They pay you big bucks to make tough choices
Slide open the window to observe the cat
After a time of flux, the cat will be alive or dead
via ThinkGeek.
Schrödinger’s Cat Executive Decision Maker
Stuntman plans dive from outer space to break sound barrier
The project is called Red Bull Stratos and features Austrian stuntman Felix Baumgartner, who will jump from 120,000 feet, or roughly 23 miles above the Earth. The coordinators of the project believe that Baumgartner may even become the first space diver to break the sound barrier. The jumper will travel to the edge of space powered by an air balloon carrying a tiny capsule vehicle.
Why are people always jumping out of perfectly good aircraft?
via DVICE.
Bubble Tank
Made from premium glass, handblown and slumped by a master glassblower each tank has it’s own unique form and individual characteristics
Something to tease your cats with. just be sure it’s out of jumping range.
via Psalt Design
Sulfer Hexafluoride
hard to tell if this is really an effect of the gas or just some clever audio dubbing…
Amazing Time-Lapse Video Takes Fascinating Look at Very Large Array Radiotelescope
Signal To Noise from Douglas Koke on Vimeo.
Time-lapse footage taken at the Very Large Array (VLA) in Socorro, New Mexico; one of the largest Radio Astronomy Observatories in the world.
Russian Scientists Close To Hitting Lake Vostok
“If it goes well, a breakthrough opens up a whole new chapter in our understanding of our planet and possibly moons in our solar system and planets far beyond,” he said. “If it doesn’t go well, it casts a pall over the whole effort to explore this wet underside of Antarctica.”
Also, the over pressurized water will come spewing out of the lake, water which hasn’t seen sunlight in over 20 million years. Along with it comes THE BLOB.
via The High Definite.
Darwin Day Flyer template by GeneticMishap on deviantART
Darwin Day is Feb 12! This is a customizable Darwin Day flyer for free use by freethought, science and student groups.
via Darwin Day Flyer template by ~GeneticMishap on deviantART.
Faster Than Light? Not Quite!
the GPS satellites used to measure the departure and arrival times of the racing neutrinos were themselves subject to Einsteinian effects, because they were in motion relative to the experiment. This relative motion wasn’t properly taken into account, but it would have decreased the neutrinos’ apparent journey time. The Dutch scientists calculated the error and came up with the 64 nanoseconds. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s almost exactly the margin by which CERN’s neutrinos were supposed to have beaten light.
Mind you, if this is the ultimate answer to the problem, it won’t be a “gotcha!” moment, because as they were announcing the ‘faster than light’ particles, they were throwing all sorts of qualifiers and asterisks in their explanations, and for anyone that was paying attention, the real question was “how did these results come back wrong” and not “how did we go faster than light?”
via Engadget.
NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space
scientists at NASA have uncovered new evidence that DNA components found in meteorites can originate in space, lending new credence to the theory that life on Earth may have arisen from a pre-existing “kit” of materials delivered via asteroid. The discovery is outlined in a new paper from Dr. Michael Callahan, whose team of researchers closely analyzed samples from 12 different meteorites, using a mass spectrometer and liquid chromatography.
via NASA finds DNA components in meteorites, says they originated in space (video) — Engadget.
New drug could cure nearly any viral infection
Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.
Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.
In a paper published July 27 in the journal PLoS One, the researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them — including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.
Sounds like the beginning of a zombie flick. “oh yeah, we cured all sickness, but we infected everyone with the RAGE syndrome, and now everyone’s dead, whoops”.
What to expect when a solar storm hits Earth tomorrow
Weak power grid fluctuations that you probably won’t notice
Minor impacts on satellite operations
High frequency radio transmissions going over the pole may get lost
Slightly increased radiation exposure for high-flying aircraft at high latitudes
Birds and other migratory animals may get confused about where they should be going
Auroras visible in northern Michigan and Maine
Well that’s not worrisome at all. I’ll be in my bunker just in case though!
via DVICE.
Edible RFID tags track your food from beginning to end
Keeping track of everything we eat would be a great idea, and I’m sure we’d learn all kinds of things we don’t really want to know about our diet and overall health. Until now it’s been a major hassle to do this, but tiny digestible RFID tags could automate the entire process for every single piece of food that we consume.
so you get to scan your poop. yay?
via DVICE.
Habitable exoplanet confirmed?
French scientists have confirmed with computer models that Gliese 581d, a planet orbiting a red dwarf star about 20 light years from here, has a stable atmosphere, comfortable temperatures, and a surface covered in liquid water. It’s the first planet orbiting another star that could definitely support life, and it’s basically next door.
I’m already packing my bags!
via DVICE.
Bill Nye Boo’d In Texas For Saying The Moon Reflects The Sun
Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.
via Think Atheist.
SETI suspends search for alien life
Our progress toward intergalactic fellowship has suffered another blow, as SETI suspended operations of its Allen Telescope Array. Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the array is a collection of radio dishes that scan the skies for signs of life; now it’ll be in “hibernation” mode until 2013, when the institute’s new round of funding begins.
Truly a sad day for science, what if E.T. happens to reach out to us while SETI is sleeping?
via Engadget.
National Geographic: The Skin Gun
A simple idea backed by stem cell research allows victims of severe burns to heal in merely days.
This technology needs to be fast tracked. Simply amazing!!! Thank you Obama for lifting Bush’s ban on Federal Funded Stem Cell Research. Perfect example of good this science can do.
Tiny Organism, Big Sequence
Diving into a lake next summer you could swallow hundreds of Daphnia pulex, a one-eyed, algae-sucking water flea. The creature has long captivated biologists with its ability to shift between asexual and sexual ways of life and survive for decades frozen at the bottom of a lake. But it is best known for its sensitivity to toxic chemicals, which helps ecologists monitor water quality in ponds and lakes. Now researchers have a chance to figure out how the water flea works, thanks to its newly sequenced genome, reported online today in Science. One-third of the water flea’s nearly 31,000 genes are unique and seem to respond to predation, exposure to toxicants, and bacteria. This has titillated geneticists and ecologists alike, who spy an opportunity to understand which genes are responsible for some of the animal’s peculiar talents, such as growing protective tail spines, helmets, and neck teeth in response to the chemicals produced by predators. So when you gulp that mouthful of lake water, you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you have not only just swallowed a fully armored crustacean, but the first of its kind to have its genome sequenced.
My my, isn’t that interesting?
Recent Comments