Private Tutor for Math & Science Success

Science isn’t static: It grows and breathes and changes like a living thing. In fact, the best way to describe the state of science at any given time is to compare it to a tree. At the core of the tree is the unchanging heartwood, while at its periphery are the areas of growth and change.

Science is like that: At its core are ideas that have been tested over and over again, ideas that really aren’t going to change much in the future. Out at the periphery, though, things are different. There we have a constant state of flux: ideas being tested, sometimes succeeding, sometimes being abandoned, sometimes being rethought in a bewildering, shifting kaleidoscope. Read the rest of this entry »

Barbara Harris Whitfield has heard 22 scientific explanations for near-death experiences like the one she had in 1975. So far, she isn’t satisfied by any of them.

“Yes it was brain chemistry that might have fine tuned my ability to pick up this,” said Whitfield, 67, an author and therapist in private practice in Atlanta, Ga. “I think the brain is like the radio, and what [science is] explaining is the hardware of the radio, but what we can’t explain is the broadcast.”

Whitfield doubts science can ever completely explain her experiences when a ventilator malfunctioned as she recovered from spine surgery.

Yet scientists continue to search, and some are intrigued by a small study of cardiac arrest survivors that shows there may be a physical link between carbon dioxide in the blood and the likelihood that someone will wake up remembering floating above their body and moving towards a peaceful light.

SAN ANTONIO, Apr 12, 2010 — Winners Announced for 24th Annual Statewide Science Competition

–ExxonMobil is Title Sponsor for 10th Year, Contributing $75,000

–Hosted by the University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas Science Careers Consortium

Two hundred twenty students were awarded today with highest honors at the ExxonMobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair, a four-day competition that brings together top science fair winners from across the state. Best of Fair awards, presented to the top contestants in the junior and senior divisions, were presented to Carlos Rivero-Lopez of Sugar Land, Texas and Amy Chyao of Plano, Texas.

Students competed in two divisions — junior (grades six through eight) and senior (grades nine through 12) — in one of 19 categories at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. Selected from more than 1,100 entries, awards were given to first through fourth place winners in each category, and Grand Prize and Best in Fair projects in each division. Senior division Grand Prize winners received all-expense paid trips to compete at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair May 9–14 in San Jose, Calif. The top 10 percent of competitors in the junior division qualified to participate in the Discovery Channel Young Scientists Challenge. Read the rest of this entry »