Cool Links

In a Twist of Irony, Reds see More Hues of Blue

In a Twist of Irony, Reds see More Hues of Blue

Jan 14 2011 | comment(s)

Here's an interesting one, short and sweet - apparently Russians are able to perceive between slightly-different hues of the colour blue because their language contains more words for it.

Researchers are still trying to figure out how it works - is it that language influences perception, or does physiology influence language? No definitive proof either way as far as I can tell, but it's an interesting effect nonetheless.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070430/full/news070430-2.html

F-35 getting criticized for cost overruns

F-35 getting criticized for cost overruns

Jan 14 2011 | comment(s)

Science programs get regular criticism here for being overhyped and then delayed with budget overruns as a sweetener.

But the James Webb Space Telescope and the Large Hadron Collider are not only.   The U.S. military's F-35 is getting renewed dirty looks as the recession continues.   
Google's online science fair now in progress

Google's online science fair now in progress

Jan 12 2011 | comment(s)

When I was a lad, the science fair was a dozen schools.   The Google Science Fair has students from around the world, which means I would be unlikely to spend 3 minutes looking at the problem, guess because I had to get to another event, and still place second in the physics competition.

The good old days.

But the prizes are better than the textbooks I got also.   So if you're ages 13 to 18, check it out.   You may a $50,000 scholarship, a 10-day trip to the Galápagos Islands or a three-day site visit to CERN.
Love at first byte: Is the girl you're talking to an employee of a dating site?

Love at first byte: Is the girl you're talking to an employee of a dating site?

Jan 05 2011 | comment(s)

In The Economist:
Once seen as the last resort for a bunch of lonely geeks, online-dating services have gradually shed much of the stigma formerly associated with them. 
Sounds great, but when there is money ($3-4 billion per year!) to be made, you take the chance unscrupulous people will exploit the lonely.
Last year Jetplace, an Australian company, admitted that it had been running more than 1,300 false profiles on a matchmaking service that it owned. Dating-site bosses maintain that such instances are rare, but detecting them can be tricky.
Titanoceratops - giant dinosaur from New Mexico

Titanoceratops - giant dinosaur from New Mexico

Jan 05 2011 | comment(s)

"Many unknown dinosaurs await discovery in rock formations all over the world, but some new species are hiding in plain sight. One such animal, described in an in-press Cretaceous Research paper, had one of the largest heads of any dinosaur."

Check it out at Smithsonian online:

Titanoceratops
Sam Noble museum specimen, just re-named Titanoceratops. Image from Flickr user cosmicautumn.
Legend of the Killer Storks (And Other Monsters)

Legend of the Killer Storks (And Other Monsters)

Jan 05 2011 | comment(s)

Brian Switek at Wired writes:
Fossil birds don’t often receive good press. Numerous papers pass through the academic literature each year without even a nod from journalists, but the description of a prehistoric stork on the island of Flores proffered such delicious headline bait that reporters could not resist. Although no bigger than its modern-day relatives, this 6-foot stork would have towered over the tiny Flores “hobbits”
Citizen Science: 10-Year-Old Is Youngest Person Ever to Discover a Supernova

Citizen Science: 10-Year-Old Is Youngest Person Ever to Discover a Supernova

Jan 04 2011 | comment(s)

Kathryn Gray, a 10-year-old girl in Canada, has become the youngest person ever to discover a supernova.  With a middle name like Aurora, perhaps that isn't a surprise.

The supernova occurred in the galaxy UGC 3378 and is part of the constellation Camelopardalis.   It is about 240 million light-years away.  She discovered it with the help of two other amateur astronomers.

CBC News has the story

Supernova in UGC 3378
Discovery: Hang Son Doong Cave in Viet Nam Big Enough To Hold A Skyscraper

Discovery: Hang Son Doong Cave in Viet Nam Big Enough To Hold A Skyscraper

Jan 04 2011 | comment(s)

A cave in the Annamite Mountains of Viet Nam contains a river and jungle and is large enough, in spots, to hold a skyscraper.

Hang Son Doong Cave is part of a network of about 150 caves in central Vietnam near the Laotian border.  The husband and wife team of Howard and Deb Limbert first discovered it in 2009 but only recently returned to scale a huge calcite wall and try to find the cavern's end.
A Good Start To 2011 For Conspiracy Theorists - Black Birds Fall Dead From The Sky

A Good Start To 2011 For Conspiracy Theorists - Black Birds Fall Dead From The Sky

Jan 04 2011 | comment(s)

If you're a conspiracy theorist, these are good times.   Leading up to the end of 2012, when the mother of all world endings is scheduled (until the next one), plenty of things would be expected to happen that sets it all in motion and counts as ominous portends, in that 'no-snowflake-in-an-avalanche-takes-the-blame' sort of way.

And one just did.   In Arkansas, thousands of blackbirds fell dead from the sky over the town of Beebe.

First they came for your light bulbs...

First they came for your light bulbs...

