Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the library of the Royal Society —

Wikipedia's entries on women in the sciences are lacking. The Royal Society has an extensive collection of original sources documenting the work of women in the sciences. On October 19, the nail will meet the hammer in the form of a group Edit-a-Thon and workshop. The event is especially aimed at fledgling Wiki editors, who might be intimidated by the job of editing the Internet's primary source of basic information. Representatives from Wikimedia UK will be on hand to show you how the site works and answer questions. They're going to pick the entries that need improving. Participants will get access to the Royal Society archives and will work together to make Wikipedia better. What a cool program! More museums should totally do this! (Via Ed Yong) — Maggie •

George writes,

ToorCamp, the American Hacker Camp, is back again this summer! Although there is no missile silo this time, the weather/environment should be a lot more pleasant on the beach in Washington state. The 5-day (August 8-12) open-air event is open to all hackers, makers, breakers, and shakers to build projects, exchange ideas with the brightest technology folk from around the world, toast a few marshmallows, and just geek out amongst the trees.

There are on-going talks, workshops (including things like hardware hacking, welding, penetration testing, brewing and others), contests, and art projects. [PRO-TIP: We're still accepting submissions if you have something you'd like to present.] And of course, there is plenty of outdoors -- stunning scenery, whale watching, surfing, birding, etc. The camp itself has everything you need: power, internet, food and fun.

We are encouraging attendees to set up a campsite with their friends/maker-space/group, and we'd like to offer all Boing Boing readers a discount code ('bboingrocks!' good until July 1st) for an Happy Mutants Campsite!

Bring a tent, make some friends, and learn a few things. Look forward to seeing everybody there!

NSA whistleblower to keynote HOPE hacker conference in NYC —

2600 Magazine's Emmanuel Goldstein writes, "Our second keynote speaker at this year's HOPE conference is someone who has been deep inside the National Security Agency. Former analyst William Binney became aware of an increased tendency at the massive center of surveillance to focus their attention on American citizens, something the NSA was never supposed to do. Binney did the right thing - he quit and told the world what he had learned. Such integrity is something we see often in the hacker world, usually kids standing up to authority and telling the world of their wrongdoings. This time, the stage is much bigger." — Cory •

Juggling happy mutant Mat Ricardo is putting on another one of his glorious east London variety shows! He writes,

Mat Ricardo's London Varieties is back - and we only have two more London shows this year! Next one is June 14th - that's NEXT THURSDAY - and it's a cracker of a line-up. Former world champion of close-up magic, and one of Derren Brown's co-writers - the astonishing RICHARD MCDOUGALL. All the way from Ireland with their spandex unitards, the incredible circus craziness of the LORDS OF STRUT. One of the UK's funniest and most in-demand speciality acts - the hilarious NOEL BRITTEN.

PLUS: A very special interview guest from the glory days of music hall, your host will be performing several new tricks for the first time ever, we'll be showing more rare archive variety footage and all the usual surprises!

It's all going to happen at the Bethnal Green Working Mens Club - doors 7pm, show 8pm. Tickets are only £10. (more information)

The point of it all (Thanks, Mat!)

The transit of Venus is cool.

I think we can all agree on that. On Tuesday, the planet Venus will pass between us and the Sun—a little black dot sliding across the face of a giant, yellow ball. Barring the Singularity, this will be your last opportunity to see a transit of Venus. The next one won't happen until December of 2117.

But, beyond looking nifty and reminding you of your own mortality, what, exactly, is the transit of Venus good for? Is this a cultural event, a scientific event, or a little of both?

Historically, the transit of Venus provided the data that allowed us to gauge the size of the solar system for the first time. This time around, according to Space.com, researchers will be watching the transit with an eye to the universe outside our solar system. That's because what we learn from the transit of Venus could help us identify planets (including Earth-ish planets) elsewhere in the galaxy.

Astronomers already key in on transits to search for alien worlds, often finding them by detecting the telltale dips in brightness exoplanets cause when they pass in front of their parent stars. NASA's Kepler space telescope has been very successful using this technique, flagging more than 2,300 candidate alien planets to date.

“During the transit, Venus Express will make important observations of Venus’ atmosphere that will be compared with ground-based telescopes to help exoplanet hunters test their techniques," said Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s Venus Express project scientist.

Read the rest of the Space.com story

Find lots of educational materials, how-tos, and useful transit of Venus information at TransitofVenus.org

Check out Discovery News' guide to safely photographing the transit of Venus

Photosynthesis allows plants to convert light from the Sun into energy, and, in some cases, it does this incredibly well. In fact, certain bacteria can capture 95% of the light that hits them and turn it into useful energy.

