Alabama Science in Motion

12/26/2024

We’re closing out the year with a roundup of the science stories that stood out to our editors in 2024.

11/20/2024

The garden at the Paris Gibson Education Center, an alternative high school in Great Falls, Montana, is much more than a spot where plants grow. ...

11/12/2024

You still have 6 more days to nominate an AMAZING science teacher!
Nomination form: https://forms.gle/5vPmLmfSwc4ddU2E9
Nominations are due November 18, 2024.

11/08/2024

For , check out some of the many resources we offer to share science with your family, students, and others.

Learn more from our NASA STEM team: https://go.nasa.gov/3CodIZC

11/07/2024

11/07/2024

We remember the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the first individual to be awarded two Nobel Prizes and still today the only individual with two Nobel Prizes in two different scientific categories: Marie Skłodowska Curie.

Curie was born in 1867.

10/09/2024

Did you know that an artificial neural network is designed to mimic the brain?

Inspired by biological neurons in the brain, artificial neural networks are large collections of “neurons”, or nodes, connected by “synapses”, or weighted couplings, which are trained to perform certain tasks. An artificial neural network processes information using its entire network structure. The inspiration
initially came from the desire to understand how the brain works.

In the 1940s, researchers had started to reason around the mathematics that underlies the brain’s network of neurons and synapses. Another piece of the puzzle came from psychology, thanks to neuroscientist Donald Hebb’s hypothesis about how learning occurs because connections between neurons are reinforced when they work together.

Later, these ideas were followed by attempts to recreate how the brain’s network functions by building artificial neural networks as computer simulations. In these, the brain’s neurons are mimicked by nodes that are given different values, and the synapses are represented by connections between the nodes that can be made stronger or weaker. Hebb’s hypothesis is still used as one of the basic rules for updating artificial networks through a process called training.

At the end of the 1960s, some discouraging theoretical results caused many researchers to suspect that these neural networks would never be of any real use. However, interest in artificial neural networks was reawakened in the 1980s, when several important ideas made an impact, including work by this year’s laureates John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton.

Learn more about this year’s physics prize awarded for work on artificial neural networks: https://bit.ly/4gK57jl

10/08/2024

Understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal for many decades. If gene regulation goes awry, it can lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or autoimmunity.

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then on to the cellular machinery for protein production. There, mRNAs are translated so that proteins are made according to the genetic instructions stored in DNA. Since the mid-20th century, several of the most fundamental scientific discoveries have explained how these processes work.

In 1993, this year's Nobel Prize laureates published unexpected findings describing a new level of gene regulation, which turned out to be highly significant and conserved throughout evolution. They discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

Learn more
Press release: https://bit.ly/3BiM2o9
Advanced information: https://bit.ly/3N6vAtK

08/23/2024

APT presents a virtual professional development series for Media Literacy and STEM. These session will delve into the essential concepts of media literacy and ecomedia literacy, guide you in producing engaging educator-created media and designing impactful student media projects. Explore a variety of tools and platforms to ignite creativity, foster collaboration, deepen problem-solving skills, and explore effective techniques for media analysis to use in your lessons. You will also learn to assess student learning effectively through media-based projects. Participants can attend as many sessions as they wish.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OKcmfhaKkh5rCdk7JW7pL6EMtRCtosOn3i42S2n5Kyw/edit?usp=sharing

08/17/2024

Have you been positively impacted by AMSTI?
We would love to hear your story!
Share it with us here:

https://wkf.ms/3Y01A9T