Wow. I had a great conversation over coffee with Nashville's News2 Meteorologist extraordinaire Jeff Ray, and in doing so enlisted a valuable new resource for ongoing outreach efforts at the Vanderbilt University Center for Science Outreach (Photo from Jeff's "WeatherJeff" blog--see link below). Jeff will be participating in some upcoming CSO videoconferencing sessions, bringing his experience and understanding of just what makes the earth's weather tick to K12 students worldwide. Look to the Videoconferences page at the CSO website for times and dates once we start to post this fall's schedule. Stay tuned! We chatted amidst the predictable background noises of a busy restaurant, Panera Bread, just off Vanderbilt's campus and right down the street from my computer lab at University School of Nashville. The talk was all about Jeff's predictions for Tropical Storm Ernesto, blazing up the Caribbean toward South Florida and potentially a very dangerous storm, if not a Force 2 or 3 Hurricane. By the time you are reading this, of course, Ernesto is history. We're glad the history is not as dramatic as Jeff was predicting at the time of the interview, but the 9 U.S. deaths and 2 Haitian ones attributed are surely tragic enough. Here's a slice of Jennifer Kay's story about Florence that does attribute significant damage to our friend Ernesto: Florence follows on the heels of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which formed August 25 over the southern Caribbean and was briefly the season's first hurricane before weakening and hitting Florida and North Carolina last week as a tropical storm. At least nine deaths in the United States were blamed on Ernesto, which also killed two people in Haiti, delayed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and blacked out thousands of homes and businesses from North Carolina to New York state (source, IOL news service in South Africa). Whatever the outcomes, you will have to agree that you can't blame the storm: A hurricane, as I now understand, thanks to Jeff's excellent explanations, is just a big planetary tool. How's that? Listen up here to download S4theB!44. Or, contrariwise, open up the Podcast Pickle Player at the top of the page and listen up right here and now!!! Today's music is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network. Check out that marvey resource for all kinds of music from the songwriters and bands who are reinventing the music business by sharing songs with poor podcasters like li'l ol' me. We start out with a nifty electro tune from (ironically, considering my above news source:) South African electronica king Ruddha. We add a sweet acoustic instrumental from UK guitarist Jim Ronayne, then top things off with authentic Mississippi Blues from bluesman Boo Boo Davis. As if that weren't enough great music, I add a little bonus cut at the end of the show: "Weatherman," from Tampa Florida boys The Reverse Engineers! Until next time, SEE YA! Additional Links: WKRN News2 Jeff Ray's "Weather Jeff" blog

ESPECIALLY FOR TEACHERS!!! Hey, ya'll, Okay, I'm a bit late with this episode of S4theB!, but I promise you this show was worth the wait! Dr. Stephen Camarata, along with leading test designer Dr. Richard Wilcock, published findings (Intelligence) in May of this year that indicate, among many other things, that girls have a "significant advantage" over boys in certain tasks we regularly require of them. These tasks include many of the ones we use to assess their content knowledge and skills mastery. That's why I'm earmarking this show ESPECIALLY FOR TEACHERS!!! Listen here to the discussion I recently had with Dr. Camarata, a dedicated researcher and a truly exceptional worker in the world of teaching special needs children. Along the way, pick up a listen to three wonderful songs about summer, very different from one another in much the same ways that every child is different from one another! There's a fabulous rocker from Nashville's own Tragedy Kings, an eerily lovely electronica piece from the Ariaphonics, and a funky reggae-beat number from a San Francisco Bay Area group called Monkey. There's also a new tasty TechTipTidbit, all about all those "cards" you're already hearing about on your PC--network cards, sound cards, video cards...all that stuff! Stay around to the end, ya'll, because I'm closing the show with a beautiful piece by my new University School of Nashville teaching colleague Brandon Wilson, a song appropriately entitled, "Goodbye." Lots of extra links this show!: Studies show girls have advantages over boys on timed tests at Exploration A 2003 interview with Dr. Camarata at speechpathology.com info at Kennedy Center site Article about "Late Talking" in children Thomas Sowell's 1998 Jewish World Review article about Dr. Camarata Exploration Worldstart.com Also, a list of the nine broad abilities of intelligence, of which processing speed is one:

• Fluid reasoning
• Acculturation knowledge
• Short-term apprehension-retention
• Fluency of retrieval from long-term storage
• Visual processing
• Auditory processing
• Processing speed
• Correct decision speed
• Quantitative knowledge

*source: Contemporary Intellectual Assessment: Theories, Tests, and Issues -Edited by Dawn P. Flanagan, Judy L. Genshaft, and Patti L. Harrison