Big ol’ brontotheres.
Science News reports on new discoveries shedding light on how prehistoric mammals grew so dang big, evolutionarily, once the dinosaurs cleared out: Brontotheres were among […]
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: 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 moreChina makes first ChatGPT arrest – for manufacturing fake news.
Vice‘s Motherboard covers what is probably the first-ever AI-related arrest, by Chinese officials who accuse a man of using the software to mass-produce fake news: […]
Science Art: The Engineer’s Sketch-Book, 1508 & 1509.
Two machines, or parts of machines. These are a “Four-Plunger Valve” and “A starter valve” from The engineer’s sketch-book of mechanical movements, devices, appliances, contrivances […]
An octopus will say its name in stripes.
Ars Technica gets a first glimpse at the language of cephalopods, with the discovery that each octopus (which can change the pattern of its skin […]
Voyager 2 gets a slight reprieve – until 2026, at least.
NPR reports on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory finding a way to keep the plucky space probe going in the outer limits of the solar system […]
Science Art: Implantatet placeras under huden bakom örat…, 2008.
This image, by Wikimedia Commons user Seslami~commonswiki, shows an implantable electronic device that allows some people to hear, or to hear better. What we’re seeing […]
Engineering bacteria to take on cancer.
Eric Topol, on Ground Truths, does a dive into the history of our understanding of what bacteria has to do with cancer – from the […]
Science Art: Skull of Trinocromerum willistoni, Dorothea Franzen,1944.
This is the head of a plesiosaur from Kansas, back in the day when Kansas was an inland sea. Or a picture from back in […]
SONG: Secret Dragons
SONG: “Secret Dragons”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: The Guardian 2 March 2023, “‘Like a little dragon’: new gecko species discovered on rugged Queensland island,” as used […]
Volcanic bacteria can eat CO2. Lots of it, and fast.
The Guardian introduces us to a new group of cyanobacteria that live in volcanic hot springs in Italy and America’s Rocky Mountains and that feast […]
Brain-reading electrodes in a free-ranging octopus.
Ars Technica reports on an underwater electronic neurological breakthrough. A group of researchers from Naples, Okinawa, and further afield who have used implanted recording electrodes […]
Australia’s first sauropod skull.
Scientific Frontline reports on a Diamantinasaurus skeleton that’s chalked up a few Australian firsts after being discovered in Queensland: Lead researcher and paleontologist Dr Stephen […]
Science Art: From Four Roses des Vents, by Vincenzo Coronelli.
This is one of four compass roses created by Vincenzo Coronelli, a 17th-century cartographer. I found them all on Wikimedia Commons, which got them from […]
A Long Covid hypothesis: acids and bases.
Frontiers In Immunology has published a hypothesis – which is basically a call for more research – put out by two Long Covid sufferers who […]
Dragon discovered: A new gecko species found on Australian island
The Guardian reveals Phyllurus fimbriatus, a charismatic, 15cm (6-inch) reptile otherwise known as the the Scawfell Island leaf-tailed gecko, which has never before been scientifically […]