What is it?
CNN, not normally an outlet for science news, covers the mysterious story of a brand new bug at London’s Natural History Museum: The museum has […]
Science 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 moreScience 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 moreJust don’t put their faces on bubblegum cards.
Science News reveals the latest success story in political prediction – from a guy using tools from baseball picking: He creates his baseball predictions by […]
Gators got a UFO.
Discovery News has a weird little story about a weird little vehicle coming up out of the swamp. I suppose you could call it a […]
A Cowardly and Superstitious Lot.
I can’t say anything more about SciAm’s interview on the science of Batman. The article speaks for itself: What’s a realistic training regimen? I didn’t […]
Science Art: Butterfly Tongue
Click to embiggen vastly Is it smiling at you? From Louisa Howard at the Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility.
Anti-evolutionary Bayou Seeping Into US Politics.
So New Scientist tells us that the forces that believe God made Man (but a monkey never provided the glue) are celebrating an Intelligent Design […]
PENGUIN: ACQUIRED.
Technology Review closes in on an interesting application for spooky biometric computer systems – using Big Brother security software to identify penguins: The software involved–originally […]
Beijing 2008: Robot drones and Segway police.
Guests at the Summer Olympics might get an idea of what “technological superiority” means nowadays, according to AP’s report on China’s new security measures. The […]
Worms. Inside you. Making you better.
That’s the big idea behind this New York Times piece about the doctor who gave himself hookworms to see if they’d cure his allergies: He […]
Music’s in the genes.
Scientific American presents a scathing indictment of my forebears as it reveals a link between genetics and musicality: In what the researchers called the first […]
Science Art: Saturn’s Aurora
Click to embiggen An ultraviolet image of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the vast, violent, invisible auroras around the huge planet’s poles. […]
Fireworks.
Or the next best thing: New Scientist’s gallery of supernova remnants. Here’s the most recent photo: Click to embiggen; photo credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team This […]
Mushrooms and meaning.
Johns Hopkins researchers are getting profoundly trippy, PhysOrg reports, in a research project that found psychedelic mushrooms can have long-lasting spiritual effects: “Most of the […]
Whistles of death and healing.
Wired takes a musical trip to ancient Mexico, with the help of an engineer who has recreated the sounds of the Aztecs and Mayans and […]
Too clean for comfort (or “We’re composed of membranes too.”).
Nature recently published a story that should shock the clean freaks among us. Researchers have found that common disinfectants lower fertility and cause birth defects […]