So that’s what written Pict looks like….
Discovery News takes another look at Iron Age Scotland and finds something more than pretty pictures: The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, […]
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 moreIs Alzheimer’s a yeast infection? Are the plaques the *cure*?
The Corante blog is taking a second look at brain research that could turn Alzheimer’s thinking on its head: A recent paper in PLoS One […]
Science Art: Galileo’s Sunspots, 1612
Click to embiggen. Originally published in 1612 in published in Istoria e Dimostrazioni Intorno Alle Macchie Solari e Loro Accidenti Rome. found via Woolgathersome.
SONG: The Stick That Never Strikes the Snare
SONG: “The Stick That Never Strikes the Snare” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: “Scientists supersize quantum mechanics,” Nature , 17 […]
Maple syrup – now *that’s* sweet….
Science Daily reveals the health-boosting chemicals found in maple syrup: University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram, who specializes in medicinal plant research, has found […]
Men and women have different nightmares.
PhysOrg divides bad dreams between the sleeping sexes: The study, carried out by Dr Michael Schredl of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, […]
No song… yet.
Very close to making the deadline this month BUT NO CIGAR. I am, however, a grandfather now. So there’s that. A new song will be […]
Corn syrup not so sweet.
Princeton University researchers have found the bitter truth about HFCS: The first study showed that male rats given water sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in […]
Cookbook ecology
“Trophic level” is a measure of how far up the food chain an animal is. It’s generally used in ecological studies to show how much […]
Science Art: Aghatis Dammars, Nordisk familjebok
This is Agathis dammara, the tree from which we get dammar gum, used as a varnish on paintings, a glaze on food or an ingredient […]
Quantum drum beats without beating.
Nature reports on the first object large enough to see that’s been put into the quantum state of neither moving nor not-moving: Cleland and his […]
Shrimp that should not be!
The Associated Press plunges into the icy waters of the unknown to present us with an unspeakable creature… a shrimp that should not be: Six […]
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 […]
Geek 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 […]