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Chemweb Picks, 5 January 2001
Now that we are into the real 21st Century, a timely visit to a site that attempts to bring all the latest science and technology news, gadgets and gizmos to the public is required. 21st Century - Your Portal to the Future is an innovative and informative site, launched in May 2000, that is very well presented and extremely user-friendly. The portal pages are not gimmicky which is surprising considering their content, in fact, the information is presented in such a succinct manner that even non-scientists would find the content amusing.
Now over to the fun bit, that is, the content. There is a lot to choose from but here is a small selection of what's on offer. The News section is split into 'Science', 'Technology', 'Internet', 'Space', 'Environment' and 'General' and is a round-up of links to other sites such as ScienceDaily or Space.com amongst others which have all the latest news/headlines in these areas. There are also live video streams and live audio streams to selected sites such as NASA Television (which requires Real Player) and Discovery.com, respectively.
The Science section had features that ranged from consciousness to nanotechnology, written by freelancers or adapted from books, on the day I looked. The Technology section "showcases a multi platform of technological breakthroughs and revolutionary discoveries" and had features on the Moller M400 Skycar, a car that takes off and lands vertically making getting to work easier; or the WetPC Underwater Computer, thought to be the world's first wearable underwater computer.
The People section has biographies of various famous anthropologists, mathematicians, physical scientists, technologists, psychologists and many more. Each biography is accompanied by a picture of the subject and related links to other sites or homepages. The Places section highlights various museums, science centres and projects that the reader might find interesting. You may never need to visit another motor show again as the Cars section on this site has all the latest on cars and other vehicles of the future, the gems on offer when I looked included the AC Ariel Atom, a minimalistic sports car that goes like the wind at an affordable price and the Peugeot e-doll, a strange little car (only 2.5 m long) with no doors (not very good when it's cold or raining then!), it even has red, green, blue and yellow balls fitted in the back, are these an added extra I wonder?
One of the best sections for me was the Games one, here you can play snazzy updated classics like Rubick's Cube, Pacman and Tetris amongst other addictive ones.
There are sections on Robotics, Humour, Music and Fashion as well, all with a science angle. All of the sections also have chatrooms and forums. This site has so much to offer, so go on, take a peek now and I promise you'll stay for a bit longer than you first thought you would.
Reviewed by Dipti Shah © 2001
