Oupa Neanderthal
University of Montreal researchers have determined that if you’ve got European ancestors, congratulations – you’re part Neanderthal: Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to […]
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 moreSounds curvy.
The word “bouba” sounds curvier than the word “kiki” no matter what language you’re used to hearing, New Scientist explains. That odd phenomenon unravels the […]
Science Art: Museum Drawings from Last Friday by bells.
Click to embiggen From the tumblog bequietyellingcat: museum drawings from last friday. fun fact: the dire wolf was native only to the americas, especially california. […]
Kennedy Space Center’s next job.
There was a lot of apprehension in Central Florida when the Space Shuttle was retired. They’re big vehicles with big missions that require lots and […]
Slow light.
University of Glasgow physicists haven’t gone faster than the speed of light… but they have done something almost as remarkable. They’ve slowed light down to […]
A decent illustration’s worth a dozen pictures.
That’s what this Scientific American column is saying, pretty much. I can’t beat illustrator Kalliopi Monoyios’ blog-ready headline: 5 Reasons Your Camera Won’t Steal My […]
Shamrocks, Saint Patrick, and… Polar Bears?
What could be more Irish than a polar bear? Nothing, say Penn State gene researchers. Because all polar bears are Irish immigrants: Polar and brown […]
Moved by music
Wired, uh, gets physical (their phrase!) while looking at the way music affects our bodies: Biorhythm: Music and the Body is an exhibition of sonic […]
Science Art: Reflections by NASA/Bill Ingalls
Click to embiggen This is it. This image of space shuttle Atlantis was taken shortly after the rotating service structure was rolled back at Launch […]
Where’s Atlantis now?
Live shuttle tracking is going on here, so you’ll know when to wave as the flight passes overhead!
Happy Neptune Day!
Nature reminds us that Neptune’s about to complete its first orbit since it was discovered: Next week, Neptune will complete its first full orbit of […]
Germ-free fabric
PhysOrg keeps itself clean with shirts, towels and unmentionables that’ll remain germ-free for good: University of Georgia researcher [Jason Locklin… an assistant professor of chemistry […]
Treasure in the mud.
Nature uncovers a wealth of rare earth lying beneath the ocean floor: The rare-earth elements — metals such as lanthanum and neodymium — are used […]
Zombie stars and dark energy
There’s a new kind of star in the skies… or at least a new name for some of them, reports Universe Today. They’re larger-than-usual Type […]
Science Art: Fig. 179. – Profile view of a human embryo of about three weeks, showing the cephalic visceral arches and clefts and their relations to the arterial arches, from Quain’s Elements of Anatomy, 1898
This is a human embryo, from the first volume of an 1898 textbook for college students. The book was actually first published in the 1840s, […]