arts, ancient coins, and different kinds of gems and minerals - the Fluorescent Mineral room is a site not to miss.  Watch the video below to find out more.

Computers Speak Binary Numbers

Chalk Talk Binary

How did early computer designers come up with the first computer language?

Check out the National Science Foundation’s website Science360: The Knowledge Network to learn more on this topic and to see the latest videos on the wonders of science, technology, engineering and math.