The majority of people who are afraid of what will happen when CERN’s large hadron collider is finally put into operation probably have no idea what it really is, or what it’s designed to do. But what better way to educate the masses on the intricacies of the world’s largest science experiment than through an intricately detailed pop-up book? That’s what made me the amateur surgeon I am today!

Voyage To The Heart Of Matter – The Atlas Experiment At CERN was written by Emma Sanders, though it’s probably the paper engineering skills of Anton Radevsky that will make this a must-have Christmas gift for everyone from amateur physicists to the scientists actually working on the ATLAS experiment. But since it won’t be available until the end of November for about $33, it might be cutting it a bit close for the gift giving season.

[ Voyage To The Heart Of Matter - The Atlas Experiment At CERN ] VIA [ Shiny Shiny ]

Thanks to the likes of Brando and other companies, USB microscopes are plentiful and easy to find these days. But being tethered to your PC with a USB cable limits where they can go. Not this wireless model though, the only limit of where you can use it is your imagination… and possibly good taste.

It uses a 2.4GHz wireless signal with a switch on the cradle/wireless receiver for choosing one of 4 channels, and the optics are able to magnify whatever it is you’re looking at from 10-200x. It’s also got a ring of 8 white LEDs around the ‘lens’ for added illumination, a built-in Li-ion battery that charges when placed in the cradle, and is available from ThinkGeek for $139.99.

[ Wireless USB Digital Microscope ]

I never thought I’d ever want to go back to school again, but the captains-in-training at the Warsash Maritime Academy in England have to start out on these amazing supertanker replicas before they ever get the chance to pilot the real thing. And with a price tag of over $240,000, you’re actually better off strapping a lawn chair to the RC Titanic replica I wrote about on the weekend, then trying to buy one of these for your own amusement. But replicas or not, apparently piloting these miniature supertankers can provide plenty of useful experience for the real thing, without the fear of causing the next Exxon Valdez disaster because you spent the night before your big exam partying.

[ The Daily Mail - The ultimate boys' toys: £150,000 replica supertankers which are used to train the captains of tomorrow ] VIA [ Newlaunches.com ]

I love me a good science center, but I particularly like it when the actual building manages to educate as much as the exhibits inside do. Case in point, the The Swiss Technorama Science Center in Winterthur, Switzerland. Way back in 2002 they hired Ned Kahn to design a unique facade for the building which consisted of thousands of small aluminum panels that move with the air currents revealing the patterns of turbulence in the winds. Obviously the still shots don’t do it justice, so if you have a few minutes I highly recommend checking out the video below to see it in action, it’s quite hypnotic.

[ YouTube - Technorama Facade ] VIA [ swissmiss ]

Now you can teach your kids about the birds and the bees – well at least the birds part – without all that awkwardness. (Human babies hatch from eggs right?) This nest box comes with an IR camera pre-installed inside that transmits a video image, night and day, to a base station that can be connected to any display with an RCA input, revealing the secrets of the circle of life. The transmitter’s got a range of about 328ft and 4 different broadcast channels in case you get interference from another device, but you’ll need to run a power feed out to wherever the nest box gets mounted since even the optional 9V battery pack is really only good for about 2 hours.

You can order the kit from Pro-Idee for about $211, which isn’t cheap, but do you really want your kids learning where birds come from on the internet or on the street? I didn’t think so.

[ Nest Box with IR Camera ]

By Evan Ackerman

The PeeWee Pivot Tablet Laptop, as you may have guessed from the name, is designed for kids ages 3-10. As such, it comes with “age appropriate software,” a Disney Theme for Windows XP, and a security suite designed to keep your preschoolers from downloading hardcore pornography.

