Sleep reminders.
Discovery makes me want to take a nap. Not because this research is boring, but because it suggests you can sleep your way to better […]
Science Art: Mirounga leonina 01, by H. Zell
This is a southern elephant seal, the largest marine mammal that isn’t a whale. They’re about twice as weighty …
Read moreScience Art: What can make any tape recorder sound a little more like an Ampex?, 1963.
This is an ad for Ampex tape from the August 1963 edition of Electronics Australia, a magazine (which I found o…
Read moreScience Art: Cygnus region in emission lines, 2025
This is a photo of space with a bit of color amplification so we can tell what we’re looking at. Nebulas on the…
Read moreScience Art: Heart apical two-chamber view myocardial regions, by Patrick Lynch
This is an illustration of a particular perspective in a cardiac echocardiogram. An “apical view” is one of the…
Read moreSONG: Sleeping Cathedrals
SONG: “Sleeping Cathedrals”. (OGG version here.)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “World’s biggest whale g…
Read moreBetter solar.
Alternative energy got a big boost from TechEye.net, which reports that a new generation of solar panels could double in efficiency: A team made of […]
Science Art: “Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine,” from One Hundred Years’ Progress of the United States, 1871
Click to embiggen Beautiful machine for skilled labor. You can browse the whole illustrated encyclopedia of fin de siecle technology at archive.org. [via Old Book […]
Why thank you, Br’er Fox….
Humans weren’t best friends with dogs first, says the Discoveryon blog. Archaeologists have found evidence that foxes may have been our pets first: Scientists analysing […]
Lotto breaker.
Wired unearths the story of a gold-prospecting math whiz… sorry, geological statistician… who cracked the scratch-off ticket code: The trick itself is ridiculously simple. ([Mohan] […]
Keep looking up. But not THAT high.
I’m sure MSNBC isn’t *trying* to be a downer when they report that too much optimism is bad for cancer patients’ chances of recovery: The […]
Germs against oil.
WaPo and Slate give us the scoop on the Deepwater Horizon aftermath. Why was the Exxon Valdez so much more of a mess? Because the […]
Quantum eyes.
Migrating robins have something better than magnets in their heads, Wired reports. They’ve got quantum sensors in their eyes: European robins may maintain quantum entanglement […]
Science Art: Azerbaijan stamp, 500m – Marine gastropod Corolla spectabilis, May 1995.
The whole collection of Azerbaijan collectors’ stamps is full of scientific illustration treasure – butterflies, dirigibles, mushrooms…. And “treasure” is not an exaggeration. 500 Azerbaijan […]
Mother and child, 100 million B.C.
BBC paints a sweet, fossilized portrait of pterosaur family life: A pterosaur has been found in China beautifully preserved with an egg. The egg indicates […]
Nabokov knew his butterflies.
Vladimir Nabokov. Modern literary genius. Darling of the New York Times. And now, certified brilliant entomological theorist: There were several plausible hypotheses for how the […]
Pink, but not pretty.
LiveScience joins forces with Peggy Orenstein to take on the “pink princess” culture and what it’s doing to our daughters: You spoke to scientists about […]
Cognitive Toolkit Improvement
Edge magazine has rounded up some pretty impressive brainy folks – from J. Craig Ventner to Brian Eno, P.Z. Myers and Martin Rees – and […]
SONG: Leatherback, Crossing.
SONG: “Leatherback, Crossing.”. (To download: double right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on “Secret voyages of leatherback turtles revealed using transmitters”, Guardian, 5 […]
Science Art: Aerostatic Cabriolet of Tomorrow, by Harry Grant Dart, c. 1905.
Click to embiggen Harry Grant Dart was an illustrator, newspaperman and creator of “The Explorigator” comic strip… and a man in the suffragette era who […]