Guest: Patrick Watt, Manager of Education & Public Programs at the National Sports Museum, Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Patrick told us about the museum and some of the education programs that pertain to the Olympic Games and other sports. The museum tries to link sports science with great sporting moments of national significance.
Goodbye to the Space Shuttle — Dr Shane bid farewell to an amazing feat of human engineering – the NASA Space Shuttles. After a 20 year program, the shuttles are due to be retired in 2010. Their replacement is the Constellation Program – an ambitious program with a retro taste of the old Apollo mission and Saturn V rocket and the ability to undertake missions to the Moon and (potentially) Mars. (NASA Space Shuttle Homepage, Constellation Program Homepage)
Does the Earth’s magnetic field cause suicides? — Many animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, so why not people, asks Oleg Shumilov. Shumilov looked at activity in the Earth’s geomagnetic field from 1948 to 1997 and found that it grouped into three seasonal peaks every year. Surprisingly, he also found that the geomagnetism peaks matched up with peaks in the number of suicides in the northern Russian city of Kirovsk over the same period. (New Scientist)
1000 Genomes Project — The number of sequenced human genomes will soon swell to more than 1,000 as part of a new international research consortium’s effort to trace the potential genetic origins of disease. Dubbed the 1,000 Genomes Project, it will comprehensively map humanity’s genetic variation. (Scientific American, 1000 Genomes Project)
Other stories: (listen to podcast)
– Concentrate on a recent meal reduce the desire to snack
– Using sound for athletic training and muscle memory
– Dr Andi’s answers to questions you never asked!
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Direct podcast download: Einstein-A-Go-Go-20080427.mp3
Tags: 1000 Genomes, Constellation Program, National Sports Museum, Space Shuttle
