TechDirt is a democracy blog.
Have I cited TechDirt here before? I’m pretty sure I have. Anyway, in a sign of the weird times today, they’ve just come out and said that because they’re an outlet for … Read the rest “TechDirt is a democracy blog.”
Science Art: Woltmann's Tachometer, 1882
Oh, hydrology.
This is a device to measure the speed of water flow, as described in A practical treatise on…
Read moreScience Art: Mathematical Knot Table 01, by Rodrigo Argenton
These are knots. Not knots used to tie down boats or headstrong horses, but knots used to explore geometries of…
Read moreScience Art: Portuguese Man-Of-War, Tongued Sarsia, by Philip Henry Gosse
This image comes from Philip Henry Gosse’s A Year at the Shore, specifically, the month of October. (The year i…
Read moreScience Art: Periophthalmus koelreuteri, 1942.
This is a mudskipper who is being drawn here solely for the qualities of its bulbous, beautiful eyes.
The i…
Read moreScience Art: Lincoln's Measurements, compared with "Old Americans," 1953 (detail).
This is part of a graphic from a 1953 issue of Natural History, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s mag…
Read moreScience Art: Mars, Olympus Mons near the terminator, Andrea Luck, 2025
This is the largest volcano in our solar system, as far as anybody knows — the mighty Olympus Mons, as snapped…
Read more100 days with a titanium heart
Nature reports on a new record from the transplant waiting list, with an Australian patient who spent 100 days waiting for a donor organ with a mechanical heart made of titanium pumping in… Read the rest “100 days with a titanium heart”
Science Art: Opportunities for Design & Development Engineers…, 1966.
This is the illustration from a full-page ad from the Hughes Aircraft Company in the Jan/Feb 1966 issue of Information Display magazine.
This isn’t selling a product — at least… Read the rest “Science Art: Opportunities for Design & Development Engineers…, 1966.”
The pigbutt worm: a marine mystery.
National Geographic marvels at a recently discovered sea creature named, due to its bizarrely voluptuous curves and clefts, the pigbutt worm:
… Read the rest “The pigbutt worm: a marine mystery.”Such was the case in 2001 when experts from
AI to translate cat faces.
Nature: Scientific Reports wants you to know why your cat is making faces at you. They’ve published a study that uses artificial intelligence to decipher “CatFACS codings”… Read the rest “AI to translate cat faces.”
Science Art: The Great Paris Reflector, 1898.
This is an image from The New Astronomy, a textbook of space sciences I found on archive.org.
It’s one of what was at the time the largest telescopes ever built, a reflector that used… Read the rest “Science Art: The Great Paris Reflector, 1898.”
A vaccine for pancreatic cancer.
I grew up learning (rightly or wrongly) that pancreatic cancer was “one of the bad ones,” fast-moving and tough to beat. Now, Science Friday is announcing that there’s… Read the rest “A vaccine for pancreatic cancer.”
SONG: Hashtag Exclamation (#!%^)
SONG: “Hashtag Exclamation (#!%^)”. (OGG version here.)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “‘Just give me the f***ing links!’—Cursing disables Google’s… Read the rest “SONG: Hashtag Exclamation (#!%^)”
Science Art: Lepiota Echinellus, 1887
You probably shouldn’t eat these.
This is an illustration of a Lepiota mushroom from the Bulletin de la Société botanique de France. The genus includes quite a few toxic species, … Read the rest “Science Art: Lepiota Echinellus, 1887”
So just how much life are we already spreading into space?
Mashable wants to know (along with NASA researchers) just what kind of critters are sticking to the International Space Station or surrounding it like an invisible cloud of living things… Read the rest “So just how much life are we already spreading into space?”
A vaccine against salmonella
Food Safety Magazine reports on University of Florida researchers who are closing in on a medicine that could prevent potentially lethal, antibiotic-resistant food poisoning …… Read the rest “A vaccine against salmonella”
Science Art: La Esperanza Del Río, Micrasterias Truncata, Turberas De Peñayerre
This is a star algae, Micrasterias truncata, as photographed very recently and uploaded to the Flickr Commons collection, “Encyclopedia of Life images.”
The description… Read the rest “Science Art: La Esperanza Del Río, Micrasterias Truncata, Turberas De Peñayerre”
NASA Mars rover spots “possibilities for microbial habitability.”
Mashable carries news from NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has found traces that ancient ripples left on primordial lake beds, which prove that far from being an ice-covered badland,… Read the rest “NASA Mars rover spots “possibilities for microbial habitability.””
Science Art: Le miscroscope [La Science], 1908.
This is a metal engraving by Charles Philippe Pillet, which I found in the Paris Museums Collections.
It’s considered a “numismatic” piece, but I don’t believe… Read the rest “Science Art: Le miscroscope [La Science], 1908.”
Whalesong is structured like a language.
Astrobiology reports on a cross-disciplinary study that has found that the song of humpback whales has the same distinct mathematical structure as a human language:
… Read the rest “Whalesong is structured like a language.”Humpback whale song