Phosphine gas means there might be life on Venus.
Science News explains the strange chemistry that’s behind the new discovery, and why it means that Venus can get added to the same list as […]
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…
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Science Art: Last Test Article for NASA’s SLS Rocket Departs Michoud Assembly Facility, 2019 – by NASA/Jude Guidry.
Click to embiggen A big part of a big rocket, loading onto a big barge in a big facility in Louisiana. As the NASA Michoud […]
The science of the will to fight.
The Economist has an interesting piece on military psychology – specifically, the research going into predicting when an opponent who is outgunned and outmanned will […]
Puberty can erase childhood trauma’s brain effects
Science News has some optimistic news about the long-term neurological effects of childhood trauma. We know that they can create lasting physical changes inside the […]
Science Art: Gold plaques (items 9-14 in catalogue), by Ian Richardson, The British Museum, 2012
Click to embiggen Treasure! Literally! A hoard of Roman gold and silver, including jewelry, figurines, and a lot of these votive “leaf” plaques. A votive […]
New coffee-based technique promises to rebuild nerves damaged by MS, injuries.
HealthEuropa reveals new research into myelin sheaths, the “insulation” around nerve cells that gets damaged by multiple sclerosis and some kinds of traumatic injuries. Swiss […]
A black hole bigger than a hundred suns.
BBC peers into deepest space to find the origins of a gravity “shockwave” from 7 billion years ago that was still strong enough to shake […]
Flying taxi by Toyota
Endgadget (yes, I know) enthuses over the Toyota-backed SkyDrive flying car, tested with a pilot at a Toyota facility: The SD-03 is billed as the […]
Social isolation damages this brain circuit in kids. And we can fix it with light.
Science Daily has a Mt. Sinai School of Medicine study that isolates a specific cluster of brain cells that regulate social behavior – and that […]
Science Art: Dynamometer, 3 Feb 1865
Click to embiggen A dynamometer, illustrated by (or for) the United States Sanitary Commission in 1865. A dynamometer measures power output. For an engine, it […]
Why can’t pharma companies afford to make life-saving drugs?
Nature asks a disturbing question about how we create and distribute what are arguably the most important scientific projects of all – the antibiotics and […]
SONG: All I See
SONG: “All I See” ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: Based on Scientific American, 28 July 2020, “The Brittle Star That Sees with Its Body”, as used in […]
We just had the closest asteroid fly-by ever.
Space.com shares what we learned about how Earth’s gravity has affected 2020QG, a car-sized asteroid that became the closest to approach Earth without slamming into […]
Supernovas have caused mass extinctions. (As if asteroids weren’t bad enough.)
Science Daily reports on radioactivity research that has found evidence that at least one mass extinction event in Earth’s history was caused not by an […]