Last Week's Top STEM Exploration Picks! August 8, 2015

Bookshelf of the week:

Last Week's Top Picks:

Whalecopter Drones! Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) have successfully used unmanned aerial vehicles to study the health and habits of whales. The drones are able to fly over a whale's blow hole, and non-invasive 'breathalyze' it to measure signals about the whale's health.

• Read the original press release here: http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/whalecopter
• Pre-order some new guides on how to build your own drone: http://amzn.to/1Jb4BbY or http://amzn.to/1f5YdVo
• Learn depth about field studies of whales and dolphins: http://amzn.to/1IEaPha

The Ebola vaccine has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection and symptoms of the Ebola virus in a recent trial involving guinea pigs. This could provide critical information in preventing the spread of Ebola if another outbreak were to occur.

• Learn about Ebola: http://amzn.to/1MmLVqw
• Read the original research here: http://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/S0140673615611175.pdf.

Rosetta has been exploring the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for one year now. The Rosetta probe released the Philae lander in early November 2014 and it made a rougher than planned landing on the comet surface on 12 November 2014. Since arriving at the comet just over a year ago, Rosetta and Philae have provided humans with previously unknown knowledge of the structure and composition of comets. One of the most significant discoveries to come back from the mission is the presence of the precursors to life including complex organic molecules!

• Visit the Rosetta mission homepage: http://rosetta.esa.int/
• Read a very technical guide to the mission: http://amzn.to/1IEdreS
• Learn more about Comets: http://amzn.to/1IEebk9

See you next week! Keep Exploring!