An antibiotic robs pretty women of their power over men. I am not making that up.
Nature publishes a study on minocycline (remember that name, stupid men, it’s a kind of tetracycline), which not only kills germs but also keeps men […]
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 moreCannibals of Jamestown
Smithsonian unfolds an ugly story archaeologists have uncovered of the first “successful” English settlement in America – at Jamestown, where settlers got so hungry, they […]
Forget chess-playing computers. Here’s a baseball robot.
Wired (via CNN) is sizing up the new guy on the mound – a mechanical brain designed to outsmart pitchers: Researchers at the University of […]
Immigrant kids have fewer allergies.
Healthline doesn’t seem to be jumping to any conclusions here… just remarking that if you’re American-born, you’re more likely to have allergies than if you’re […]
Science Art: Resuscitation by mouth-to-mouth respiration, WHO/Red Cross photo
Click to embiggen slightly The robot is in trouble! We’ll have to help the robot breathe! This educational illustration comes from the National Institutes of […]
Something strange was found in Antarctica. Something alien. And very, very small.
New Scientist has more on the possible discovery of two cosmic neutrinos near the South Pole: In June last year the IceCube neutrino telescope at […]
Smartphone satellites. NASA’s sending phones into orbit.
LA Times reports on the latest low-budget, off-the-shelf NASA experiment, sending three smartphones into orbit: The three Google-HTC Nexus One smartphones are circling Earth at […]
No song today!
Alas, no song will be posted today. It will be forthcoming, as will a penitential cover.
Have sanctions helped Cubans live longer?
Nature wades into international politics (and some pretty harsh facts) with a theory for the “unintended consequences” file. Researchers are floating the idea that an […]
Science Art: The periodical cicada (”Magicicada septendecim”), Plate 7, from Insects, their way and means of living, by R. E. Snodgrass.
Click to embiggen It’s the year of magic. Or, well, the Magicicada septendecim – the 17-year magic cicada. Have you heard? They come back every […]
Buddy planets. We just found them, but they probably know each other.
New Scientist reports on the Kepler space telescope’s latest discovery: a pair of neighboring planets that could both support life – within easy reach of […]
One bank account makes saving easier.
PhysOrg flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that holds “out of sight, out of mind” as a savings strategy. Instead, we save better […]
Would you wear GMO silk?
Nature reveals how a mosquito-killing gene technique is being used to create better silk more efficiently: But male silkworms (Bombyx mori) are much more useful […]
The best food in space is shrimp cocktail.
The Atlantic reveals a culinary secret of near-Earth orbit. Astronauts love shrimp cocktail – and here’s why: Without gravity to pull blood toward the feet, […]
Southerners aren’t fatter. Just more honest.
AL.com showcases some science that sets straight some old stereotypes. Southerners don’t have bigger guts than Americans from the North or the West. They just […]