February 2012
63 posts
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5 Ways Cyborg Insects Could Change The World →
Scientists have made amazing progress lately in turning insects into cyborgs. Almost every week, there’s another news story about cyborg insect first responders, or cockroach fuel cells. Soon enough, when someone plants an eavesdropping device in your house, it’ll literally be a “bug.”
Why do insects make such great candidates to become cyborgs? And what are we...
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Superconductivity →
I recorded an APS podcast on superconductivity.
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New Male Terminates Monkey Pregnancies →
Scientific American 60 Second Science:
Female gelada monkeys spontaneously abort 80 percent of pregnancies by a displaced male when a new male succeeds him. Sophie Bushwick reports
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Critical Wit #48 – Meet Beatrice the Biologist! →
Katie McKissick is a “former high school biology teacher who simply loves to talk, write, and read about science.” She’s also the author and illustrator of “Beatrice the Biologist,” a fun, informative website about science. In this episode, guest host Sophie Bushwick chats with Katie about her unique way of describing science through blogging and illustrating. And they discuss one of the more...
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jtotheizzoe:
There are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 viruses in the world’s oceans.
Stretched end-to-end, they would reach 10,000,000 light years.
They weigh as much as 75,000,000 blue whales.
(random facts from UBC’s Curtis Suttle @ #AAAS Vancouver 2012)
…wow…
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Watch
VIDEO: A Tornado On The Sun
by Andrew Prince
Credit: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
Here’s something you don’t see every day: a tornado on the surface of the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory posted this stunning video, which shows the sun’s plasma sliding and spinning around in the star’s magnetic fields for 30 hours earlier this month.
Terry Kucera, a solar...
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“Children are born true scientists. They spontaneously experiment and experience...”
–
R. Buckminster Fuller, American engineer, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International (1895-1983)
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Science Art: Photographs That Make a Huge Splash →
Photographer Jim Kramer does stuff with fluid dynamics that we’ve never seen before. All of his photos depict droplets of water falling and splashing onto a hard surface — sometimes mixed with dyes, sometimes mixed with glycerol or dishwashing liquid to change their consistency.
Via io9
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Scipsy: Scipsy Valentine's Edition →
scipsy:
From Esa With Love: a romantic animation of heart shaped things as seen from space.
Zookeepers at ZSL London Zoo use CK Obsession to make a perfumed heart-shaped sack to stimulate mating behaviour in Raika and Lampur, two Sumatrian Tiger. (via NewScientist)
Malaria…
Quite the Valentine’s roundup!
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How Physics And Your Ponytail Go Together →
Consider this: Someone has spent the last few years studying the physics of ponytails at University of Cambridge in England. Now we know a few particulars about ponytails. And no, one of them is not that ponytails are great for keeping your hair out of your face and off your neck. Read on to find out what conclusions were drawn from the research.
Via The Mary Sue
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@SciAm 60 Second Science:
Cricket Fossil Reveals...
Underwater trash photos look like scenes from an... →
The subjects of Mandy Barker’s photographs look like creatures from another world, but they’re actually quite mundane: discarded fishing nets, plastic bottles, and toothpaste tubes.
Via io9
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Champagne Glass Shape Affects Gas Level →
Latest Scientific American 60 Second Science
When gas bubbles out of champagne, a higher concentration of carbon dioxide collects in a slim flute versus a wide coupe.
Infrared images of carbon dioxide escaping liquid champagne via PLoS ONE
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Neutrino facts...
unseenquantum:
By the time you finish reading this post approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000 neutrinos will have passed through your body; leaving no trace