The oldest un-translated language is getting clearer.
BBC reports on the linguists who have started puzzling out how to read and write in proto-Elamite: “I think we are finally on the point […]
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Science Art: Sordes by John Sibbick
A prehistoric non-bird, found via Scientific Illustration. (Not to be mistaken for the rather unpleasant crusts on the mouths of fever sufferers.) If there’s something […]
We’ve got a neighbor (in Alpha Centauri).
The nearest solar system to ours, National Geographic confirms, actually has a planet in it: The planet orbits very close to Alpha Centauri B—the smaller […]
Face transplantee can see, smell, taste… and SMILE again.
Laboratory Equipment has some good news about a guy who’s had a pretty hard time… Richard Lee Norris needed a new face, and he got […]
We built a blimp to hunt Bigfoot….
Oh, yes we did. We’ve already used zeppelins to hunt for aliens (or at least meteorite strikes). And now, MSNBC tells us, we’ve got an […]
Amateur astronomers find planet with four suns.
BBC has one for the planet hunters – or, indeed, for Planethunters.org, which has just discovered a truly bizarre solar system using a pretty offbeat […]
Once-in-a-lifetime comet comes around.
Watch the skies next year, warns Scientific American, or you’ll miss something you’ll never see again: As it flares out of the distant Oort Cloud, […]
Science Art: Fig. 2 – Slit Mechanism from “The Scattering of Hydrogen Positive Rays, and the Existence of a Powerful Field of Force in the Hydrogen Molecule” by G. Thompson in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
Click to embiggen I looked for molecules in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character […]
Don’t tell DeBeers: Diamond twice the size of Earth found.
AsiaOne has more on the new planet made of hot, compressed carbon: The rocky planet, called ‘55 Cancri e’, orbits a sun-like star 40 light […]
Draw your own circuits with nanotube pencils.
Extreme Tech gets right to the point of a new technology – a mechanical pencil that can draw functional electronic circuits: With MIT’s carbon nanotube […]
Scientists: You can’t trust scientists.
Fraud, reports Laboratory Equipment, is a growing problem in published research papers: A review of retractions in medical and biological peer-reviewed journals finds the percentage […]
M&M waste gives bees honey of different colors.
French beekeepers, Russia Today tells us, were mystified when their hives started producing rainbow-colored honey – but were even more concerned when they found out […]
The Force is strong in this worm.
Thrilled, Guardian is to introduce to its readers a new submarine species they’re calling the Jedi acorn worm: Yoda purpurata is one of three new […]
Science Art: Pneumatische Fundation (Senkkasten Caisson), from Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1889
A caisson is a machine for working under water. Meyers Konversations-Lexikon is a German encyclopedia. Rise, German engineers. Rise. Dive, German engineers. Dive. Image found […]
Happy birthday, Neil deGrasse Tyson
I’m taking a moment, with Archie McPhee, to celebrate the birth of a science dude. Dude!