March 15, 2010 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We all know that as we type on our keyboards or click our mice, we leave behind fingerprints that could be used to deduce our identities. But these prints aren’t the only remnants of our presence. Bacteria from our skins also linger on the things we touch and they could act as a sort of living fingerprint.
The thriving community of bacteria and other microscopic passengers on our skin has many traits of interest to a forensic scientist. For a start, they are remarkably personal in their membership and stable over time. Just 13% of the bacteria on my palm also live on yours, and even identical twins can harbour very different microbes. Even after we give our hands a good wash, our individual communities eventually bounce back with a similar mix of members. Skin bacteria are also easy to dislodge. As we go about our daily lives, we leave [...]
Original post by Ed Yong none@example.com
March 15, 2010 at 9:22 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
(Video Link)
Maggie and Mildred is a short film by Holly Klein. She cross stitched all of the characters and scenes, and then animated them. In an interview about the project, Klein wrote:
It took me about nine months to stitch all of the elements. I stitched the house first, then made the characters with all of their parts and outfits seperately. I then scanned everything into the computer, cut them out, and animated them in the computer. The whole process took me just under two years.
via Make | Artist’s Website | Interview with Klein about the Film
Original post by John Farrier
March 15, 2010 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, botanist Dr. Declan Doogue of the Royal Irish Academy says that there may not be enough shamrocks for the celebration!
The shamrock was “hit hard” by the severe winter weather and “won’t be easily found” this week, said Doogue, who also stated the national plant was under threat because of modern farming methods.
In its place, bogus shamrock plants are being used, he said, stating that he hoped the shamrock that President Obama would receive from Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen would be the real thing.
If worse comes to worst, Irish people who want the real thing may have to use shamrocks from England. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Original post by Miss Cellania
March 15, 2010 at 8:18 pm · Filed under 8675
Ben Goulding of Pig Jockey has a list of the world’s longest place names, including Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateahaumaitawhitiurehaeaturipukakapiki maungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. That’s a hill in New Zealand. Because it’s such a long name, most people just call it Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu for short.
Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Maggga.blogspot.com
Original post by John Farrier
March 15, 2010 at 8:06 pm · Filed under 48500
Statistician Nathan Yau of Flowing Data put together this infographic presenting famous movie quotes as data charts. You can view eight more at the link.
Link via Popped Culture
Original post by John Farrier
March 15, 2010 at 7:59 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Twenty-five years ago today, Symbolics Computers of Cambridge, Massachusetts, registered Symbolics.com as a URL. It was the first such claim in computing history:
That same year another five companies jumped on a very slow bandwagon.
It took until 1997, well into the internet boom, before the one millionth dotcom was registered.[...]
It is unlikely that the early dotcoms were thought of as businesses as the early internet was not seen as a place for commerce but rather as a platform for governmental and educational bodies to trade ideas.
Scholars generally agree that a turning point was the introduction of the Mosaic web browser by Netscape that brought mainstream consumers on to the web.
Link via Gizmodo | Image: FBI
Original post by John Farrier
March 15, 2010 at 7:50 pm · Filed under 48488
The NCAA basketball tournament brackets were finalized last night. I am happy to see that Kentucky is a #1 seed, and the management at mental_floss is happy to see that Duke is also a #1 seed. But there are 64 teams in the tournament; some aren’t that easy to place. In Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you are challenged to match tournament colleges with the states they are in. I scored 75%. Link
Original post by Miss Cellania
March 15, 2010 at 7:01 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Writing a popular science book has simultaneously been the most challenging and rewarding experience of my writing career so far. It was not so much something that I wanted to do as a task that I needed to do, and without that sense of resolve Written in Stone would probably be a half-finished manuscript left to rot on my hard drive. While hard-headed persistence has been essential to writing my book, though, it was not the only thing I required, and through this blog conversation with David Williams (author of Stories in Stone; blog) and Michael Welland (author of Sand; blog) I hope to outline how a book goes from an idea to a proposal designed to pique the interest of publishers.
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Original post by Brian Switek none@example.com
March 15, 2010 at 6:28 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I am annoyed with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
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Original post by Greg Laden none@example.com
March 15, 2010 at 6:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Image: The Daffodil Cichlid of Lake Tanganyika / Koen Eeckhoudt
In 1888 “Darwin’s Bulldog”, Thomas Henry Huxley, declared that nature was little more than a “gladiator’s show” whereby only “the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day.” Brutal competition was the only important factor in the natural world, in which a “Hobbesian war of each against all was the normal state of existence.” As such, we shouldn’t expect cooperation in nature because only strength and selfishness is rewarded by evolution.
But a paper by Dik Heg and colleagues, entitled Helpful Female Cichlids Are More Likely to Reproduce, in the open access journal PLoS One demonstrates a unique form of cooperation that represents the final bugle call for such a Hobbesian battlecry.
This study tops a long list of evidence demonstrating that cooperation and mutual aid are important factors in evolutionary history. Many species engage in cooperation through “kin [...]
Original post by Eric Michael Johnson none@example.com
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