Betelgeuse was maybe just dusty, not dying.
Science News checks back on the big star that suddenly went dim (as regular readers here will remember) a couple of months ago, prompting some […]
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 moreLow-carb diet can keep your brain fit.
The Guardian looks back at memory researchers who’ve found that lower the carbohydrates you eat keeps your memory in better shape: “Neurobiological changes associated with […]
Science Art: Water-Cooling of the Converter, 1891
Click to embiggen From Wedding’s Basic Bessemer Process, by W. B. Phillips and E. Prochaska, which you can preview here. I found it on the […]
Burmese amber contains skull of hummingbird-sized dinosaur.
Science News reports on the discovery of the smallest known dinosaur in a Myanmar gemstone – and it was a tiny predator: A tiny, toothed […]
China’s “Bat Woman” is a virus-hunting hero.
Or something like that. Scientific American looks at how Shi Zhengli’s kind of obscure area zoological research – looking at how bats contract viral diseases […]
Yes, indigenous South Americans were actively managing the forest.
Scientific American looks at old trees to determine how so-called hunter-gatherers were actually actively “farming” the Brazil nuts and cocoa trees they relied on for […]
COVID-19 Resource List
Rather than the usual excerpt of recent research, I thought I’d start collecting some decent sources of info on the ongoing pandemic. * Vetted and […]
Science Art: Colorized transmission electron micrograph of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus particles (orange) found near the periphery of an infected cell (green).
Click to embiggen A snapshot of SARS virus particles – the coronavirus responsible for Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome – taken at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the […]
Forest fires boost bats.
Scientific American checks out how fire-prevention efforts are actually apparently hurting bat populations: In California’s Sierra Nevada ecosystem, bats have adapted to occasional blazes. But […]
Some COVID-19 answers from Science News.
Science News has started a vetted Frequently Asked Questions page about the virus that’s on everyone’s mind now. It’s located here, but the most fun […]
China’s rover scoots around the dark side of the moon.
Science News is following the progress of China’s Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover as they discover all sorts of new things about the layers of […]
Science Art: Amplifying Receiver, Sketch 1, April 1916
Click to embiggen slightly Electronics in 1916, from an article on making headphones for receiving radio transmissions in QST, the amateur wireless magazine of the […]
Possible pangolin exoneration as coronavirus source.
Fans of the scaly anteater otherwise known as the pangolin can take heart in Nature‘s latest report, that might not have been the source of […]
A salmon parasite can survive without oxygen, without mitochondria, and with a lot of mystery.
Science News reports on the humble jellyfish-relative that lives in the bodies of Pacific salmon and undersea worms, and gets along fine without any mitochondria […]
SONG: “Young and Stupid”
SONG: “Young and Stupid”. ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: The Guardian, 3 February 2020, “Girls beginning puberty almost a year earlier than in 1970s,” as used in […]