— Nanoparticles for colouring

Wondering how to keep yourself amused this weekend, or worried how to keep the kids amused on a rainy day? May I suggest this new colouring-in book full of images from the nanoscale world. If you’ve ever felt that that false colour electron microscope images could really be more eye catching this is the book for you.

Founded perhaps for less suspicious reasons than Terry the Fracosauraus‘ colouring-in book, each image comes with scale bars and a short explanatory paragraph explaining what exactly it is you’re colouring in. The explanations are aimed at a US fifth grader, so about 10 years old, and also asks questions to be filled in along the way.

My only concern, and maybe that’s because I’m a fun killing, literal scientist type, is that rather than use real photographs the book uses line-drawn approximations. That makes sense for DNA perhaps, but wobbly fractals? I think if I were going to lose myself in the crazy complexity I’d want it to be accurate.

However, I applaud the idea of communicating nanoscience early – get them hooked young, I say. And if you’re into stretching yourself, or introducing languages early to your children, the pages are also available in French. Amusez-vous bien!

Laura Howes

                  

Source:
http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/?feed=rss2