What’s six miles wide and can end civilization in an instant? An asteroid — and there are lots of them out there. With humor and great visuals, Phil Plait enthralls the TEDxBoulder audience with all the ways asteroids can kill, and what we must do to avoid them. [Youtube]
A Doctor-Professor answers the old question “What is the single best thing we can do for our health” in a completely new way. [DocMikeEvans]
During a large coronal mass ejection from the sun last week, NASA’s STEREO spacecraft spotted a mysterious planet-sized object orbiting Mercury. Check it out Head NRL group scientist Russ Howard and lead ground systems engineer Nathan Rich say the mysterious object is in fact Mercury itself. And what we’re seeing in the footage is the […]
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands created air sacs from plastic tubes to figure out how early man might have sounded: All primates have an air sac except humans, in whom it has shrunk to a vestigial organ. Palaeontologists can date when our ancestors lost the organ, as the tissue attaches to […]
A Spanish research facility has shown off a technique for “carving” nanoparticles into complex shapes. It could have practical uses in both medical testing and drug delivery. A nanoparticle is a self-contained object that has at least one dimension smaller than 100 nanometers: that is, a stack of 10,000 would be just one millimeter wide. […]
When a droplet impacts a pool at low speed, a layer of air trapped beneath the droplet can often prevent it from immediately coalescing into the pool. As that air layer drains away, surface tension pulls some of the droplet’s mass into the pool while a smaller droplet is ejected. When it bounces off the […]
Most of us have heard theories about how cows lying down means rain is on the way (it’s a logical reaction, but how would they know?), but now researchers believe animals may be able to detect impending earthquakes. The study began after an entire colony of 96 toads abandoned a pond in Italy in 2009, […]
Yes, now everyone can make holograms at home, thanks to Litiholo’s DIY Hologram Kit. Face it, holograms are awesome! If you’ve ever wanted to make your own holograms you’ve probably realized that it’s difficult, expensive, and complicated. No so if you have this kit, it’s easy! Just set up the included jig, use the laser […]
Note: Be sure to skip ahead to 6:00 to go directly to the interview. A discussion about science, society, and the universe featuring an out-of-character Stephen Colbert and renowned astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson. Please note that this interview took place at the Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey back in 2010. [Youtube]
It sounds like a movie, maybe one with a foreign enemy and an Army medic who’s miraculously immune to the very disease that’s killing everyone. But this is no movie, and as of yet, there’s no way to know if there’s a living human who could combat the mutant H5N1 avian flu strain locked up […]