OpenScience / Fun



Snow Rollers

Via Pharyngula, we found this wonderful page at NOAA about Snow Rollers, which is how nature stocks up for snowball fights. Seriously, when wind and snow conditions are just right (i.e. when the ground surface has an icy, crusty snow, … Continue reading

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Pup Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe

For your enjoyment, we present this link to “Pup” Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe from Drew Weing. I like Drew’s comics because he messes with the boundaries of the medium. Here’s one where he lets you choose your … Continue reading

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Chemicals & Exotic Metals

My new favorite site of the day: United Nuclear’s Chemicals & Exotic Metals which appears to be a page for people doing experiments with home-brewed fireworks, magnetic levitation, and neutron activation experiments. On a single page, they have D2O, Beryllium … Continue reading

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Adventures in Synthetic Biology

Nature ran a comic as Nature 438, pp 449-453 (2005). You can read about it here and see the comic here. The comic was drawn by Chuck Wadey and was written by Drew Endy and Isodora Deese from the MIT … Continue reading

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The Loh-Down on Science

I’ve been a fan of Sandra Tsing Loh’s NPR & Marketplace commentaries for years. I had no idea she had training as a physicist. And now, via Cosmic Variance, I find out she’s got a new show called The Loh-Down … Continue reading

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Best. I. D. Post. Ever.

Adam Felber delivers a great version of the incompetent design argument here. Just an excerpt from the masterwork: GOD: THOU SHALT TELL ME YOUR GRIPES! [Thunderclap.] STAN: Okay, okay. Uh… GOD: Go on. STAN: Okay. Putting the reproductive stuff so … Continue reading

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The Tryptophan Myth

Happy Thanksgiving! I thought I’d post and give everyone some ammunition for the inevitable arguments with distant relatives over the cause of post-turkey sleepiness: Myth: Eating turkey makes you sleepy – discusses the sleep-inducing property of purified tryptophan, but points … Continue reading

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Incompetent Design

Seed magazine is going to be very very very good. Here’s their article on Incompetent Design Theory, and their great Force Diagram of Bill Frist. Found via Not Even Wrong [tags]magazines, science[/tags]

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Set in Stone

Our brand new science building has a long hallway with clerestory windows and wonderful overlooks of the hallway from the labs on the upper floors. The terrazzo floor, however, needs some decoration, so each of the three departments involved in … Continue reading

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Closed-source Apples?

One of our favorite new food finds is the wonderfully genetically-engineered variety of apple called the honeycrisp. Honeycrisps are crisp, sweet, slightly acidic, and very aromatic. They are about as close as you can come to a perfect apple, and … Continue reading

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