science The Quietest Place on Earth Will Drive You Insane Within 45 Minutes This Gizmodo story makes a nice follow up to saturday's prose poem. Maybe that wasn't fiction after all? ‘When it's quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You'll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear
good For dolphins, seafood tastes salty. New research in top science journal PNAS suggests that carnivores can't taste very much. This is particularly bad news for dolphins. Humans and many other mammals have five types of taste receptors - sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami (savoury or meatiness). Animals in the order Carnivora appear
meaning of life Boomhauer Explains The Meaning Of Life in 43 seconds Boomhauer Explains The Meaning Of Life - YouTube.
good Comfort or Food? The Harlow Monkey Love Song Anyone who gets through first year psychology will be familiar with Harry Harlow and his cruel experiments with rhesus monkeys. Little orphan monkeys were given the choice between a wire surrogate mother who provided food and a terry cloth surrogate who provided comfort. The monkeys huddled to the cuddly surrogate
science What Einstein really thought about God.. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Image via Wikipedia"] [/caption] "The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not
good Flying spaghetti monster photographed for the first time For those that doubted the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, scientists have managed to photograph him. And the reality is more amazing than you can have imagined.. He really is out there floating in space spanning the whole universe. And even better, do you know what the meatballs are?
good onemonkey, twomonkeys, onemonkey Regulars readers may know that onemonkey had brief incarnation as a dj. My good friend Yossarian and I used to encourage whales to provide vocal tracks for drum and bass records. You can hear the results of this cetacean collaboration on soundcloud: Now news reaches me from Berlin of another
psycho Anatomical Cross-Sections Made with Quilled Paper by Lisa Nilsson | Colossal Anatomical Cross-Sections Made with Quilled Paper by Lisa Nilsson | Colossal.
words Trainspotting Trainspotting is not a lifestyle choice. You do not wake up one morning and decide that it would be cool to start spotting trains. It is something you feel from the very beginning. You are not interested in girls, you like trains. It is not a phase, a rebellion or
science More top croc news Now the exciting world of crocodile classification has just become twice as complicated. It used to be that it was easy to tell crocodiles from alligators. If you were in Africa it was a crocodile. Now it turns out that there are two types of crocodiles living in the nile.
psycho Alligators, Crocodiles and Babies? Fake Science : What’s The Difference Between The Alligator And Crocodile? This was news to me. And I wrote a fair bit of about alligators, crocodiles and babies in my PhD (with a little help from Ogden Nash).
science The Meaning of Life (in Under 300 Words) It turns out some psychologists (Baumeister and Vohs, 2002) have found the meaning of life. Psychologists are much more pragmatic than philosophers. Rather than working out the meaning of life from first principles or anything daft like that they just went out at asked a lot of people. Jeremy Dean
quotes Over Mucho Grande? [caption id="" align="alignright" width="296" caption="Image via Wikipedia"] [/caption] Striker was the squadron leader. He brought us in real low. But he couldn't handle it. Buddy couldn't handle it? Was Buddy one of your crew? Right.
good So you want to take over the world? It is the dream that many of us have. But I really wouldn't bother taking over the world if I were you.. The chances are it would be quite a lot of work and no-one seems to have managed it yet. More importantly, you'll never get
good Visionary Madness - Nicholas Kalmakoff Paintings by Nicholas Kalmakoff Title: Arthur Rimbaud In 1955, a Russian émigré died alone, unknown and in poverty at the hôpital de Lagny to the north of Paris. After leading a hermit's existence in his small room at the hotel de la Rochefoucault in Paris, this former Russian
good The day the internet died. Oh what a day that was. I emerged blinking into the sunlight and saw flowers and trees. I spoke to real live people. I read a real newspaper and a book printed on actual paper. Mind you, I was worried about what was happening to all those cats.
good What's buzzing in Bumblebology? I bet you are asking yourself what is new in bee science? You would be right to be curious because we are living golden age for bumblebology.. Just today in PLoS ONE the leading open access journal there were two brilliantly bonkers new bee papers. Hasegawa Y, Ikeno H (2011)
science Sweet statistics stuff from Nausicaa Distribution Etsy seller Nausicaa Distribution have all kinds of great statistics based products. Pillows, posters, pencilcases, you named, they're likely to have it. Gang of 5 evil distribution plushies Set of 5 Statistics Propaganda Posters by NausicaaDistribution.
words Beauty, Charm, and Strangeness: Science as Metaphor Thanks to Nathan Yau at Flowing Data for pointing me in the direction of this 1998 essay by John Banville for Science magazine. He draws parallels between art and science. Beauty, Charm, and Strangeness: Science as Metaphor I couldn't agree more, this is a playlet what I wrote
images Little girls impression of the MoMA Little girls impression of the MoMA. I have thought about this in the past.. Consider taking a toddler to the museum.. it doesn’t know any better that the iron grill in the floor is not the interesting thing to look at, or the light switches, or the gilded frames
science Joshua Foer @LSE - The End of Remembering - Tues, 5th April 6:30pm There is an interesting talk at the LSE on Tuesday, 5th April 6:30 Once upon a time remembering was everything. Today, we have endless mountains of documents, the Internet and ever-present smart phones to store our memories. As our culture has transformed from one that was fundamentally based on
video Saint Horatio's kidney and the J2 Project Charlie Stross has been talking on his blog about another book he won't bother writing. This one would be about a plucky investigative reporter who upsets a billionaire, is poisoned and receives a kidney transplant from a priest. The priest dies shortly after and is beatified in double-quick
