Google’s 10th Birthday Present: Awarding World-Changing Ideas.

Project 10¹⁰⁰

Google’s 10th Birthday Present: World-Changing Ideas.

Back in September 24th, Google announced its 10th birthday celebration endeavor, called Project 10^100 (as in “Project 10 to the 100th”).

The project works as follows: you send Google your idea by October 20th; it’s done by simply filling out a submission form, add a 30-second video if you like. Public voting on ideas begins on January 27th, 20 semi finalists will be chosen, and an advisory board will then select up to five final ideas. Google will commit 10 million dollars to make these ideas work.

The company said that an idea could use technology or not, could be big or small, but it must have an impact. The 100 best ideas will then be identified, and users will be asked to vote on which ideas the company should back with funds. The deadline for submission of ideas is October 20, and the top 20 ideas will be available for online voting on January 27. After that, a panel of judges will choose as many as five of the ideas for final funding.

On the company’s official blog, Andy Berndt, managing director of Google’s Creative Lab, noted that we are living in a time when people have access to more information, more tools, and more ways of turning good ideas into action.

“Yet,” he wrote, “at the same time so many people (in all walks of life) could use some help, in small ways and big.” The ideas could come from anywhere, he said — a lab, a company, a university, or even “some small connection you’ve noticed, some old way of doing something that you’ve seen with new eyes.”

You can find their promo video over here:

CINECIEN 08.

A great opportunity for scientists who just also happen to be filmakers, or the other way around.

The CINECIEN 08, is the third edition of festival for video produced towards science & Technology, mostly from researchers from the Mercosul country members. The submissions for this year are open till November 14th.

Ten things you don’t know about the Earth from Bad Astronomy.

My first contact with Phil’s work on Bad Astronomy was after listening to him in Skepticality, but I only started to follow his blog recently.

The following linked post is from his series of “Ten things you don’t know about…” posts, this one bringing forth a lot of information I was not aware about our planet. And I thought I was well read into the subject.

Ten things you don’t know about the Earth | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine.

Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.

Click it to read the full post, but here I my favorite sections from it:

If the Earth were infinitely elastic, then it would respond freely to all these different forces, and take on a weird, distorted shape called a geoid. For example, if the Earth’s surface were completely deluged with water (give it a few decades) then the surface shape would be a geoid. But the continents are not infinitely ductile, so the Earth’s surface is only approximately a geoid. It’s pretty close, though.

And I never realized that digging a hole through Taiwan would take us to Paraguay (Mapping Tool).

But what if you did dig a hole through the Earth and jump in? What would happen?

Well, you’d die (see below). But if you had some magic material coating the walls of your 13,000 km deep well, you’d have quite a trip. You’d accelerate all the way down to the center, taking about 20 minutes to get there. Then, when you passed the center, you’d start falling up for another 20 minutes, slowing the whole way. You’d just reach the surface, then you’d fall again. Assuming you evacuated the air and compensated for Coriolis forces, you’d repeat the trip over and over again, much to your enjoyment and/or terror. Actually, this would go on forever, with you bouncing up and down. I hope you remember to pack a lunch.

And as my lamest comment from the post, what would Sailor Moon think about:

The Earth has at least five natural moons. But not really.

Most people think the Earth has one natural moon, which is why we call it the Moon. These people are right. But there are four other objects — at least — that stick near the Earth in the solar system. They’re not really moons, but they’re cool.