Top 10 Scientific Music Videos

From Wierd Science:

Music can make the driest scientific concepts entertaining, or even hilarious. Catchy tunes about DNA blend genetics with jokes. Ballads about the heart and pi bring dull facts to life. Here are some of our favorite videos that show how hard science rocks.

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Human History Written in Stone and Blood

Figure 1. Hunter-gatherer people living in southern Africa in the Middle Stone Age left behind artifacts in natural rock shelters and caves. At top is Sibudu Cave, located about 40 kilometers north of Durban. Below that is Ntloana Tsoana, a rock shelter located on the south bank of the Phuthiatsana River in the Lesotho highlands. At bottom, right of center in the photo, is Blombos Cave, located about 300 kilometers east of Cape Town. That’s where archaeologists found artifacts representing innovative behavior previously thought to have emerged in Europe much later. Improved dating of such artifacts helped the authors evaluate what contemporary factors might have contributed to the origins of modern human behavior. Top photograph courtesy of Lyn Wadley. Middle photograph courtesy of Richard Roberts. Bottom photograph courtesy of Chris Henshilwood.

From American Scientist:

Two bursts of human innovation in southern Africa during the Middle Stone Age may be linked to population growth and early migration off the continent

In the past decade it has become clear that symbolic expression associated with modern human behavior began in Africa, not Europe. And it occurred tens of thousands of years earlier than was once thought. Answering why is difficult. A first step was more reliable dating of when culturally and technologically advanced people lived during the Middle Stone Age in the south of Africa. Zenobia Jacobs and Richard G. Roberts accomplished that dating, which prompted them to reject climate change as a primary cause for the advancements. Instead, drawing on genetic research, they embrace population growth as a likely, key influence.

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Super-Slow-Motion Pictures Show Soap Bubble Bursting In Stunning Detail

After being poked the surface of the breaks up, from one side to another, turning its surface into a multitude of droplets which appear to hang in the air.

From The Daily Mail:

To the human eye the bursting of a bubble is a simple affair. One prod of a finger and - pop! - it's vanished in a split second.

But as these breathtaking pictures show, the process is spectacular - if only we could see it.

These images were taken with a slow-motion camera to show every stage of the soap bubble's disappearance.

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Herschel Shows Breadth Of Vision

Herschel-SPIRE's view of M74 (R) compared with that of Nasa's Spitzer space telescope. The larger mirror on Herschel (3.5m vs 0.85m) pays dividends, and will allow the European telescope to build on Spitzer's discoveries.

From The BBC:

Europe's Herschel space observatory is set to become one of the most powerful tools ever to study the Universe.

The "first light" data from its three instruments demonstrates a remarkable capability even though their set-up is still not complete.

Galaxy images released on Friday by the European Space Agency show detail previously unseen in the objects.

The pictures - and the thousands that will follow - should give new insights on star formation and galaxy evolution.

"We have some excellent images; they're not calibrated, but they look spectacular," said Dr Göran Pilbratt, Esa's Herschel project scientist.

"They tell you we are working; it's just fantastic," he told BBC News.

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Machines That Heal

Arms of Steel John B. Carnett

From Popsci.com:

In the movies, entrusting human life to robot helpers and sophisticated machines inevitably ends in fire, destruction and death.

But in reality, the automatons are actually saving lives. Take the devices here: the hulking robot arms that rehabilitate stroke victims, the laser beam that calms Parkinson’s tremors, and the android that can fix you toast when you’re sick. Even the scary-looking, mind-reading skullcap will one day let paralyzed people turn on the lights just by thinking about it. No fire, no destruction, no death—just eye-popping technology and better medical care.

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Getting More Out Of Crude

Image: Holey catalyst: Rive Technology is designing a zeolite catalyst with pores larger than those found in conventional zeolites, which are widely used in petroleum and petrochemical production. The larger pores allow the catalysts to handle a wide range of compounds. Credit: Rive Technology

From Technology Review:

An improved catalyst could help oil refineries get more gasoline out of a barrel of crude petroleum.

In an effort to make gasoline production cleaner and more efficient, Rive Technology of Cambridge, MA, is developing a catalyst that can help turn a greater percentage of crude petroleum into gasoline and other usable products. The company, which is testing the catalyst in its pilot plant in South Brunswick, NJ, believes that the technology will be able to process lower-grade fossil fuels and reduce the amount of energy that goes into the refining process.

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New Kind Of Astronomical Object Around Black Hole: Living Fossil Records 'Supermassive' Kick

This artist's conception shows a rogue black hole that has been kicked out from the center of two merging galaxies. The black hole is surrounded by a cluster of stars that were ripped from the galaxies. New calculations by David Merritt, from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeremy Schnittman, from Johns Hopkins University, and Stefanie Komossa, from the Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany suggest that hundreds of massive black holes, left over from the epoch of galaxy formation, are waiting to be detected in the nearby universe. (Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2009) — The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick.

A paper published in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal discusses the theoretical properties of “hypercompact stellar systems” and suggests that hundreds of these faint star clusters might be detected at optical wavelengths in our immediate cosmic environment. Some of these objects may already have been picked up in astronomical surveys, reports David Merritt, from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeremy Schnittman, from Johns Hopkins University, and Stefanie Komossa, from the Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

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Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable

From Live Science:

That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests.

Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. "It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain."

