(Larger version here.)

This is the Japanese lunar probe Kayuga (Selene) crashing into the Moon.

More specifically, this is a 3D rendering of data sent by the probe as it ended its mission – just as it was programmed to do. Silently. Inexorably. Beautifully. There’s a Japanese word, aware (ah-wah-ray), that describes the beauty of sadness and transience. [...]

SONG: “This is the Sound” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: “Acoustic Black Hole Created in Bose-Einstein Condensate”, Technology Review, 10 June 2009, as used in the post “A SONIC BLACK HOLE!”

ABSTRACT:
So, first off, the chorus to this was written intentionally – this song is not the sound of a [...]

How did I only find out about this amazing, ambitious site now?

It’s the Math And Science Song Information, Viewable Everywhere (MASSIVE) database, affiliated with the Science Songwriters Association. Any outfit that includes The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets and Mose Allison in the same list is OK by me.

So very many songs…. Breathtaking.

MASSIVE and [...]

The Scientists and Engineers for America have a fun trivia question today:

Which gas of the following is the most important greenhouse gas but will NOT be covered by the new landmark climate legislation?

A. methane (CH4)
B. water (H2O)
C. sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)
D. carbon dioxide (CO2)

Stumped?

Here’s the answer.

Scientific American confirms my suspicions about my neighbors and their well-manicured, weedless yards. All that stuff they’re spraying? Yeah, it’ll kill you:

One label requirement for Roundup is that it should not be used in or near freshwater to protect amphibians and other wildlife.

But some inert ingredients have been found to potentially affect human health. Many amplify the effects of [...]

There’s been a lot of attention paid to paying attention lately – and how we really need to not do that all the time. Wall Street Journal, Discover magazine and PhysOrg all have similar reports on daydreaming, actual dreaming and generally unfocused thoughts… and their importance in getting the big ideas.

Taken together, these paint an [...]

Yes, it’s the 23rd. There should be a new song here. There isn’t.

You, oh faithful readers, will have a scientific song rather soon. And then, as is the custom here, you’ll have a truly horrible penitential cover.

Mea culpa.

PhysOrg ventures into the vast Gobi Desert to reveal a historical find – the fossilized remains of the first confirmed nut-eating dinosaur:

Larger, more numerous gizzard stones point to a diet of harder food, such as nuts and seeds. “The psittacosaur at hand has a huge pile of stomach stones, more than 50, to grind away at whatever it eats, [...]

Click to embiggen slightly

On September 15, 2006, the Cassini Space Probe had its historic rendezvous with Saturn, giving us – five days later – the first up-close look at the most distinctive planet in our solar system.

This is what a sunrise looks like from 1,435 billion kilometers away (plus nearly 2 million kilometers – that’s how far away [...]