Number 61 » Science

Q: What Happens to a Linebacker’s Neurons?

Matthew Gipp — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 03:00:59 +0000

A: Bad, bad stuff.

This new(ish) article in Discover explains what happens to your neural architecture when your brain gets beat up repeatedly.

The Fake Science Blog

Matthew Gipp — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:49:17 +0000

Just like the title says, really.

All you need is a wormhole, the Large Hadron Collider or a rocket that goes really, really fast

Matthew Gipp — Mon, 03 May 2010 03:14:24 +0000

Stephen Hawking, writing for the Daily Mail¹, describes how to build a time machine.

A piece that seems excerpted from his new TV series

Einstein’s Funeral

Matthew Gipp — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:22:37 +0000

Albert Einstein, the genius physicist whose theories changed our ideas of how the universe works, died 55 years ago, on April 18, 1955, of heart failure. He was 76. His funeral and cremation were intensely private affairs, and only one photographer managed to capture the events of that extraordinary day: LIFE magazine’s Ralph Morse. Armed with his camera and a case of scotch — to open doors and loosen tongues — Morse compiled a quietly intense record of an icon’s passing.

Some pretty stirring stuff.

Making Water Run Uphill

Matthew Gipp — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:56:49 +0000

What happens when you add water, a silicone surface and a laser? Gravity-defying water, apparently:

[P]rofessor Chunlei Guo and his assistant Anatoliy Vorobyev demonstrate that by carving intricate patterns in silicon with extremely short, high-powered laser bursts, they can get liquid to climb to the top of a silicon chip like it was being sucked through a straw.

Popular Science

Matthew Gipp — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:16:16 +0000

The folks at Popular Science have partnered with Google to make every single issue in the magazine’s 137-year catalogue available online. In full, scanned glory. For free.

It’s a good day.

Ice Island Fabrication

Matthew Gipp — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:08:32 +0000

Real Rules for Time Travelers

Matthew Gipp — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:06:30 +0000

Discover blogger Sean Caroll, wielding an adapted passage from his book, dispels some popular myths about time travel:

Since time is kind of like space (the four dimensions go hand in hand), a working time machine would zoom off like a rocket rather than disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Thorium

Matthew Gipp — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:49:45 +0000

The January issue of Wired included an extremely interesting story on the benefits of replacing uranium nuclear reactors with thorium nuclear reactors. Among other things, thorium doesn’t create dangerous waste, doesn’t produce plutonium and is both infinitely efficient and very common.

The article mentions a blog—Energy From Thorium, run by aerospace engineer Kirk Sorensen—that’s worth a look if the above appeals to you in the slightest.

The HAARP Conspiracy

Matthew Gipp — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:51:08 +0000

Right or wrong, the Norwegian Sky Spiral appears to have brought renewed scrutiny to the Department of Defense’s disturbing, ionosphere-boiling HAARP Project. The accompanying gallery of pictures.

Soviet Russia had one too. It’s since been abandoned. Here’s some pictures of that.

In Defense of Slacking Off

Matthew Gipp — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:13:15 +0000

Research to take to heart. While slacking off may be pushing it, neuroscience suggests that, perversely, workahaulics can maximize their output over time by working somewhat less often.

Via The Morning News

The Burden of Omniscence

Matthew Gipp — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:12:28 +0000

If the temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background (read: the universe) could be represented by a finite amount of water—and it can; as far as we know, the universe is finite—would drinking all of it at once be a danger to science?

Via New Scientist, the downside of knowing everything all at once.

A Question of Scale

Matthew Gipp — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:37:29 +0000

Lost productivity during the recession has caused a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions roughly equivalent to the reduction that would result from shutting the planet down for three days.

NPR’s David Kestenbaum wonders whether it has left behind an ecological record—tree rings, ice gas-bubbles, etc—that could someday be ‘read’ by alien visitors.

Chomsky & Trivers

Matthew Gipp — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:25:37 +0000

Originally published in Seed Magazine in 2006: Noam Chomsky and Robert Trivers sit down for a lengthy discussion about deceit, self-deception and denial.

Here’s the transcript. Have at it, nerds!

Eureka?

Matthew Gipp — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:47:04 +0000

The Large Hadron Collider finally worked.

Granted, it was only a low-power calibration run—pure bush league stuff. Stay tuned for the real, reality-ending stuff.

On a semi-related note, here’s your required viewing for the weekend: The Quiet Earth.

Yes, there will be an exam.

Optogenetics

Matthew Gipp — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:19:22 +0000

Blue means go, yellow means stop: controlling animal brains with genes from light-sensitive algae.

I know.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Dolphin Overlords

Matthew Gipp — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:51:13 +0000

Hot news: a captive dolphin in Mississippi masters the market economy.

The end is (probably) near.

LHC, Cont’d

Matthew Gipp — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:47:23 +0000

The Large Hadron Collider is stalled again. This time, one of its cooling units was mysteriously jammed up by a baguette sent from the future.

Also, Bill Bryson visited the LHC and wrote an article about it for The Times .

Last: In the Event That You Have Accidentally Swallowed the Higgs Boson.

Birdbrained

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:08:29 +0000

If you ever meet a crow, keep this in mind: it’s got quite a memory for faces—apparently to the extent that it could pick you out of a crowd, follow you home and remember you for years.

While your mind is reeling, read this article. And then watch this video of a crow solving a puzzle that would leave a chimp scratching its head.

Thanks, Sam

Falling Objects

Matthew Gipp — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:53:57 +0000

Ever find yourself wondering how likely it is that you’ll be flattened by frozen, falling toilet waste from an airplane? Me too!