The Ondes Martenot
Radiohead plays one. Gorillaz plays one. Why don’t I? A keyboard invented by a cellist in 1928 who wanted to be able to do glissandos […]
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 moreThe Dwarf Dinosaurs of Transylvania.
Discovery Channel reports on new proof supporting an eccentric, motorcycle-riding baron’s unusual fossil find – a previously unknown “island” of tiny dinosaurs in Dracula’s homeland: […]
Pity Poor Pluto
Not only is that icy world at the fringe of the solar system no longer a planet, but, as LiveScience reports, it’s no longer even […]
Science Art: “Trepanerat kranium” Nordisk Familjebok
A trepanned skull, from Nordisk Familjebok Encyclopedia, found in a very special category on Wikimedia Commons. Trepanation is a bit of an archaeological mystery, apparently […]
Want an A? Sleep in!
PhysOrg.com reports on research from Emek Yezreel College in Israel that proves that teenagers should sleep late for success: …[D]uring the first week, the experimental […]
Sexy Spending.
LiveScience reveals the shocking truth that men do rash things when they see women in bikinis. Sexy stimuli don’t make men stupid, researchers at the […]
Fuligin is real.
Gene Wolfe wrote a few very good books about a far future world in which the main character wore a ceremonial cloak made of fuligin. […]
Lasers! Lasers!
Lasers! We can fire them into the clouds and they can summon the lightning! (says infoniac.com). And we can fire them at each other and […]
Science Art: Success!
Click to embiggen. The Phoenix landed on May 25, 2008, and promptly took a picture of its own leg. It’s a tradition. Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, […]
Cheap, inflatable, drives over cliffs.
What is it? Gizmodo answers: The amazing inflatable, cliff-jumping car: It’ll be shipped to you in two boxes and take roughly two hours for two […]
NASA: “We suppressed global warming data. Sorry.”
It’s reports like these (a pdf) that challenge one’s sense of hope. On the other hand, at least we can read it now. Excerpts: On […]
BLDG BLOG, on monkeys, robots and Mars.
Quite simply, yes. Yes.
SONG: Bathysphere (penitential cover version)
SONG: “Bathysphere” (cover) (To download: double right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. Originally by SMOG, although I first heard the cover by Cat Power (scroll […]
Deadlier Rattlers?
LiveScience brings up the unpleasant possibility that rattlesnakes appear to be developing more toxic venom out West: “This is a brand new phenomenon,” said Jeffrey […]
Star Wars Holo-Tech.
The Age reports on the FUTURE finally arriving in the PRESENT in the form of moving 3d holograms! In what Telstra says is a national […]