National Science Foundation Science.gov The Smithsonian Institute Scientific American Science Magazine New Scientist
Popular Science Magazine Extreme Science Science Daily Science News Online
National Geographic: Well, it's National Geographic's official site. Of note is the maps section and more specifically the Map Machine.
Atlas of the Biosphere: environmental information in the form of maps and schematics
CIA World Factbook: "The Factbook is a comprehensive resource of facts and statistics on more than 250 countries and other entities." Updated Nov/2005, it includes maps as well as facts/stats.
Windows Live Local - Virtual Earth: A beta site by Microsoft that offers world maps and satellite imagery. Wondering if it is going to replace Microsoft's Teraserver.
Maps of the World: Good collection of world, national and city maps. It also has political, economic and demographic maps. There are blank maps and outline maps available for using as starting points in presentation materials.
Nasa HubbleSite Space.com Space Telescope Science Institute
The Abacus: An extenisive resource on the history and use of the abacus. An interesting note is that the Japanese have courses in using the bacus to this day because use of a virtual abacus (one simply in the practioners mind) allows fast, complicated calculations.
Scirus: A science specific search engine.
Exploratorium: A science museum located in San Francisco that has a good web presence. Visit a virtual science museum.
The Why Files: "Based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the mission of The Why Files is to explore the science, math and technology behind the news of the day, and to present those topics in a clear, accessible and accurate manner."
Science Week: "ScienceWeek has been published continuously every week since 1997. The current issue and back issues are now open access, which means free to the public. Weekly contents summaries are available free by Email. ScienceWeek is designed to provide researchers, policy makers, teachers, students, and science writers with access to scientific fields outside their own specialty. But anyone with some background in science will usually find material of interest in each issue. The reports in ScienceWeek are selected to cross barriers between the sciences, to illuminate breakthroughs, ideas, concepts, policy, and historical aspects. Each report is authoritative and as close as possible to the language and intent of the original work. Many reports include useful definitions of specialized terminology. All sources are fully specified, and most reports include abridged references. The editorial content of ScienceWeek is under the supervision of D.P. Agin, PhD, Emeritus Assoc. Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, US."
SciCentral: "aggregating breaking research news from the most reputable and reliable sources"
Live Science.com: " Aimed at the intellectually curious, it covers news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. With articles by respected science journalists and contributors, LiveScience looks at new discoveries, intellectual adventures and the idiosyncrasies of the world that surrounds us." Put out by the same company that puts out Space.com.