No song today.
Writing an obituary. Working on a science fair project. Neither thing is easy. Also, Linux is twisting and turning on me. I can get audio […]
Science Art: Jupiter's Family of Comets, 1898
This is a diagram from A New Astronomy For Beginners, a textbook that’s about a century and a quarter old, or a…
Read moreSONG: Your Catalogue
SONG: “Your Catalogue”. (OGG version here.)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: NBC News, “New wild cat species is ide…
Read moreScience Art: Beebe's Bathysphäre, 1934
This is an image of William Beebe’s bathysphere, as placed on Wikimedia Commons by ETH Bibliothek. It was creat…
Read moreScience Art: Power of RCA Electron Microscope, May 1955
These are diatoms, I think, seen by two different microscopes.
As the caption from Popular Electronics says…
Read moreScience Art: Red Pepper, 1910.
Red pepper (Cayenne pepper) will cure almost any case of la grippe within 24 hours, or so they say. At least no…
Read moreScience Art: Figs. 1315-1333 (Various rotary piston engines), 1890.
This is a page of figures from (deep breath) The engineer’s sketch-book of mechanical movements, devices, appli…
Read moreSaturn’s “Great Hexagon” changes color with the seasons
NASA has published some images of Saturn’s geometrically fascinating north pole that show a new seasonal color scheme: …Scientists are investigating potential causes for the […]
Virus pirates black widow venom, uses it as weapon
New Scientist reports on some information-age piracy taking place in the microscopic realm, where viruses seem to have hijacked spider venom to attack bacteria: Viruses […]
The Rat Snacks of Skara Brae.
PhysOrg gives us a new perspective on rat remains found in 5,000-year-old settlements. They weren’t eating our scraps – we were eating *them*: The new […]
These mice were born from skin, not eggs. And were never in a womb.
Nature reports on a new technique that has successfully converted skin cells into fertile egg cells and brought babies to term without ever implanting them […]
Science Art: Belt Trick by Jason Hise
The belts always twist, but never get tangled. Geometry can be weird. If you find this hypnotic, check out what the same creator has done […]
You can’t un-boil egg. Or… hang on a minute!
Popular Science reveals a way in which you CAN un-boil an egg: When you boil an egg, the heat causes the proteins inside the egg […]
Virtually conquering Everest
Sports Illustrated is taking all of us along on a virtual-reality climb to the summit of Mt. Everest: Sports Illustrated will partner with Endemol Shine […]
Dinosaurs probably boomed instead of singing.
Science Daily looks into some really old larynxes (larynges?) with University of Texas, Austin, researchers and concludes dinosaurs, though bird-like, didn’t sing – they honked […]
“Goddess of the Yangzi” might not be extinct after all.
The Guardian has an optimistic story out of central China, with news that the baiji – the Yangzi River dolphin, one of the oldest aquatic […]
The Martian Timeshare
Nature gives us a new context for exploring Mars, with NASA landing a rugged rover or orbital observer equipped with “generic” scientific equipment so that […]
Science Art: GFS Model Forecasts Moisture over the Atlantic, Aug 2016
Click to embiggen You’d think after the week I’ve had, I’d be sick of looking at meteorological imagery. But no. This stuff is beautiful, and […]
Rescuing the seeds of Aleppo
Nature finds hope for the future in war-torn Syria, where a seed-bank dedicated to preserve our ancient plants (which could save our crops from climate […]
Dark matter is… doing something strange.
The Guardian and physicist Jon Butterworth are looking at something unexpected that the Spitzer Space Telescope has noticed. Galaxies are put together in a way […]
Re-remembering Robinson Crusoe.
Because, according to National Geographic, we didn’t remember him right the first time. Or at least we attribute a heck of a lot to the […]