Killer Bees.
New Scientist reports on the latest weapon in the war on Colony Collapse Disorder, the syndrome that’s killing off thousands of beehives and potentially threatening […]
Science 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 moreScience 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: Taraxacum Ruderalia by Bartz
A dandelion seed pod seen up close, photographed by Richard Bartz. — Also, unrelated to the above, you really should check out more science art […]
Broken wheel of discovery.
PhysOrg reports on one of 2007’s most dramatic moments of serendipity, when Mars rover Spirit discovered evidence of life by breaking down. As the researchers […]
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 […]
Cooking 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 […]