September 10, 2008: Celebrating the day CERN turned on the Large Hadron Collider for the first time.
September 10th, 2008
The earth was not destroyed, and Leah made a small thing.
Archive for the 'science' Category
The Humboldt squid beak
September 8th, 2008
Scientists are studying what makes it possible for the extremely hard squid beak to be safely attached to a head and body with roughly the consistency of jello. Also in the comments we learn about bee spit.
Invertebrate Astronauts Make Space History
September 8th, 2008
Water bears can survive under the very very harshest of conditions. Also they are sort of cute and terrifying at the same time. And now they have made and survived (mostly) an unprotected near-earth orbit.
Gut Reactions
September 3rd, 2008
"Even human beings, Hugenholtz said, are subconsciously eavesdropping on chemical conversations between the inhabitants of our guts; this leads us to crave, say, potato chips when our microbes want salt. His eyes fell warily on his coffee. 'Do you think our stomach bacteria have trained us?'"
Large Hadron Collider nearly ready
August 10th, 2008
If this thing does birth a small black hole and swallow up the earth, it might just have been worth it just for these pictures.
Hubble Ultra Deep Field
August 10th, 2008
Full-resolution photo taken by the Hubble of a teeny-tiny segment of the sky, which is also of course huge beyond imagining. 11.3 days of exposure, et voila. Just over 100mb of space.
Scientific American Frontiers
June 27th, 2008
Oh, it's on.
Doomsday Vault Protects World’s Seeds
June 11th, 2008
Segment from 60 Minutes showing a tour of the Doomsday seed vault in Svalbard.
Encyclopedia of Life
May 11th, 2008
E. O. Wilson's collaborative project to catalogue every species of animal and plant-life on earth.
Surgeons give hope to blind with successful ‘bionic eye’ operations
April 29th, 2008
Best part? It's called the Argus II. Argus is the name of several mythic figures, including Argus Panoptes (the hundred-eyed giant), Odysseus' faithful dog, and both the shipwright of the Argo and also a shipwrecked traveller rescued by Jason.
Suspending Life
April 23rd, 2008
Feature in the current issue of Seed tracing the curious effect of small amounts of Hydrogen Sulfide on a number of different living species to one of the 5 only partially explainable mass extinctions in the fossil record.
Science and Society Picture Library
April 16th, 2008
"SSPL represents over a million images from the Science Museum, the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and the National Railway Museum."
Transmitting live from the Ocean below the Antarctic Ice
March 31st, 2008
"Additionally, sounds may be very faint. The amplifier settings are a compromise between picking up distant animal voices and not overcharging the system by nearby calving icebergs. So please beware of sudden extreamely loud events."
Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison
March 27th, 2008
"The recordings were not intended for listening; the idea of audio playback had not been conceived. Rather, Scott sought to create a paper record of human speech that could later be deciphered."
The Eight Planets
March 3rd, 2008
Apparently Pluto is sort of a planet again - along with Ceres and Eris. A discussion of the possible criteria for planetary classification, with a summary of the implications of each approach.
Long Distance Love Affair
January 21st, 2008
A big cylinder launched into space as a platform for experimentation. Experiments happened on its surface, but it itself did not constitute an experiment.
Origami spaceplane to launch from space station
January 20th, 2008
I can't even begin to imagine why.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
January 10th, 2008
Theoretician of the synapse, and incredible medical illustrator.
Blue Brain Project
December 23rd, 2007
The hits just keep on coming.
Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones
December 5th, 2007
All of the bacteria in an adult human would fit into a half gallon jug, and surpass human cells in quantity by 10 times. Not only that, but some of our genes appear to be "bacterial in origin."