Science Art: Plate LIL, Fig 3: Cepheus bifidatus Nymph, from British Oribatidae, 1884
Click to embiggen Mm. Mighty mite. From a this book of mites. Luckily for us, these mites (the Oribatidae) aren’t parasitic. They live in dirt […]
Month: March 2019
China opens a window on life before the dinosaurs.
Science News describes a dizzying array of unknown animals from “the Cambrian explosion,” when life took a sudden turn for the weird and wonderful. The […]
Science Art: Ichneumon Fly, from the USDA’s Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, 1941
Click to embiggen “Lays eggs on larva boring in wood.” Add just one comma and that comes across as harsh criticism, but it’s really meant […]
Farming gave our languages “f” and “v” – because it altered the way we bite.
Science News has a fricative breakthrough – biting off a bit of linguistic evolution that took place when we started growing our own food rather […]
Anesthetic kills the pain … of traumatic memories.
New Scientist reports on a novel possible treatment for PTSD – a common anesthetic that helps take the sting out of painful memories: Bryan Strange […]
People can sense the Earth’s magnetic field.
But can we navigate by it? Science News reports on the new finding that, like birds, humans appear to have “magnetoreception abilities,” sensing directions by […]
Herodotus proved right about Egyptian boats – more than 2,000 years after the fact.
The Guardian explains how a newly discovered shipwreck finally gives proof that the Greek historian wasn’t making up what he wrote about an unknown type […]
Science Art: Hypocaustum excavated behind the old city of Rottenburg am Neckar , by Eduard von Kallee.
Click to embiggen An ancient Roman central heating system – hot water would be flooded through the basement, and the floors would warm up. “Hypocaust” […]
A certain frequency of sound can alter your brain. And maybe fight Alzheimer’s?
MIT News has the (low-pitched) buzz on how listening to 40 Hz sounds have cured mice of Alzheimer’s symptoms by changing their brainwaves: This noninvasive […]
Someone else’s DNA got in there: Engineering a bull to create another bull’s semen.
Nature reports on a new agricultural practice that has some weird ramifications for humans – a genetics process for making one male create sperm cells […]
Harvesting the hot-water bacteria that “eat and breathe” electricity.
Science Daily shouts about a Washington State University team that headed out to the geysers and hot springs of Yellowstone to cultivate a relationship with […]
Science Art: Four views of the Alvan Clark & Sons workshop…, from Scientific American, Sep. 24, 1887
Here, an astronomical family is building a 36-inch refractor telescope known as the Great Lick Refractor in the 1880s. It’s named for James Lick, an […]
Denmark to build energy-producing islands (that you can live on).
Inhabitat talks up a pretty cool design project that’s taking shape off Copenhagen, where the government has announced plans to build Holmene, a complex of […]
2,000-year-old tattoo needles (made from cactus spines) found in an old drawer.
Science News reports on the historic find of skin-art tools from the American West … a discovery made by looking through some excavated artifacts that […]
Science Art: Progne purpurea. Purple martin, by Howard Jones, 1886
Click to embiggen A bird in its home (grown on a vine, fashioned by humans). Cute little guy, too. I found this on the Scientific […]