Empathic Healing: Imaginary Massage for Phantom Limbs.
New Scientist reports on the discovery that amputees experiencing phantom limb pain – the unscratchable itch on a missing limb – can give themselves a […]
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 moreAlgae Biodiesel in Production.
They’re squeezing oil from pond scum for real: The facility, located in Rio Hondo Texas, will produce an estimated 4.4 million gallons of algal oil […]
Doomsday Seed Vault Cooked and Eaten.
So much for planet Earth’s future. The Norwegian scientists behind the Svalbard Global Seed Vault – a facility described as “Noah’s Ark for Earth’s Agriculture” […]
Earliest recording predates Edison.
The International Herald Tribune says a Frenchman recorded “Au Clair de la Lune” 20 years before the phonograph was invented: The 10-second recording of a […]
Science Art: “Australisk fauna,” Nordisk Familjebok Encyclopedia
Click to embiggen This is an image from an old Norwegian encyclopedia, the “Norwegian Familybook” published sometime from 1904 to 1926. In Norwegian, the animals […]
A swarming army of cyborg bugs.
Wired reminds us that the U.S. military now has a functioning army of cyborg insects: DARPA’s Hi-MEMS program aims to implant place micro-mechanical systems [MEMS] […]
I’m on Rumblefish.
How very unexpected. But pleasant nonetheless.
SkySails: Success!
The new age of sail can start now.
SONG: My Fingertips Are Weightless.
SONG: “My Fingertips Are Weightless” (To download: right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: “Origami spaceplane aims for space station descent”, New Scientist, 21 January […]
Science Art: Tröpfchentextur
A microscopic image of liquid crystal by Wikimedia Commons user "Minutemen." Happy Easter.
Expelled from Expelled.
You’ve no doubt heard of the Ben Stein movie extolling the virtues of Intelligent Design and bemoaning the fact that it isn’t being allowed in […]
Space Boomerang: Conclusion.
It came back. They’re not sure why.
Music Brain.
Science News rhapsodizes over Johns Hopkins research into what happens in musicians’ brains that makes the music happen: “What we think is happening is that […]
Obama’s laser guns and medi-beams.
You might think that Wired is misguided when it publishes reports on our nation building tactical laser weapons and healing devices made from LEDs (the […]
6e+13 picoseconds of silence for Arthur C. Clarke.
Arthur C. Clarke’s last message to the world: So many of his wishes have already come true. From the BBC: “Sir Arthur has left written […]