Solar panels also convert light from the Sun into energy—but they aren't nearly as good at it. The very best solar panels ever tested in a lab (i.e., not the ones actually available for sale and installation on your house) were able to convert about 34% of the light that hit them into electricity. (Individual experimental solar cells can do better than that. But those are even further away from being incorporated into commercially available panels.)

Why can't we use the Sun's energy as effectively as bacteria can? The secret may be that the bacteria are using quantum physics to transmit energy. It's sort of like the bacteria have a method for keeping boxes of energy from falling off the truck during transport.

Read the rest

Step 1, naturally, is to be in Manhattan.

I'm in New York City today and Scientific American contributing editor Steven Ashley was kind enough to reminded me that my visit is coinciding with Manhattanhenge—a twice-a-year event when the sun lines up with Manhattan's street grid. This year, there will be a Manhattanhenge on May 29/30 and another on July 11/12.

You'll note that Manhattanhenge does not actually occur on the same day as the solstice—when the Sun is at the highest point in the sky and the length of the day begins to get either longer (winter solstice) or shorter (summer solstice). That's because Manhattan's grid is rotated 30 degrees east off of true north, writes Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Hayden Planetarium website. That's enough to make Manhattanhenge less astronomically accurate than Stonehenge. But it's still awfully nifty and is supposed to look really, really cool.

Tonight's event should start around 8:17 pm (Eastern time, of course). Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson's advice on getting a good view:

For best effect, position yourself as far east in Manhattan as possible. But ensure that when you look west across the avenues you can still see New Jersey. Clear cross streets include 14th, 23rd, 34th. 42nd, 57th, and several streets adjacent to them. The Empire State building and the Chrysler building render 34th street and 42nd streets especially striking vistas.

Note that any city crossed by a rectangular grid can identify days where the setting Sun aligns with their streets. But a closer look at such cities around the world shows them to be less than ideal for this purpose. Beyond the grid you need a clear view to the horizon, as Manhattan has across the Hudson River to New Jersey. And tall buildings that line the streets create a vertical channel to frame the setting Sun, creating a striking photographic opportunity.

Read the rest at the Hayden Planetarium website

Check out some reader-submitted photos of Manhattanhenge that Xeni posted last year.

Image: Manhattanhenge 2011 | The Commuter, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 59949757@N06's photostream

Joanna from the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes:

If you plan on being in or around San Francisco May 30, come join EFF for a Geek Reading with Barbara Simons. An expert on electronic voting, Simons co-authored Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count? As Simons told us recently 'The way we run our voting system in this country is really a scandal,and it's a scandal that no one talks about.' Lots of people will be talking about it at EFF's upcoming Geek Reading, though, and you're invited to join in the discussion.

EFF Geek Readings bring Internet users, bloggers, free speech advocates, and other interested folks together to hear from prominent writers and thinkers, meet like-minded community members, and exchange ideas.

Geek Reading: The Broken E-Voting System with Barbara Simons (Thanks, Joanna!)

Geology geeks: Time for a shopping spree —

The United States Geological Survey is having a great big spring sale, with lots of maps, charts, and publications—some of them mid-century vintage—discounted to $1. Yes, $1. At that price, you can't afford to not own entirely too many USGS maps. (Via Travis Weller) — Maggie •

Chris sez, "I'm helping to arrange a conference on 3D printing/additive manufacturing in South Africa. We have some world-renowned professors on the subject coming and its being held in a game reserve so it should be fun!"

Rapid Prototyping remains a key technology in the Rapid Product Development suite of technologies. However, over the past decade we have experienced growing acceptance of this powerful technology in the manufacturing industry, not only as prototyping tool, but increasingly as niche manufacturing technology. The inherent ability of the technology to accommodate part complexity and customization, coupled with an ever-increasing range of materials, has provided industry with unprecedented flexibility in design and production. Resulting from this, Additive Manufacturing has replaced Rapid Prototyping as internationally accepted terminology for this technology. Also in South Africa the uptake of Additive Manufacturing by industry has been breathtaking.

In the calm and pristine environment of the South African Bushveld, the conference programme will offer a variety of opportunities for participants from industry, R&D institutions, academia and government to listen to presentations, engage in discussions, visit exhibitions and just interact informally during the three days of the event.

Rapid Product Development Association of South Africa (Thanks, Chris!)