Bored Aliens.
New Scientist reports on a problem facing the researchers with the SETI project. It’s not a technological issue, really. Intelligent alien civilizations are probably already […]
SONG: Sleeping Cathedrals
SONG: “Sleeping Cathedrals”. (OGG version here.)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: Based on “World’s biggest whale g…
Read moreScience Art: Build Your Own Lie Detector, 1955
This is the opener for an article in the May 1955 issue of Popular Electronics. You can read the article here, …
Read moreScience Art: Collops bipunctatus, U, Back, SD, Pennington County, 2013
This image of a Collops bipunctatus, a beetle from the Melyridae family, was taken by Sam Droege from flowers …
Read moreScience Art: Histologist Microscope, 1900
An illustration of an elegant optical device from Science Gossip magazine (a publication which I discovered via…
Read moreScience Art: Rudimentary Simulator, 1963.
This is Figure 3 from “Man-Machine System Simulation for Flight Vehicles” by Steven Belsley, an article which w…
Read moreScience Art: Astrapia Splendidissima, 1895
This is the first illustration in the article “A New Bird of Paradise” by the Hon. Walter Rothschild, published…
Read moreCooking up intelligence.
Scientific American interviews a primatologist – well, a biological anthropologist named Richard Wrangham – who believes humans evolved big brains because of cooking: Your theory […]
Quiet loudspeakers.
LiveScience.com is spreading the word on speakers that don’t spread much of anything – except precisely where they’re pointed. Think of them as being like […]
Powered by toxic waste.
LiveScience.com reports on a new power source from old coal mines – a device that makes electricity from seeping pools of toxic waste: The researchers […]
SONG: First Man in Space (penitential cover version)
SONG: “First Man in Space” (cover) (To download: right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. Originally by Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp) and Phil Oakey (of the […]
Sorry, our comet is missing.
Astronomers at the University of Hawaii recently had to make a strange correction to the Deep Impact mission. The ship, which thrilled scientists in 2005 […]
Science Art: Ptolemaic System, from Andreas Cellarius’ Harmonia Macrocosmica
This chart shows the universe as understood in 1660 – a solar system with a giant Earth at its center.
Cell phone gourmand.
New Scientist unveils yet another thing Nokia is designing cell phones to do – read the menu for you: Snap a picture of, say, a […]
Burning coal creates nuclear waste.
Scientific American reports on a series of studies that mess with our sense of common sense. Nuclear power plants should be creating nuclear waste, and […]
Songs for Giant Isopods
[n.b.: Subsequent to writing this post, I wound up writing a song about isopods myself. I think it’s one of my better ones; check it […]
Burning Man’s Gift: Solar Cities.
The Burning Man festival is a bit of a hassle for folks in rural Nevada, who once a year get overrun by thousands of freaks, […]
Henry Gray, Human ovum examined fresh in the liquor folliculi.
A drawing of a human egg cell, from Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the TV show). From its description quoted on Wikipedia: Human ovum examined […]
Bad Astronomer’s Top 10
The so-called Bad Astronomer picked the top 10 astronomy pictures of 2007. Go and see them. They’re beautiful.
SONG: Jaekelopterus!
SONG: “Jaekelopterus!” (To download: right-click & “Save As”) ARTIST: grant. Dui, shi wo. (Oui, c’est moi.) SOURCE: ““Giant Claw Points to Monster Sea Scorpion”, New […]
Science Art: The Helix Nebula
At the very center of this giant, staring eye is a white dwarf star. It’s located about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. The […]