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.