Mummies: WAAAY older than we thought.
Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. There was no such thing as the English language, and most human beings had never even seen paper. 2,500 years […]
Science Art: Body-centered cubic (bcc) unit cell of iron, 2009
If you were curious about the crystalline structure of iron mentioned in the last post, here it is — a molecul…
Read moreScience Art: MOON: For the Benefit of Humanity, 2023
It’s a poster made by NASA for lunar exploration, showing some landers, space stations, and sample-taking equip…
Read moreScience Art: Bubble chamber with colour enhanced tracks, 2026
This is a CERN image from January 6, 2026, showing something that happened in the 1960s, but enhanced for 21st-…
Read moreScience Art: Dissection of Asterias rubens, by Hans Hillewaert.
Starfish anatomy.
If you want to know the parts, according to Dutch Wikipedia, they are:
Read moreLegend
1 Arm
2…
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 moreAnesthesia works by stealing electrons from your brain.
Scientific American has more on the weird quantum effects that make consciousness go bye-bye: General anaesthetics may extinguish consciousness through mysterious quantum biological effects that […]
Hemp really IS a super-material… in circuitry, that is.
Laboratory Equipment reveals recent findings (as cannabis becomes easier to research) that the marijuana plant might make better supercapacitors than the “wonder material” graphene: David […]
Antiperspirant makes you stinkier. In the long run.
Ain’t that modern life all over? Real Clear Science exposes the (potentially) stinky way antiperspirants alter your armpit bacteria: While most of us might only […]
Fine wines – a plummy finish, a hint of earthiness, and some sex-bending pseudohormones.
Science 2.0 has more on the discovery of lots of phthalates in fine European wines: It isn’t just the booze itself, a group of scholars […]
Science Art: The Common Angler (Lophius piscatorus) (After W. Von Wright in Smitt), 1905.
Click to embiggen This is from the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in the Biodiversity Library. I bet there’s all *kinds* of things in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous […]
My great-grandmother was stressed when she was pregnant AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!
Science Daily has yet more research on the heritability of stress, with research that shows the effects of stress on one pregnant mom can last […]
The next Mars Rover will make its own oxygen from CO2.
Scientific American reports on the technology that’ll help humans explore the Red Planet… first with fuel, then with air to breathe. The next machine to […]
Rosetta is orbiting a comet right now.
Orbiting a planet is not that big a deal – moons do it all the time. And everyone you’ve ever known has orbited a sun. […]
Mysterious crater explained. Not that it helps….
Nature offers one of the least comforting explanations for a mysterious hole in Siberia. It wasn’t from an asteroid or a rogue telephone-pole-installing crew. The […]
The sleepless gene.
Science World Report takes a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed look at the mutation that makes some people chipper, functional early risers: The researchers turned to 100 pairs […]
Science Art: Stephenson’s Patent, 1850.
Click to embiggen From The Principles and Practice and Explanation of the Machinery of Locomotive Engines in Operation, found on archive.org. The book seems to […]
The cool bedroom weight-loss plan.
VCU researchers have found a cool way to boost your body’s supply of (metabolism-raising) brown fat cells – by turning down your air conditioning: Researchers […]
Four years an expectant mother. Eight arms to hug them.
Science Daily reveals the record-breaking brooding period of the deep-sea octopus: In May 2007, during one of these surveys, the researchers discovered a female octopus […]
The West is drying up.
Nature shares satellite data that shows not only lakes, rivers and reservoirs shrinking across the whole U.S. Southwest, but even water underground is going away: […]