Once you get past the kiddie stuff, though, this is actually a pretty decent machine. It’s essentially a netbook, with all of the features you’ve come to know and love and be bored by, including an Atom processor, Windows XP, 1-2 gigs of RAM, a 60 gig HD, USB, card reader, WiFi, 6 cell battery for 5+ hours of on-time, blah blah blah. But it’s also a convertible touchscreen tablet that comes with a stylus. And a webcam that rotates 180 degrees. And a spill-resistant keyboard. And drop-resistant shell. You know, stuff that’s nice to have in a computer that you carry around a lot.

You’ll pay more for all of these features, of course: the PeeWee PC costs $600. That’s a premium of about $150 or so from a similarly outfitted MSI Wind (the netbook standard, IMO). But that’s not really that much for the additional durability and touchscreen… As long as you can handle using a laptop that probably says “PeeWee” on it in a few places.

[ PeeWee PC ] VIA [ Engadget ]

I’ve often wondered if I’d be able to land an airplane should the need ever arise. I mean back in the day I spent a lot of time playing MS Flight Simulator, what more training could I possibly need right? Well reading through this wikiHow article entitled “How to Land an Airplane in an Emergency” does make me second-guess my actual knowledge of the whole procedure. While the wiki is a bit vague at times, there’s still some pretty good information there, at least enough to keep you in the air until you get in touch with air traffic control. And it doesn’t hurt to bookmark the site on your laptop or phone, just in case you ever happen to need to reference it again.

[ wikiHow - How to Land an Airplane in an Emergency ]

Ugh, I guess this is another sign of the times. Instead of kids blowing up test tubes with strips of magnesium, they have to settle for making square shaped or smoke filled bubbles with this Bubble Experiment Lab from ‘Mad Science’. I’ll give them credit though, when fully assembled the lab does look like a crazy contraption cooked up by a Disney Imagineer, but I’m afraid the accolades end there. While it comes with bubble solution and a smoke elixir (sounds delicious) according to one of the reviewers on Amazon “the smoke was less visible than the steam coming off a cup of warm coffee.”

So if you live for the look of disappointment on your kid’s faces, you can order the Bubble Experiment Lab from Amazon for $42.99. Otherwise, just spend like 50 cents and buy them a bottle of bubble solution. It’s a far cheaper way to confirm the scientific hypothesis that bubbles are lame.

[ Mad Science Bubble Experiment Lab ] VIA [ Gadget Grid ]

Designed to accompany your Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite set (pictured above) the DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software might not be as fun as Rock Band, but it looks like a better learning tool if you have drumming aspirations beyond just getting a new high score.

With the HD-1 drum kit connected to your PC via an included USB-MIDI interface, the Drum Tutor software provides an easy to follow notation screen complete with a bouncing ball, timing check and indicators for what your left and right hands should be doing. And if you’ve found that Rock Band makes practicing for hours on end a little more enjoyable, the Drum Tutor software even has a Tetris clone game where you learn proper drumming techniques while trying to rack up a high score.

The DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software will be available come March for about $75, while the HD-1 V-Drums Lite are available now, and can be found at sites like Amazon for around $800.

[ Roland DT-HD1 Drum Tutor ]

If I had to make a list of companies that haven’t exactly kept up with the times, Encyclopedia Britannica would be right up there near the top. Even though they have finally embraced that internet thing all the kids are talking about, they still sell printed copies of their encyclopedia set. And while this electronic version of their encyclopedia is considerably more portable and affordable, it still looks like one of those old-school Sharp organizers from 15 years ago.

The Electronic Encyclopedia Britannica includes all 25,000 entries from their concise encyclopedia, as well as a copy of the 240,000 word Concise Oxford Dictionary, the Concise Oxford Thesaurus (which contains over 4 million synonym links) and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. It also includes a 130,000 word spellchecker, a 10,000-entry abbreviation dictionary as well as a crossword solver, phrase finder, calculator and currency converter. With a price tag of about $184 from Expert Verdict it’s still kind of a hard sell if you’ve already got a half-decent internet connected smartphone, but at least they’re trying right?

[ Seiko Electronic Encyclopedia Britannica ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]