The jitters. The voices. Freshen your cup?
SciAm launches a new volley in the war on drugs – specifically an exotic plant known to some as “Psychotria.” On the street, it’s likely […]
Science
The Rat-Planned City.
Tel Aviv researchers are revolutionizing urban design, PhysOrg.com reports, by designing cities for rats. Normally thought of as vermin, the critters can navigate the street […]
Big Boom. Boom. Boom.
NASA likes listening to space, because it’s kind of noisy up there. Somewhere in the background there are echoes of the Big Bang, and if […]
Science Art: Afrikanska kulturföremål_2, Nordisk familjebok
Click to embiggen. Norwegian encyclopedists behold African artifacts. Found in a very special category on Wikimedia Commons.
Beyond the Twittering Phoenix.
It’s hard to imagine the Mercury Seven swapping SuperPokes, but today’s space agency is a different kind of organization. Maybe. You can find out yourself […]
The World’s First Scientist.
The BBC has a fun piece on the fellow most English speakers might not recognize, even though he’s the guy who invented the scientific method: […]
Love is… a natural deodorant?
New Scientist uncorks the peculiar way passion affects our scents, by blanketing would-be competitors with the smell of love: In a series of trials, each […]
Love is… mosquitoes buzzing in harmony.
The BBC has video up of romancing mosquitoes creating their high, keening love songs: Males and females each have their own characteristic flight tone – […]
Hard Decision? Don’t think about it.
This seems natural to me, but also seems like the kind of thing that drives more literally minded thinkers out of their heads. A University […]
Science Art: Early Stages of Hubble Construction, 1980.
Click to embiggen Taken at the Lockheed facility, the image shows “the optical metering truss and secondary baffle.” And important-looking people in orange jumpsuits, evidently […]
The Mirror-eyes of the Spookfish.
New Scientist sheds light on a deep-sea mystery – a bizarre fish eye that mirrors rather than lenses: The most important source of light at […]
Pink Iguana!
PopSci believes that pink iguanas are real. Because, as it turns out, pink iguanas are real! Even after the first pink iguana sighting came in […]
Trophy Heads of Nazca.
The same mysterious civilization that left us the lines and inspirational giant pyramids also left puzzling piles of human heads… and PhysOrg.com reports that the […]
Be Boring.
No! Say it ain’t so! The Overcoming Bias blog has this study from the Journal of Experimental Psychology that shows that interesting details interfere with […]
Science Art: Allosaurus, by Charles R. Knight
Click to embiggen Charles R. Knight is a scientific illustrator more people need to know about. A paleoartist, even. He brought dinosaurs (and other things) […]