In a gas turbine, the linear motion of gas causes rotors to spin, ultimately creating electricity. The forward rotating blades pump air under high pressure into the combustion chamber where natural gas ignites on contact with the air. At 1,500 degrees Celsius, the stream of gas rushes past the rear turbine blades, causing the entire rotor to spin. A generator transforms that rotational energy into electricity. This program shows the extreme precision...

Join the theater department of the University of California at Berkeley on an in-depth journey to the heart of William Shakespeare's plays. Simple but brilliant reenactments of plays from both cultures, featuring beautiful costumes and accessible acting make both worlds interesting and easy to understand despite the barriers of language. Shakespeare and the Spanish Connection is a must for students, teachers, and Shakespeare scholars of all ages....

Engineers and architects are creating bridges that combine the best of both art and design. Bridges are no longer just a tool to get from one side of the river to the other. Some bridges have the goal of being aesthetically pleasing and efficient for pedestrians. Others rely on the cantilever design to span a distance equivalent to three and a half jumbo jets. Bridges are often classified by their structure and how the forces of tension, compression,...

Christmas Island, discovered December 25, 1643, is just a speck of land in the Indian Ocean. The annual red crab migration at the beginning of the rainy season, however, is so massive it can be seen from the air. It has been named a wonder of the natural world. This program follows this terrestrial arthropod from its rainforest burrow, across dangerous landscape to the ocean to mate. The park offers the perfect forest ecosystem for the Christmas...

Aeronautics is the science of flight as well as the theory and practice of aircraft navigation. Any machine that flies through the air falls into the field of aeronautics. This includes helicopters, airplanes, as well as space vehicles such as the SpaceX Dragon and the retired NASA space shuttles. Aerodynamics is a branch of physical science which deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion. By studying the way...

The role of getting people, satellites and other instruments into space is falling to private companies, especially with the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011. Reaching an altitude of 100 kilometers is required to be considered spaceflight. There have been just over 500 people that have reached this mark and only 24 have traveled beyond low Earth orbit. It is projected that within ten years, the number of people who will have flown...

Visible light, which can be seen with our eyes, comprises a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. The rest of the spectrum, from short wavelength gamma rays to long-wavelength radio waves, requires special instruments to detect. ALMA uses and array of radio telescopes to detect and study radio waves from space. Radio telescopes are typically large parabolic dish antennas used singly or in an array. Radio observatories are preferentially located...

According to ABET, or the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology: "Engineering is the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences, gained by study, experience, and practice, is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of humankind." There is considerable overlap between science and engineering. Research teams often consist of one or...

The Australian outback is home to a diverse group of organisms. When conditions are right, they play host to a distant, shoreline visitor – the Banded Stilt. Though common to the country's coasts and tidal shallows, this bird travels great distances inland in search of a particular food at its inland breeding grounds. Due to an environmental event, the mystery behind this behavior was only recently discovered and documented. Cyclone Bobby started...

"This interesting book about competitive vegetable contests teaches readers about plant parts and plant reproduction."--