Public awareness and curiosity about stories in the news are good drivers for searching and evaluation. I first heard about the "beatless heart" on public radio and then yesterday a number of high profile news sites carried the story.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/06/15/researchers-create-the-first-pulseless-artificial-heart/
The first "beatless" heart experiments were done on a calf whose heart was removed and replaced with two centrifugal pumps.
Here are a few search challenges that can be spun off of the story.
1. Name the doctors who led this research (easy, except if you require the doctors' initials)
2. Find the name of the calf who received the first beatless heart (easily found in a fact-checking query)
3. How long did the calf live with her new beatless heart? (harder, requires searching the right database and skimming contents)
Of course I had to do some investigation to discover the questions and answers--but that was fun. Usually facts (or missing details) in the articles are good springboards to search questions.
Post your answers in comments.
Post your answers in comments.
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