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Singing Science Records

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The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez

Found via the always wonderful BoingBoing is this set of photographs of The Flying Mobulas of the Sea of Cortez. Mobulas (Mobula mobular) and Mantas (Manta birostris) are related (a manta’s mouth is terminal, i.e. located at the front of … Continue reading

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Chemistry Comes Alive!

Why didn’t I know about this site before? Chemistry Comes Alive! has movies of some dangerous chemical reactions. These are the reactions that turned me into a chemist, and I’m reasonably sure that a large fraction of our nation’s chemists … Continue reading

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Themepunks

I’ve been a Cory Doctorow fan since reading Craphound sometime in the late 90s. Not all of his stories click with me, but he’s the kind of science fiction writer that does a great job synthesizing new ideas from the … Continue reading

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Don’t dumb me down

There’s a wonderful Bad Science column by Ben Goldacre in the Guardian all about media coverage of science and why media reports on science are uniformly horrible. Here’s an excerpt: Science stories usually fall into three families: wacky stories, scare … Continue reading

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The Pitch Drop Experiment

Another deep time experiment has been going on since 1927. Thomas Parnell set up an experiment to measure the viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. The Pitch Drop Experiment is a glass funnel full … Continue reading

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MossCam

In response to the Sociopathic Cephalopod movie in a previous entry, Katherine Preston sent us a link to The MossCam Project at the James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve. That’s right, a moss cam. I admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by … Continue reading

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When Cephalopods Rule the Earth

At the Seattle aquarium, two Giant Pacific Octopi were put into a holding tank with several sharks for a while. The aquarium employees figured the octopi would be safe from the sharks because of their ability to hide in the … Continue reading

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Krakatoa

Four days ago, this sign appeared all over campus: REMEMBER KRAKATOA August 26, 1883 Today, this sign appeared beneath the original on a few lamp posts suspiciously close to the physics department: FORGET VESUVIUS

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Odd Sign on Campus

A sign posted all over campus today: REMEMBER KRAKATOA August 26, 1883 That’s all the signs say! Is this a public service project from our civil engineering and geosciences department?

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