How can a science educator incorporate field study into their advanced high school science courses?

Organizes information and opportunities for high school level science field work and categorizes it to inform the educator of the field study possibilities. Assists educators in overcoming the obstacles of implementing field science into existing science courses. Several field study lesson plans are provided

The spinorial ball: a macroscopic object of spin-1/2

Historically, the observation of half-spin particles was one of the most surprising features of quantum mechanics. They are often described as "objects that do not come back to their initial state after one turn but do after two turns". There are macroscopic implementations using constraints such as clamping a belt or ribbon that purport to show similar behavior (the "Dirac belt trick"). However, a demonstration of an unconstrained macroscopic object with half-spin behavior remains elusive. In this article, we propose to fill this gap and introduce the spinorial ball. It consists of a translucent plastic ball with internal LED illumination that behaves as a freely movable macroscopic half-spin object. It provides a new tool to introduce and visualize half-integer spins as well as the covering group homomorphism from SU(2) to SO(3), and offers in particular a clear visualization of the different homotopy classes of SO(3). We discuss its development and function, and how one can mimic quantum measurement and wave function collapse using this the spinorial ball. The entire system is open source hardware, with build details, models, 3d printing files, etc., provided under an open source license

Floating under a levitating liquid

When placed upside down a liquid surface is known to destabilize above a certain size. However, vertical shaking can have a dynamical stabilizing effect. These oscillations can also make air bubbles sink in the liquid when created below a given depth. Here, we use these effects to levitate large volumes of liquid above an air layer. The loaded air layer acts as a spring-mass oscillator which resonantly amplifies the shaking amplitude of the bath. We achieve stabilization of half a liter of liquid with up to 20 cm width. We further show that the dynamic stabilization creates a symmetric Archimedes' principle on the lower interface as if gravity was inverted. Hence, immersed bodies can float upside down under the levitated liquid.Comment: 10 pages of Manuscript with 3 figures and 7 pages of Supplementary material

Protein identification using a nanoUHPLC-AP-MALDI MS/MS workflow with CID of multiply charged proteolytic peptides

Liquid AP-MALDI can produce predominantly multiply charged ESI-like ions and stable durable analyte ion yields with samples allowing good shot-to-shot reproducibility and exhibiting self-healing properties during laser irradiation. In this study, LC-MALDI MS/MS workflows that utilize multiply charged ions are reported for the first time and compared with standard LC-ESI MS/MS for bottom-up proteomic analysis. The proposed method is compatible with trifluoroacetic acid as an LC ion pairing reagent and allows multiple MS/MS acquisitions of the LC-separated samples without substantial sample consumption. In addition, the method facilitates the storage of fully spotted MALDI target plates for months without significant sample degradation

In vitro replication and thermodynamic studies of methylation and oxidation modifications of 6-thioguanine

The cytotoxic effects of thiopurine drugs are mostly exerted through the formation of thioguanine nucleotide and its subsequent incorporation into DNA. The 6-thioguanine (6-TG) in DNA can be converted to S6-methylthio-2-aminopurine (2-AP-6-SCH3) and 2-aminopurine-6-sulfonic acid (2-AP-6-SO3H) upon reaction with S-adenosyl-L-methionine and irradiation with UVA light, respectively. Here we prepared oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) harboring a 6-TG, 2-AP-6-SCH3 or 2-AP-6-SO3H at a defined site and examined, by using LC-MS/MS, the in vitro replication of these substrates with yeast polymerase η and Klenow fragment (KF−). Our results revealed that 2-AP-6-SCH3 could be bypassed by KF−, with significant misincorporation of thymine opposite the lesion. The 2-AP-6-SO3H, however, blocked markedly the nucleotide insertion by KF−. Yeast pol η could bypass all three modified nucleosides; although dCMP was inserted preferentially, we found substantial misincorporation of dTMP and dAMP opposite 2-AP-6-SCH3 and 2-AP-6-SO3H, respectively. Moreover, both KF− and yeast pol η induced a considerable amount of -2 frameshift products from the replication of 2-AP-6-SCH3- and 2-AP-6-SO3H-bearing substrates. Our results also underscored the importance of measuring the relative ionization efficiencies of replication products in the accurate quantification of these products by LC-MS/MS. Moreover, thermodynamic studies revealed that 2-AP-6-SCH3 and 2-AP-6-SO3H could cause more destabilization to duplex DNA than 6-TG. Taken together, the results from this study shed important new light on the biological implications of the two metabolites of 6-TG