June 2012
5 tags
Jun 1st
155 notes
7 tags
Jun 1st
62 notes
May 2012
7 tags
May 31st
102 notes
7 tags
May 31st
232 notes
7 tags
May 31st
91 notes
May 31st
773 notes
5 tags
May 31st
154 notes
3 tags
May 31st
387 notes
6 tags
MPG of a Human - Do the Math →
A walking human gets about 75 MPG (miles of travel per gallon of food energy). A biking human? Even better, at 290 MPG. But when you factor in all the fossil fuels that go into making that food, we only get 18 MPG walking and 70 MPG on a bike. Check out the full rundown of the energetic calculations at Do The Math.
May 31st
524 notes
6 tags
WatchWatch
The Flame Challenge Finalists What is a flame? A couple months back we talked about a really cool science communication contest called The Flame Challenge. Alan Alda (yes, the actor) was always frustrated that his teacher never gave him a good answer for “what is a flame?” You know, this is a really entertaining image in my head. An 11-year-old with Alan Alda’s voice is pretty...
May 31st
116 notes
5 tags
May 31st
167 notes
4 tags
May 31st
405 notes
4 tags
“Scientists and engineers can indeed change the world. So can you. You were born...”
– Regina Dugan. She’s right. You can.  From her TED talk: “From mach-20 glider to humming bird drone”
May 31st
157 notes
8 tags
May 30th
395 notes
7 tags
May 30th
190 notes
6 tags
May 30th
377 notes
3 tags
May 30th
1,196 notes
6 tags
May 30th
138 notes
5 tags
May 30th
96 notes
4 tags
May 30th
125 notes
5 tags
May 30th
500 notes
5 tags
WatchWatch
Moving Fast and Slow You’re looking at a time-lapse of Physarum polycephalum, a slime mold, chasing down its dinner (oats). It’s a protist with many nuclei, but one single, huge cytoplasm. Slime molds are known for their ability to branch out in almost fractal patterns, tasting and testing their environment via rhythmic plasmodia. This slime mold grows in such unique patterns that it...
May 30th
82 notes
5 tags
WatchWatch
I AM SCIENCE A little while back, I got the following question in my inbox: I’m 32, and I decided after high school that college wasn’t going anywhere, and so i played in a punk rock band for 12 years, and after a few years of cooling off and accepting my old-ness, i have decided that i would really like to pursue a science and/or science related career. Am I too old already? If...
May 30th
149 notes
7 tags
May 29th
1,625 notes
6 tags
May 29th
140 notes
4 tags
May 29th
186 notes
6 tags
May 29th
421 notes
6 tags
May 29th
212 notes
5 tags
Nicotine and the Chemistry of Murder  →
Deborah Blum takes you on a journey of intrigue, murder, and chemistry. Great stuff: “The 1850 murder of Gustave Fougnies in Belgium is not famous because of the cleverness of his killers. Not at all. They – his sister and brother-in-law – practically set off signal flares announcing their parts in a suspicious death. It’s not famous because it was such a classic high society murder. The...
May 29th
88 notes
6 tags
May 28th
118 notes
6 tags
May 28th
150 notes
2 tags
It's Okay To Be Smart: Bi-Weekly Highlights!
Howdy adventurers, let’s take a look at what tickled our brains over the past couple weeks, for those who missed the highlights and those who are joining the party for the first time. The rest are in my archive! A Self-Portrait of Opportunity. There’s a robot on another planet right now. That we put there. Doing amazing work like this stunning photo. Here’s why Opportunity is a...
May 28th
119 notes
4 tags
May 28th
494 notes
“We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth.”
– Ray Bradbury and other famous authors on truth vs. fiction (via explore-blog)
May 27th
410 notes
4 tags
May 26th
215 notes
4 tags
May 25th
384 notes
5 tags
“To be perfectly original one should think much and read little, and this is...”
– Lord Byron, on the paradox of being original and combining previous influences. A crisis of any creator, artistic or scientific. Maria Popova assembles a masterful collection of advice to reconcile this paradox: The Art of Scientific Investigation (1957), Part I: The Role of Openness and...
May 25th
279 notes
5 tags
May 25th
195 notes
6 tags
May 25th
3,184 notes
3 tags
If I posted the entire picture that I found of how... →
So just click here instead. I guess today is “Big Numbers Day”.
May 25th
145 notes
5 tags
May 25th
300 notes
5 tags
May 25th
45 notes
3 tags
May 25th
234 notes
5 tags
May 25th
160 notes
7 tags
May 25th
198 notes
6 tags
May 25th
112 notes
6 tags
May 25th
56 notes
6 tags
"Mayim Bialik, You Disappoint Me" →
She was Blossom. She plays Amy Farrah on The Big Bang Theory. She holds a real-life PhD in neuroscience. There’s a lot to love about Mayim Bialik. So I was disappointed to find out she doesn’t vaccinate her kids. Refusing to vaccinate is not an individual decision. It affects the whole population. It’s basic epidemiology. Marziah had this to say on...
May 24th
414 notes
5 tags
Back of the Envelope Problems →
A collection by Edward Purcell of incredibly interesting, incredibly insightful and incredibly educational problems worked out as if on the back of an envelope. Some favorites: A baseball thrown from a spacecraft Change in the length of a day due to two cars The entropy of adding cream to your coffee The odds of breathing in a particular molecule in the air The number of electrons in one...
May 24th
82 notes
4 tags
May 24th
15,155 notes