General Interest
http://www.animalbehaviorarchive.org/
The Scout Report has never profiled a website that has sections titled “Best of Courtship” or the “Best of Territory Defense”, but then again, there are many wonderful surprises contained with the Macaulay Library’s Animal Sound & Video Catalog. Housed within Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology, the Animal Sound & Video Catalog contains thousands of audio and video recordings of animals such as the harp seal pup, the golden-fronted woodpecker, and a variety of turkeys. Visitors are welcome to utilize their basic and advanced search engine features to look for specific animals, or they can also browse some of the previously mentioned “Best of” categories. While just listening to (or watching) these animals is fine enough, visitors should also consider viewing the free audio visualization tool offered here. Called “RavenViewer”, the application will allow users to watch audio spectrograms, control playback speed, and inspect low-frequency sounds. [KMG]
http://www.presidentialtimeline.org/
Given the differing viewpoints of certain American presidents, it’s hard to think of some of them being in the same place at the same time. Fortunately, the dedicated individuals at the Learning Technology Center in The University of Texas at Austin College of Education have done just that. Working with the Presidential Libraries and Terra Incognita Productions, they have created this visually stimulating and wonderfully informative interactive Presidential Timeline. Upon entering, visitors can explore the timeline at their leisure, all the while learning about significant events during each of their presidencies and about what they did after their time in office. The “Exhibits” area is another rather fine area, as it features profiles of various events that defined each president’s time in office, such as the crash of the stock market during President Hoover’s four years in the White House, or John F. Kennedy’s work in establishing the Peace Corps. [KMG]
When the weather outside is frightful (or even when it isn’t), budding meteorologists will want to turn to the NOAA’s All-Hazard Monitor website. Drawing on an impressive array of weather-tracking devices, satellites, and so on, visitors can monitor a number of types of weather here, including tropical weather, droughts, volcanoes, earthquakes, and oil spills. Along with the “Weather Summary” map that is front and center on the homepage, visitors can also click onto detailed maps of surface weather and the current drought outlook. The site also features information about weather in space, rip currents, and harmful algae blooms. One can imagine a number of educational uses for the map, from displaying the map in a visual communications class to a basic course on meteorology. [KMG]
http://sfpl.org/news/onlineexhibits/amusing/
In the closing decades of the 19th century, American began to come together on the grounds of amusement parks, dance halls, and other such places. These commercial amusements had quite a heyday for a few decades, and this online exhibit from the San Francisco Public Library pays tribute to that period. From a virtual Ferris wheel, visitors can enter the exhibit by clicking on a number of images, including a smiling clown’s face and a trio of bathing beauties. Visitors can learn about San Francisco’s famed Sutro Baths, tour the grounds of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and the hustle and bustle of the Playland. If visitors make some popcorn and pink lemonade while wandering around the site, it might just make the experience complete. [KMG]
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy/index.html
While there may be some individuals out there who know precisely what diplomatic personnel do during their time overseas, most people are unfamiliar with diplomatic duties. This intriguing and enlightening online exhibit provides a great deal of insight into that very subject, as it presents a number of oral histories from the archives of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Working together with the Library of Congress American Memory Project, this collection allows users to browse through some of the many interviews conducted with former diplomatic officials over the past seven decades. Visitors may also wish to read the delightful essay “The Interview Process”, written by Charles Stuart Kennedy, who serves as the director of the Foreign Affairs Oral History Program. [KMG]
Bringing together Native American artifacts and documents can be a difficult process, but fortunately for the preservation of materials from the Omaha tribe, a group of organizations in Nebraska have taken on this project. Drawing on resources from the University of Nebraska State Museum, the Nebraska State Historical Society and other partners, they have created this fine website. At the present time, the site includes sections containing online texts, photographs, and artifacts. The online texts contain important documents such as James Owen Dorsey’s 1891 article “The Social Organization of the Siouan Tribes” and Alice C. Fletcher’s 1895 piece “The Sacred Pole of the Omaha tribe”. Visitors will also want to look through the photographs, which include a portrait of Omaha scouts from 1865 and a number of images from a powwow that was held in 1938. The site concludes with a list of thematically organized links to external sites about the language, art, and laws of the Omaha people. [KMG]
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/ir_tutorial/
Despite the claims of certain science fiction novels and films, humans cannot see in infrared. As many people know, the primary source of infrared radiation is heat, and the study of infrared astronomy allows scientists to detect radiation emitted from objects throughout the universe. This delightful website (created by NASA and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology) provides a wide range of material on this fascinating area of scientific study. Visitors can lean about the discovery of infrared, learn about the technology that is used in such endeavors, and of course, look over dozens of infrared images and video clips. Educators will be glad to learn that there are a number of activities offered here for use in the classroom, including one that will help students learn how to build a photocell detector. [KMG]
http://www.princetonartmuseum.org/nahua/
This website was created to accompany an exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum to focus on one ceramic object, a Nahua effigy censer. The effigy censer is made of clay and the mouth, nostrils, ears, and heart were perforated to allow breath-like scrolls of smoke from burning incense to be emitted from the body cavity. The censer was created in the likeness of one of the five gods called the Maquiltonal, who are depicted in a Pre-Colombian screenfold book called Codex Borgia, also represented on the website. In addition to describing these gods and their symbols and powers, the Codex Borgia was a calendar used by royal diviners, to predict the fate of children born on particular days. The web site includes sections where visitors can closely examine the effigy censer and read about the geography of the region that is its probable place of origin - the Tehuacan Valley located in southern Mexico. The website also includes sections on the Codex, as well as information and images having to do with Nahua prayer, the symbols of Nahua gods, and diviners' powers. [DS]
