Lose a gene, gain a limb.
PhysOrg shows you how to arrange the swap: The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to […]
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 moreScience Art: Build Your Own Lie Detector, 1955
This is the opener for an article in the May 1955 issue of Popular Electronics. You can read the article here, …
Read moreGeek Pop: Interviewing Kepler
Yes, I interviewed (briefly) the legendary astronomer backstage at GeekPop ’10. The full text is up here, at the geekpop site.
Last one alive wins.
Science Daily takes a close look at how psychopaths’ brains are shaped by rewards: Previous research on psychopathy has focused on what these individuals lack […]
Science Art: Plate IV. Tapeworms by William Miller, after P. Syme
Another engraving by the Scotch Quaker, mentioned here previously. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
GeekPop online treasure hunt
So GeekPop ’10 has started, and they’re kicking things off with an online treasure hunt. Prizes include hula hoops, giant bubble-making kits and vouchers for […]
Fire from ice.
Discovery News finds a strange new source of energy – gas hydrates, solid chunks of frozen natural gas better known as combustible ice: In China, […]
“If it doesn’t exist then they don’t have a favorite planet.”
Hate Mail From Third Graders is NOVA’s tribute to Pluto’s lost status as ninth planet. The letters (to Hayden Planetarium director Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson), […]
Flu’s in your head.
BBC has an interesting report on the psychological dimensions of flu: While it seems obvious that we feel under-par when we are ill, Dr Harrison […]
Oxytocin and roses….
New Scientist recently got all romantic with an intrepid researcher’s chemical expose of her big fat geek wedding: WE’D booked the venue, chosen the bridesmaids’ […]
Science Art: “Rocket Ride Is New Planetarium Exhibit,” Popular Science Monthly, April 1938
Click to embiggen slightly Hey, look! PopSci just put 137 years of back issues on the internet for free. Science-aesthetic treasure! They’re at Google Books, […]
Evolution made us conservative, not smart.
LabSpaces shares some interesting research on the role of novelty in human development: An earlier study by Kanazawa found that more intelligent individuals were more […]
Beethoven isn’t Beethoven any more.
Slate has a great piece on why the piano we hear now ain’t the instrument great composers wrote on – and how that changes the […]
Snake eating dinosaurs.
Not dinosaurs that eat snakes, Wired says, but snakes that paleontologists discovered eating dinosaurs: But in 2001, University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, took a […]
Plasma drive’s silver lining.
AFP takes a sunnier look at NASA’s budget trimming. Sure, the government agency said they won’t be landing people on the moon or Mars any […]
Cute little dinosaurs.
Discovery News has the sweetest report on tiny pterosaurs flitting about with songbirds: “I think that a group of small pterosaurs was feeding together near […]