Jan 03 2011 | comment(s)

California, the U.S. state in the midst of a budget deficit that would make third world nations cringe, didn't stop finding ways to tinker with an already perilous economy.   100 watt incandescent bulbs will no longer be allowed to be sold along with over 720 other laws the legislature found time to pass while being unable to approve a budget.
A conundrum for the anti-science left - GMO plants could combat climate change

A conundrum for the anti-science left - GMO plants could combat climate change

Dec 29 2010 | comment(s)

Like the right, the left has its anti-science contingent and agriculture is ground zero for the zealots in the environmental movement.   To be sure, any science that is misused can have devastating consequences but genetically modified foods - those that can resist blight or grow in poor climates - have done a lot of good for feeding poor people and had no ill effects whereas so-called 'organic' food can only be purchased for reasonable cost by those fortunate enough to live near it.    
Ancient

Ancient "Bradshaw art" remains colorful for 40,000 years because it is 'alive'

Dec 28 2010 | comment(s)

Ancient rock art in Western Australia has maintained its colors because it is alive, researchers have determined.   Obviously most art fades in a few hundred years but the "Bradshaw art" has looked good for 40,000.

Bacteria and fungi have made homes in there, preserving the color, though making it difficult to accurately date.   A black fungus like Chaetothyriales cannibalizes its ancestors, making a 'biofilm' that can muddy the waters for research.

What broken glass can tell us about climate change

What broken glass can tell us about climate change

Dec 28 2010 | comment(s)

Broken glass isn't some hysterical metaphor by zealots who hate business, a PNAS study found that microscopic particles of dust emitted into the atmosphere when dirt breaks apart follow similar fragment patterns as broken glass and other brittle objects.

Dust is important in the study of atmospheric cause and effect because it is not just a big issue, like climate change and the resulting global warming/cooling/variation (your choice, depending on whether or not you are buried in snow at the moment) but also in weather forecasting (so you would have known you were going to be buried in snow during the third warmest year recently).
Paranoid WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange believes he will be killed if he goes to the US

Paranoid WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange believes he will be killed if he goes to the US

Dec 24 2010 | comment(s)

It's not going to be a surprise to anyone that Julian Assange has become a classic paranoid, especially given the business he has chosen for himself.    You don't publish stolen secret documents without worrying a little - or a lot.

Now he is worried that if the UK extradites him to the US for espionage he will be 
killed "Jack Ruby-style" - a reference to the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald before he could stand trial for the murder of President John F Kennedy.
The Kennedy assassination and then-murder of his shooter has been fodder for conspiracy theorists since it happened in 1963.
A Christmas Party For Hitler

A Christmas Party For Hitler

Dec 24 2010 | comment(s)

Things probably looked rather good for Germany in 1941.   Hitler hadn't been wrong yet and Regular Army leaders like Guderian had make him look smart, with runaway successes through the low countries and France - meanwhile, he believed it would take years for the U.S. to mobilize for war and the true morass of the Russian campaign was not known yet.
The Evil URL Shortener

The Evil URL Shortener

Dec 23 2010 | comment(s)

It turns out I am not the only person suspicious of "URL shorteners" designed to make very long links into shorter, manageable ones.    On a service like Twitter, where communications are limited to 140 characters, shorteners are absolutely necessary and utilities like TweetDeck build them in for you automatically.

For people you know, shorteners are obviously fine, because there is an element of trust.   For strangers, though, I never click on shortened URLs because the URL can usually tell me something about the link.
New Zealand Opens Up Its UFO Files

New Zealand Opens Up Its UFO Files

Dec 23 2010 | comment(s)

Every government has UFO files.   That doesn't mean they have aliens hidden in secret, underground lairs or futuristic spaceships being studied, but they have various claims of UFOs by citizens.

UFO technically still means just unidentified - the kookier sorts infer that always to mean alien flying saucers.
CIA WikiLeaks Task Force: WTF??

CIA WikiLeaks Task Force: WTF??

Dec 23 2010 | comment(s)

Really, no one needs to add anything to the title to make it funnier but the fact that the CIA, with its vast store of intellectual talent, didn't figure its WikiLeaks Task Force and acronym WTF would get chuckles in the Internet age makes it that much more humorous.

The WikiLeaks Task Force is no laughing matter, of course - it was created to ferret out the source of 250,000 leaked U.S. diplomatic cables and determine their impact, and it was also partly created because WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is an annoying prat.
For moonwalking robots, jumping is better

For moonwalking robots, jumping is better

Dec 19 2010 | comment(s)

Atsuo Takanishi from Waseda University in Tokyo says that walking on the moon is harder than running due to the low gravity - and for robots even worse.   

His work simulates robotic movement in low gravity and he has determined the solution to keeping robots like the WABIAN-2R bipedal robot moving may be jumping with 'feet' together rather than leaping from foot to foot.

New Scientist has the story.
Is Cosmic Reincarnation and the idea of a Pre-Big Bang universe dead?

Is Cosmic Reincarnation and the idea of a Pre-Big Bang universe dead?

Dec 19 2010 | comment(s)

A widely publicized report that cosmic microwave background, the glow left over from the explosive start of the universe believed to have occurred 13.7 billion years ago, contains echoes of previous cycles of cosmic birth and death, has been disputed by new analyses.

Three teams state that circular patterns do exist but are entirely consistent with the leading model for the birth of the universe, known as inflation, and do not require an alternative, pre–Big Bang theory. According to inflation, the universe began as a subatomic entity that ballooned in size during the first tiny fraction of a second of its existence.