Planet Styrofoam.
You’ve probably, by now, heard about the latest crop of distant planets discovered by the Kepler telescope. But have you read, in New Scientist or […]
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 moreRunners: Put the shoes down.
Science Daily throws fitness fans off their stride with a study that suggests running shoes will mess up your legs: In a study published in […]
Put the prescriptions down.
A new story on the AP wire backs up one of my hobby-horse beliefs. People are using way too many antibiotics, and it’s killing us: […]
On the tip of my tongue….
DiscoveryNews says what I was just thinking. I mean, they’ve got a machine that can do that: The first “words” detected from the subject’s brain […]
Da Vinci Studies of Fetuses, photo by Luc Viatour.
Click to embiggen. These are notes and pen-over-chalk sketches of a 4-month-old fetus (and the structure of the placenta) as seen by Leonardo da Vinci. […]
We don’t need more science education.
We need more science jobs. Over at ScienceBlogs, they crunch the numbers: Like many other things in life, you get what you pay for (if […]
Batteries for solar homes.
Over at VentureBeat’s “GreenBeat” section, they’ve got a profile of a promising new Panasonic project, building batteries powerful enough to run your average suburban home […]
One tool, two brain functions.
PhysOrg reveals a new discovery (using old tools) of a single brain protein that does two very different things to help us think: Details of […]
Born in Black Holes
The World of Weird Things blog has a pretty cool look at the part played by big black holes in the origins of the universe: […]
Cosmic songs.
Science Line doesn’t care if you’re not supposed to be able to hear spaceship engines go “whooosh” – they say we’re actually being quietly bombarded […]
Science Art: Human Skull, Plate V by William Miller.
William Miller was an engraver and illustrator in the 1800s, known familiarly as “the Scotch Quaker.” He created wonderfully detailed plates of, well, nearly anything […]
Monkey and Robot go to Mars.
PopSci says the Russians are floating the idea of sending a monkey and robot to Mars. For real: Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy is in preliminary talks […]
SONG: Dear Winter.
SONG: “Dear Winter” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: “Humans Have Hidden Sensory System”, LiveScience (via Yahoo! News), 8 Dec 2009, […]
Why She’s Beautiful
LabSpaces measures out the mathematics of beautiful girls: Pamela Pallett and Stephen Link of UC San Diego and Kang Lee of the University of Toronto […]
Better science = less limits + longer time.
MIT economists are weighing in on the science of creativity in a search for the source of big ideas: “If you want people to branch […]