Giraffes in Space May 30, 2012
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“I found Google Images quite helpful. It is possibly the best resource for pictures of giraffes in space that humankind has ever created.”–Mark Eichenlaub, graduate student in physics, answering a question about friction in space on Quora.com.
Still the Most Beautiful City in the World May 29, 2012
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If Sunspots Were Blue May 23, 2012
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GIGO May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Brilliant words, Uncategorizable.add a comment
From the List Which Cannot Be Named:
Why not make it easier for people to take courses after college? In
fact, why not decouple learning from degrees a little more?
<color_me_cynical>Money. The Industrial Education Complex is a vast machine that demands to be fed with brains wrapped in dollar bills. Its output is brains with the dollar bills removed.</color_me_cynical>
My Ever-growing Army of the Undead May 23, 2012
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The Ragtime Castaway Band at Maker Faire 2012 May 23, 2012
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Como va?
Diasporus citrinobapheus, the Yellow Dyer Frog May 23, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Science.add a comment
Andreas Hertz of Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum and Johann Wolfgang Goethe University found this little beauty in the mountains of western Panama. It’s called the Yellow Dyer because your fingers turn yellow from handling it (possibly leaching a substance through your skin which will cause you hallucinations, liver poisoning and Yog-Shogoth possession—or maybe not).
There’s a very complete journal paper on this fella here.
Finally, Imaging Alzheimer’s Plaques May 23, 2012
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That’s right folks, Eli Lily has managed to produce a mildly-radioactive dye for PET imaging that will show amyloid plaques of the kind found in Alzheimer’s patients. This will allow doctors to test whether these amyloid plaques are a cause of or a result of Alzheimer’s disease, something that is still unclear. That knowledge may (if it is true) lead to treatments and prevention. If untrue, it may lead to better hypotheses. Either way, this is real progress.
Top: Normal. Bottom, lit up like Xmas: Alzheimer’s patient.
John Dies at the End, by David Wong May 22, 2012
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Books, Brilliant words, Uncategorized.add a comment
A hilarious audiobook by David Wong, John Dies at the End
It completely cracked me up.
Listening to a guy calmly explaining the end of his sanity as the result of losing an argument with a dog pretty much did it for me, and that was just in the second chapter (well, .mp3, but you understand, right?). John and David are two slackers taken by the drug Soy Sauce (note who took whom), which gives them both inter-dimensional vision1 which sounds disconcerting and painful…and it is. It also leads them to soul-sucking lunacy as monsters from other dimensions make themselves known.
Bah, I don’t care about the horror part2 but I like the twisted view of horror that David has. P.G.Wodehouse might have approved of the descriptions of the horrors they face and their reactions thereto. I especially liked the reader’s matter-of-fact recounting of the events. Sorry I can’t tell you who the actor is. Amazon’s price is actually reasonable for this Audible audiobook
Exciting update: A sequel is upcoming.
1What the soy sauce really does is give them access to that other dimension, puts them in touch with astral projections, demons, mind controlling insects, and a sentient organic computer named Korrok that wishes to access our world. That, and the ability to count the change in your pocket, describe the dream you had last night–and all of it is mostly side effects.
2Hey, I’m a scientist, not a primitive or other sort of fundamentalist.
Better Photo From Different Vantage Point May 21, 2012
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To think, I could only see it from the beach.
Exciting update:
It’s ‘shopped.
(1) The sun is in western Sagittarius in mid-December.
(2) The sun is about 0.5 degrees in apparent diameter from near
earth orbit, whereas the galactic bulge is about 15 degrees.
(3) The sun is about -26th magnitude, so in a 94% annular eclipse
like Sunday’s, it is about -23rd magnitude. Since the Milky
way is showing limiting magnitudes around 8 or 9 in this
photo, the camera has a dynamic range of more than 10^13.
Nice photo, though.
—JWB, from The List Which Cannot Be Named
Turns out it’s from deviantart, though I’m not sure who.
