Science Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Satellite Safari gives you a unique vantage point for what is in orbit

by Mel Martin (Mar 24th, 2013)

Satellite Safari is a new iOS app from the creators of Sky Safari. Rather than look at the universe, Satellite Safari has more local ambitions. The app contains a complete database of what is orbiting the earth. It allows you to find what is overhead, then view the spacecraft from earth, from ...

Check out tomorrow's asteroid close call on your iPhone or iPad

by Mel Martin (Feb 14th, 2013)

As you may have read, our home planet will have a close call tomorrow, February 15, with a 180,000-ton asteroid called 2012 DA14. There is no chance of a collision, but the space rock will come within 17,200 miles, closer than many of our communication satellites. You can follow the approach ...

Sound Uncovered is a gateway to the fascinating world of sound

by Kelly Hodgkins (Feb 12th, 2013)

The San Francisco-based Exploratoruim has a long history of promoting science, arts and hands-on learning. The science museum has a physical location with more than a thousand exhibits, a website with more than 50,000 pages of content and now it is launching its second interactive iPad app, ...

NASA offers free e-book for iPad owners

by Mel Martin (Dec 22nd, 2012)

What a nice holiday gift from NASA: it's an interactive e-book available in the iBookstore called Hubble Space Telescope: Discoveries, featuring beautiful images, video and animations relating to the space telescope that is giving us striking new views of the universe we live in. "These new ...

The role of the Mac at NASA and JPL is shown off by Mars Curiosity mission

by Mel Martin (Aug 6th, 2012)

My colleague Steve Sande touched on this subject of all the Macs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in an earlier post, and I've been doing some digging to find out more about all the Mac love at our space agency and its field centers. JPL is managed by Caltech, but it falls under NASA's ...

Monster Physics is fun for any age

by Mel Martin (Jun 18th, 2012)

This universal iOS app comes from the "Gee, I wish I had this when I was a kid" category. Monster Physics teaches science, but in a fun way. You create your avatar then assemble a contraption from pieces available in the app. Wheels, cannons and all sorts of parts. You can weld things together ...

Siri shown to launch, run mock experiment by British Telecom

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 10th, 2012)

Siri isn't just a personal assistant who can read your messages or check your calendar. The voice assistant may also play a role in finding a cure for cancer. A team of researchers from BioTeam, Accelrys and British Telecom worked together to plug Siri into scientific data analysis software ...

Friday Favorite: A bushel of educational apps for learning fun

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 30th, 2012)

A friend on Twitter asked me the other day if I had a list of the educational apps I have on my iPad. With all the reviews I have done, I was ashamed to admit that I've never taken the time to list those apps that I use on a regular basis with my children. I reached out to the other writers at ...

SkyLight combines iPhones and microscopes

by Kelly Hodgkins (Feb 6th, 2012)

We've seen lots of photo accessories that let you add filters and lenses to your iPhone, but SkyLight is the first to let you add a full-fledged microscope. It's a platform that attaches to a microscope and aligns the phone's camera with the eyepiece. You can view the microscope image on your ...

Scosche's RDTX-PRO for iPhone and iPod touch detects radiation

by Steven Sande (Aug 31st, 2011)

Scosche Industries produces a wide line of accessories for Apple products, ranging from iPad cases and flexible keyboards to screen cleaners and headphones. Now the company has developed and is selling the RDTX-PRO Radiation Detector and app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Primarily designed ...

Papers 2 and Papers for the iPad: the ultimate journal reading combination

by Samuel Gibbs (Aug 28th, 2011)

It's that time of year again: time to head back to college, grab those books and kickstart the academic term. This year, why not cut out paper from your scientific journal research workflow with the ultimate in journal management and reading for the Mac and iPad? Management Papers 2 takes ...

Daily iPad App: NASA Visualization Explorer

by Kelly Hodgkins (Aug 8th, 2011)

The NASA Visualization app is your window into the world of NASA research. The app presents the latest NASA research news in an easy-to-digest format. Each article is written for the lay person and amateur scientist with images and video to complement the writing. Topics range from space-based ...

Daily iPad App: HowStuffWorks for iPad

by Kelly Hodgkins (Aug 4th, 2011)

If you love learning the details that explain how things work, then the HowStuffWorks app for the iPad is perfect for you. The app takes the best of the How Stuff Works website and packages it into a convenient, tablet-friendly format. It's chock full of content and features and will keep you ...

Scientific study shows internet use changes human memory

by Chris Rawson (Jul 18th, 2011)

The internet has fundamentally affected the way people access and store information, and many people (myself included) have wondered if it's also changing the way our minds work. According to the New York Times, a recently published scientific paper shows that we are indeed changing the way we ...

Use your iPhone to detect cataracts

by Mike Schramm (Jul 8th, 2011)

A group of researchers at MIT have built a surprisingly useful medical addon for the iPhone that apparently can help detect cataracts. The CATRA system is a device that snaps on to the front of the iPhone (or any computer screen, from the look of it), and then uses screen output to monitor and ...