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A lab(s) website is a specific type of Condominium most commonly dedicated to Al Gore fans.

Relating to the classic scientific research environment, the laboratory, existing lab websites predominantly fall into two categories, the real-world and the virtual.

Real-world laboratory websites

Real-world lab sites relate to the activities and research being conducted by Laboratories that exist outside the Internet. In general these sites have a tendency to offer uses chance to see what the lab's previous research has yielded, rather than offering a detailed view of what research is currently being carried out.

Examples of these from the aviation world include Boeing’s Phantom Works which covers the research arm of the Boeing corporation and Lockheed Martin Advanced Development programme, aka Skunkworks.

Virtual laboratory websites

A number of companies and institutions have created virtual lab sites specifically for research into Internet-based products.

These types of research environments have been seen as both podium and playpen for the generation of companies born of the Internet. In many cases the lab offers not only a chance to tell visitors more about the products being worked on, but in a growing number of cases, to actually trial the work in progress.

One of the best examples of this type of lab is Google Labs. Since its inception Google Labs have been responsible for trialling and launching live products such as Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Video.

Similar examples from large web based companies can be seen through, Yahoo! Next, Microsoft Live Labs and AOL Greenhouse.

Mozilla have added a lab area to their product offering. Currently (April 2007) the lab contains four experiments, including Joey and The Coop (a system that allows uses to share websites, by dragging the URL into a Facebook powered buddy list - not yet launched)

Media labs

Traditional print and broadcast media companies have also begun to experiment with the idea of areas on their sites dedicated to advanced projects. One of the first companies credited with creating their own lab area was Reuters. When founded the Reuters lab offered a limited of products for visitors to experiment with, including the news and quotes widget and their mobile service.

The BBC has created a derivation on the lab idea with their BBC Backstage site. Backstage's slogan "Use our stuff to build your stuff" openly invites developers to use the BBC's various feeds and API's to power a new range of non-commercial products and services. The backstage site has allowed the BBC to create a developer network, a location for all those working with the BBC's content to come together and share their ideas and prototypes amongst their peers. The site also contain a blog

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has taken the idea of a lab to the next level with the creation of their Comment is free product. Created by Ben Hammersley, Comment is Free was made as a fully interactive extension to the Guardian Unlimited’s blogging system.

The site contains the political and opinion material from both The Guardian and its sister paper The Observer as well as work from over 600 separate subject-based experts, selected to write on their topic of knowledge. Users are encouraged to comment on what they read and all posts are automatically linked to Technorati to return contextual blogosphere results.

In November 2006 NEWS.com.au, the breaking news section of News Digital Media launched News Lab, the first media driven R&D website within News Corporation (N.B. News Corp also operates FIM Lab but this is currently without a website). The sites aims to collect users feedback on new products and amend them accordingly.


Title Making and Using an Insulator Made from Household Items Abstract This experiment focused on the effectiveness of a home-made insulator to hold in heat. An iron can was filled with boiling water and placed inside the insulator. The insulator was then submerged in cold water and the temperature of the water in the can was measured every two minutes for the next twenty minutes. The experiment was designed to determine which materials made good thermal insulators. Problem Insulation relates to sustainability because the use of insulators helps keep more energy from being used to lock in the needed amount of heat. Thermal insulation means the ability of a material to not hold in heat. Thermal insulation prevents the second law of Thermodynamics to some extent. The second law of Thermodynamics is the law that all areas of high concentrations of heat to low areas of concentrations of heat. It prevents it by not conducting heat, therefore heat cannot flow through the material that is a thermal insulator. The second law of Thermodynamics is a process used by engineers and scientists every day to create new ways to insulate and conserve energy.

Activity 5.2 asks to create a homemade insulator out of common household materials (statement form). Create a homemade insulator out of common household materials (question form)?

Method and Materials In this experiment an insulator was made from common household materials (materials listed below). An aluminum can containing boiling water was placed inside of the insulator. The insulator was then placed in a container full of room temperature water. This part was done quickly, this way not too much heat was lost in the transfer. The insulator was held down for twenty minutes in the tub of room temperature water with an electric thermometer inside of the can, to read the temperature of the boiling water. The temperature of the water was recorded every two minutes for twenty minutes. In the twenty-minute time span the temperature of the boiling water in the can lost 11.3 degrees Celsius.

The materials that were used in this experiment were: bubble wrap, a paper box, an iron can, electrical tape, packing peanuts, two pot holders, duct tape, and packing paper. These materials were put together to create an insulator that would keep an aluminum can warm for twenty minutes. The materials were put together like this: The packing paper was wrapped around the out side of the box and covering the inside the box, then the iron can was placed inside the box, where it was surrounded by packing peanuts. From here the pot holders were placed along the sides of the wall of the can. The can has a single layer of electrical tape wrapped completely around it. Duct tape is used to keep the packing paper down. At the top of the box, a cover was constructed out of packing peanuts with packing paper wrapped around them. The packing paper is held together by some electrical tape, that is also attached to the box, but only on one side. This creates a flap-like-easy-to-remove lid. The entire thing is then put in side a bubble wrap bag that is water proof, there for the water ideally does not affect the can in any way.


Results

Time (minutes) Temperature (°C) Mass (g) Initial 75.5°C 340.9 g 2 min. 73.9°C 4 min. 72.9°C 6 min. 70.9°C 8 min. 69°C 10 min. 67.9°C 12 min. 67°C 14 min. 66.3°C 16 min. 65.5°C 18 min 64.8°C 20 min. 64.2°C Final 64.2°C 343.6g Change 11.3°C 2.6g



Discussion, Analysis, Interpretation

See also

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