Thanksgiving Theremin: Pamelia Kurstin, TED talk/concert, 2002
She starts with “Autumn Leaves” and goes on from there – just about 20 minutes of playing and talking enthusing. More on the effervescent Ms […]
SONG: 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 more
SONG: Beyond the Ends of the Earth
SONG: “Beyond the Ends of the Earth”. (To download: double right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on “100 Year Starship: Nasa’s plan to […]
Squid can fly.
I am not making that up. Treehugger.com has the photographic evidence of flying squid: “From our observations it seemed like squid engaged in behaviors to […]
Science Art: Merman (Vir marinus episcopi specie), 1696
Click to embiggen I’ll just quote the Wikimedia Commons text on this one. It tells a better story than I could. A relatively benign merman […]
Hurt so good.
Yes. Well. New Scientist’s never-so-aptly-named “Short Sharp Science” blog revels in the discovery that the female orgasm is neurologically linked to pain: To get his […]
Inject stem cells into damaged brain. Wait.
That’s a rough outline of what The Telegraph says scientists are doing in what could wind up being a dramatic medical breakthrough: The study, Pilot […]
Reading names, forgetting faces.
Forget your eyes. New Scientist (have I seen them somewhere before?) says all that reading is bad for your memory: The scans firstly confirmed which […]
Sleights of Mind
This is more of a “heads up” than highlighting any particular discovery, but Medical News Today has a review of a fascinating collaboration between neuroscientists […]
Mutant mosquitoes fight “breakbone fever.”
The Miami Herald reports on a new front line in a genetic war against insect-borne disease: Researchers at Oxitec Limited, an Oxford-based company, created sterile […]
Science Art: Arsinoitherium, by Heinrich Harder
Click to embiggen slightly This big fellow is Arsinoitherium, a prehistoric swamp monster related to elephants and hyraxes. Those horns were once believed to be […]
Bubbles in the Milky Way
NASA astronomers have found the equivalent of a lost continent in space – a pair of colossal radioactive bubbles rising from the galaxy: NASA’s Fermi […]
Hawking Q&A
Time has a vox-pop interview with professional smartypants Stephen Hawking: Does it feel like a huge responsibility to have people expecting you to have all […]
Babies against bullies.
Researchers are using a new weapon against school bullying, New York Times reveals. They’re putting babies in classrooms to make schoolkids more empathetic: We know […]
Physics from the Bronx.
PhysicsWorld tries to get to the bottom of a curious question: Why did this inner-city high school produce seven Nobel laureates? The school, which opened […]
Prehistoric dolphin had a big head.
Really. Check out what the BBC says about our one-time balloon-headed neighbor to the seas: A new type of dolphin with a short, spoon-shaped nose […]