What is a Science “Zine”?

Imagine a mini-magaZine you make yourself. Now make it smaller – nope, smaller still! From a single 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper you can make an 8 page booklet that fits in the palm of your hand. You’ll be amazed how much entertaining science can be packed into a zine and shared with the world!

Curious how to participate? Just follow these four simple steps–

1. Choose a topic and theme.

(You can zine about anything in science — from pigeons to earthquakes to neutrinos — but we are going to ask you to align it with one of our YoS themes.)

2. Design it!

(Here’s a template.)

3. Fold it!

(These instructions make it easy.)

4. Submit it!

(Complete the online submission form here.)

What is the contest deadline?

All submissions must be postmarked by November 1, 2009.

Click for more tips on creating a great zine and examples on the Small Science Collective Web site.

What might you win?

Your zines will be read by a panel of scientists, artists, and students from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History. There are three entry levels by age: Youth (8-12 years), High-School (13-17), Adult (18 and older) and there are twelve themes … so there will be 36 different awards! Each winner will receive prizes donated by YoS partners and:

• One top zine contributor will receive a $500 grand prize!
  The grand prize is generously provided by Shodor: A national resource for computational science education
• Two prize winners will receive a $250 prize each.
  These two awards, sponsored by UnderstandingScience.org, will be given to the zine authors who best reinforce the process of science in their design and text (see Understanding Science.org for ideas and information)

Selected zines will also be highlighted and shared through the Year of Science 2009 website & the Small Science Collective.

Coming of the heels of NASA creating a public contest to name a part of the space station, A scientific team is opening up the naming of a new species of jellyfish to help celebrate the Year of Science.

The species was discovered by a young girl swimming off a beach in Bonaire, down in the Carribean. She was stung and ended up in the hospital. Cue a scientific team investigating the event and voila we have a new species. This happens all the time, thousands of new species are discovered each year.

But it is a first to open the naming up to the public. There are of course some rules:

* Names have to be in Latin letters (not Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, etc.).
* No accents, apostrophes, or hyphens, etc. are allowed (no diacriticals).
* As mentioned, the species name begins with a lowercase letter.
* The name has to be more than one letter long.
* The name can be a word, name, in any language, and even just mixed up letters (but what would be the point of that?).
* The name (Genusname speciesname) has to be unique. So, in our case, species names that have been used for
Tamoya, such as haplonema or prismatica would not be allowed, having already been used.

To submit your own name, head over to the Year of Science’s Website.

And yes, Colbert Nation is already throwing a name into the ring: Tamoya colberti.

Watch a video of the jellyfish below:

January 11th marked the 4th anniversary of Family Appreciation Day in San Francisco through which every San Francisco family with children ages 0 to 18 years old receives FREE entrance and transportation to museums and attraction. This year it also marked the first of two Bay Area launch events for the Year of Science 2009. Held at the Crissy Field Center, the launch included the opportunity to explore fossils and natural history objects, examine surface tension, peer into Bay waters, test aerodynamic designs in a wind tunnel, color with natural pigments from plants, and generally reflect on the wonders of science that is all around us.

We were lucky enough to have members from the S.F. Chronicle cover the event as well (which made the front page). We also received a wonderful letter of recognition from the Mayor’s office.

The second launch event will take place in the South at the Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT) on Saturday, Jan. 24, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Click here for more information.

It was a wonderful kickoff to the year-long celebration of science. For ongoing celebrations, check out the events page as well as keeping up with the blog.