STEAM (STEM + ARTS) News in Review: 3/18/2022

Our STEAM (STEM + Arts) News in Review for this week. Below are the articles we read and wanted to share. Enjoy!

Interview with a NASA Astronaut! On March 21st at 12:30 p.m. EDT, middle school students will virtually meet an astronaut aboard a space station live on NASA’s tele-media! NASA astronaut, Tom Marshburn will answer STEAM-focused questions from students to cultivate the learner’s curiosity specifically with increasing interest in space flight, as part of the school’s year-long initiative. Ultimately, Artemis will strive to send astronauts to the moon for the preparation of future human exploration around the solar system, as would be done by the Artemis Generation, which includes a diverse team of astronauts of color as well as women preparing for the lunar takeoff as early as 2025. Maybe one day the kids today will be part of the next Artemis Generation!

NASA: Students to hear from a live astronaut aboard the space station

Clothes can hear for you. Yes, MIT researchers invented a type of piezoelectic-based fabric able to convert audible sounds into electrical signals. The fabric can detect the angle of the sound through directional sound-sensing capabilities. Essentially, it is envisioned to help those with hearing impairments tune in to a “speaker” amidst the noisy or quiet environments. Also called an acoustic fabric, it can detect the heartbeat of the individual along with variations in the heart’s “lub-dub” features. There are also possibilities of it being incorporated into maternity wear to help monitor a baby’s heartbeat! Other possible applications are to integrate such fabric with spacecraft skin to listen to space dust and even buildings to detect cracks or strains. Opportunities are endless and it is just the start, more research is yet to be done.

MIT News: A fabric that hears your heart’s sounds

One of the cleverest birds on earth, the Australian magpie. Read this article to learn more about how the latest magpies’ mischief has been to outwit scientists studying them while at the same time helping other magpies without any obvious benefit to themselves. A study was conducted about magpie’s social behavior and so a team of researchers attempted to perfect a harness that can carry miniature tracking devices while not causing harm to the birds. It was actually believed that it would utterly be impossible for the creatures to remove the harnesses from their own bodies; however, they were proved wrong when the birds started to do away with one tracking device around half an hour after takeoff in a “remarkable act of cooperation,” putting 6 months of assembling the harnesses in vain.

NYT: Australia’s Clever Birds Did Not Consent to This Science Experiment

Is severe weather forming on Saturn? Alerting all space storm watchers keep your eyes peeled for upcoming white spots on the planet. These white spots indicate extreme and rare storms! Saturn usually looks plain in comparison to its bigger brother, Jupiter, but in every two or three decades, Saturn awakens from its apparent dormant state and unleashes a powerful storm that throws water and other molecules up into the atmosphere while they eventually freeze to form a huge white cloud! There’s no certainty of exactly when it will occur, but with the 30-year periodicity hypothesis, it should’ve occurred in 2020 or will happen in 2040, but it will be this generation of amateurs who will be spotting it first!

Sky & Telescope: Will Saturn sprout spots this observing season?

Latifah Hamzah, a STEAM pioneer in Malaysia! Being an MIT graduate, Hamzah co-founded Engineers Without Borders - Malaysia, a nonprofit organization passionate about finding sustainable and empowering solutions that would impact disadvantaged communities in Malaysia. Her focus now, while at Stanford University, is to improve water and sanitation in developing contexts. Her myriad of initiatives already implemented is truly inspiring, such as the installation of micro-hydro or solar-power systems for indigenous communities so that they can live in their ancestral lands and gain energy input, simultaneously. She is also planning a project that seeks to establish a circular economy in the chocolate industry! Learn more about her innovative work through this interview with Latifah Hamzah:

MIT News: Q&A: Latifah Hamzah ’12 on creating sustainable solutions in Malaysia and beyond