Scale of the Universe

Here is a neat scroller for the whole universe. It sort of combines the content of my cell size and scale post and my star size comparison post. Though the latter two are more polished, I think it is interesting to hold down a direction key and watch everything collapse or emerge from the center.

Life in a Centrifuge

I was on a roller coaster recently and I experienced about 1 G. I was not expecting it at all so I was totally unprepared and almost lost my lunch. This is a video of people being trained in an Air Force centrifuge. It gets entertaining when they start to hit 2 G's. At that point you have to flex you legs and butt in order to keep the blood in the upper part of your body. What a rush! [wired.com]

His Noodly Appendage

I know that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is true and that Mr. Henderson is his prophet. Amen.

Growing Body Parts

Dr. Anthony Atala gave this TED talk about regeneration. There is a short section where they show them growing a finger. Yoink. I don't know where it went! ...I have...always....had this...many...fingers.

Watch for Card Skimmers

This little device will read your bank card and wirelessly send your information to the thief. It also has a camera that can record you entering you pin. Check for them every time use your card.

Economic Perspectives on Porn

I thought that this map was very interesting. Can you guess what is it comparing? This map depicts the number of internet subscriptions to pornographic websites per capita by state. Very interesting. It was published (here) in the Journal of Economic Perspectives 2009, Vol. 23 (1), 209-220 where you can find the numbers that go with it on page 216. I excluded the legend so you would go to the source to find it (which is a practice I highly encourage). There are more interesting statistics like this in the article. And finally some more fun facts.

Source: Online Education

Rise of the Milky Way

This video really helps me realize that the earth is spinning. The birds eye lens enhances that feeling a bit but it is awesome in the literal sense of the word anyway. [Youtube]

Star Size Comparison

This is a neat video essentially going in the opposite direction from the last post. It starts with the moon and zooms out to the largest know star (VY Canis Majoris). [Youtube] I can't really comprehend these scales but I enjoy trying. "You're blowing my mind, Frank. You're blowing my mind." Tobias Fünke

Cell Size and Scale

The University of Utah Genetic Science Learning Center has a cool application that helps put cell size into perspective. You can use the scroll bar under the diagram to zoom in from a coffee bean to an individual carbon atom.

Project Natal

This new body/voice recognition project from Microsoft could be fantastic. [xbox] It is supposed to come out toward the end of 2010.

The Symphony of Science

My wife and I spend lots of time watching documentaries so we really enjoyed these. [Symphony of Science] The first song of the series, A Glorious Dawn, was my favorite but they are all done very well. If you are curious as to how Auto-Tune works, Nova did a short piece on it. [PBS]

Sodium Plus Water

The last post reminded me of a video I saw a while ago of the government disposing an enormous amount of sodium in a lake. It is pretty spectacular and I am sure they significantly changed the pH of the lake.

The Periodic Table of Videos

The Periodic Table of Videos is neat website put together by a group at the University of Nottingham. You can click on any element to watch a short video describing that element. Some are more interesting than others. I recommend watching the videos for the alkali metals which are the elements in the first column. This includes lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K), rubidium (Rb), cesium (Cs), and francium (Fr) but excludes hydrogen (H) (the video for hydrogen does have a cool explosion in it though). In each of these videos they show how violently the element reacts with water, with the reactions getting more violent as you move down the periodic table. This is because the element becomes more and more easy to oxidize (or remove an electron) as you move down the column. They could not get a sample for francium because it is radioactive but the video for francium has a montage of the reactions of each of the previous alkali metals with water. The montage is useful for comparison.

Fox's Top 10 most obvious discoveries of 2009

I can rest assured now that I know that high heels lead to foot pain. I think it is funny that some of these studies actually got funding. It is also a great example of why getting published is not that impressive...you can publish anything.

Scientific Problems

This a problem that has plagued us scientists for centuries. My own studies are also...inconclusive. [xkcd]

Taxonomy Fail

I can't help but laugh at this. [Failblog]

Big Gulp

I saw Bear Grylls do this once. (Warning! A wee bit gross.) [Youtube]

Vaccinations

My wife is painfully aware of my views on vaccinations. So rather than irritating her by sending her another email, I thought I would just point to it here and the title of this post will ward her off. I think this graph nicely shows how important vaccines are. Thank you Bad Astronomy for showing the way.

Count the number of passes between the people wearing white shirts.

I know this is an old video but it is a particular interesting example of how we to often only see what we want to see. I originally saw it as presented by Micheal Shermer in this TED talk where it was introduced particularly well. In his introduction he first explaining that when you watch this video you should count the number of times the basketball is pasted between the people wearing white t-shirts. He then said that you should be very careful in counting since the number you get tells you something about yourself. Additionally he explained that, interestingly, men and women get different results. Unfortunately, this segment has since been (don't follow this second link until you have seen the basketball video) removed from the talk. The talk is still well worth watching but his introduction has I think been totally removed. The basketball passing video can be found here. Remember to pay careful attention to counting the number of passes between the people wearing the white t-shirts. After that watch it again but pay attention to those in the black shirts and maybe you will understand how it all fits together.

How do I do this?

As I am looking for things to post I find myself spending too much time trying to carefully word everything. At this rate i won't get anything posted so I am going to keep things short. I am sure I will get inspiration from the blogs that I follow. Among them are the fantastic Geekologie which can be found at http://www.geekologie.com/ and the thoughtful Bad Astronomy at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/. This blog will probably just up end up being a way for me to point my friends and family toward what I find particularly interesting.

So first off I will direct you to Failblog at http://failblog.org/ where I can always find a good laugh.
I found this one particularly funny: http://failblog.org/2009/12/30/inappropriate-innuendo-fail/. Sorry to my wife an brother since I already forwarded them the link.

Welcome

Why? Mostly because I get bored easily and I have slots of time at work when the glove box is in use and I cannot get any research done. I am a chemist by-the-way and I probably should have been an engineer. This blog most likely won't have much reason to it other than I like to share things I find interesting or funny. I doubt anyone will read it and I will realize that after a week and find another way to waste my time. Anyway... Welcome. I hope you might find a few things interesting.