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The Moon Walkers: Twelve Men Who Have Visited Another World

Neil Armstrong in the Eagle after his historic moonwalk. Photograph: Nasa

From The Guardian:

What did it take to become a member of the most exclusive club in human history?

The 12 members of the most exclusive club in human history had many things in common.

All came from a highly technical background and all but one studied aeronautical or astronautical engineering. Growing up, many had been Boy Scouts and even more were active members of their University fraternities. They all went on to study for further degrees – many at military test pilot schools – and almost all of them saw active service in cold war skies, often flying nuclear weapons behind enemy lines.

These high-risk professions often claimed the lives of those to the left and right of them and frequently it was only luck that kept them alive long enough to apply to Nasa.

We might expect such parallel lives in men picked through a selection process devised to seek out "the right stuff". But despite the similarities in their CVs, no two men were from the same mould, as became evident in the years after Apollo.

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Why New Chrome OS Won't Turn Google Into a Monopoly: Analysis

From Popular Mechanics:

As Google announces its intention to create a full Web-based operating system, senior technology editor Glenn Derene has a flashback to the late '90s—when the Justice Department brought an antitrust action against Microsoft. Could Google's new browser-as-operating system kill competition?

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) brought an antitrust action against Microsoft for a variety of anti-competitive practices in the software industry—chief among them the bundling of the company's Internet Explorer browser into its dominant Windows operating system. The trial revealed plenty of bare-knuckled tactics and market manipulation on behalf of Microsoft, and stained the company's brand for years (perhaps forever, frankly) as a corporate bully. But the central argument from Microsoft was that, with the ascent of the Internet, the browser had become an integral part of the OS, and that competing stand-alone browsers such as Netscape and Opera were moribund products from a transition era. Microsoft contended that it needed to evolve the OS to adapt to the Internet-based era just to stay competitive as a company—a claim that seemed ludicrous back in the '90s, when the software giant seemed to have indomitable market power.

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When Galaxies Collide, 280 Million Light Years Away

Stephan's Quintent, Colliding: NASA

From Popsci.com:

A new image using data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory captures Stephan's Quintet in a new light.

130 years ago, astronomers discovered Stephan's Quintent--a compact group of galaxies 280 million light years from Earth. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured the X-rays generated by the interstellar collision, as one of the galaxies is sucked through the center of the group at 2 million miles per hour.

The ridge of blue in the center represent the X-rays emitted by the collision, as shock wave heats the galaxy's gasses.

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100 Essential Skills for Geeks

From Geek Dad/Wired:

As Geeks we are expected to have a certain set of skills that the majority of the population does not possess. This list is by no means complete, but I think it is a good sample of the skills required to be a true geek. I won’t pretend to have all the skills listed here. I even had to Google a few of them.

Like all good Geeks you should be able to utilize resources to accomplish any of these things. Knowing where to look for the knowledge is as good as having it so give yourself points if you are certain that you could Google the knowledge necessary for a skill.

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U.S. Science Is Tops, But Most Americans Don't Think It Is, A New Survey Finds.

From Scientific American:

Today the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Pew Research Center released results of a survey examining the attitudes of the general public and the scientific community as they regard to science.

The results, collected from 2,553 AAAS members and 2,001 public respondents, suggest that although average Americans hold a positive view of scientists and support the funding of research, they do not share the same perspectives as the scientific community on a variety of science issues.

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How To Ensure Lost Wallets Are Returned

Wallets containing the picture of an infant were most likely to
trigger an honest reaction from the finder Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Lost wallets which contain a snapshot of a baby are more likely to be returned to their owners, scientists have discovered.

Researchers left 240 wallets on the streets of Edinburgh last year to see how many were returned to their owners. Some of the wallets contained one of four photographs – the baby, a cute puppy, a family and a portrait of an elderly couple.

Other wallets contained a card suggesting the owner had recently made a charity donation, while a control batch contained no additional items.

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Reduced Diet Thwarts Aging, Disease In Monkeys

Rhesus monkeys, left to right, Canto, 27, and on a restricted diet, and Owen, 29, and a control subject on an unrestricted diet, are pictured at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on May 28, 2009. The two are among the oldest surviving subjects in a pioneering long-term study of the links between diet and aging in Rhesus macaque monkeys, which have an average life span of about 27 years in captivity. Lead researcher Richard Weindruch, a professor of medicine in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and co-author Ricki Colman, associate scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, report new findings in the journal Science that a nutritious, but reduced-calorie, diet blunts aging and delays the onset of such aged-related disorders as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy. (Credit: Jeff Miller)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2009) — The bottom-line message from a decades-long study of monkeys on a restricted diet is simple: Consuming fewer calories leads to a longer, healthier life.

Writing July 10 in the journal Science, a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital reports that a nutritious but reduced-calorie diet blunts aging and significantly delays the onset of such age-related disorders as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy.

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Birds Fireproof Their Homes

Photo: This somewhat fireproof next is a courting zone of a male great bowerbird. Credit: Tomoki Okida, Japan Ethological Society and Springer Japan

From Live Science:

To beguile females, some males build mansions, others build bowers.

Male great bowerbirds (Chlamydera nuchalis) of northern Australia erect two walls of twigs partially flanking a six-foot-long passageway that they pave with conspicuous bits of bones, stones, shells, and fruits. There, the males strut their stuff, inviting females over for a tryst.

Bower construction takes a week or longer, so it's no fun when brush fire sweeps through the savanna and threatens the males' handiwork.

Yet, as a new study shows, the bowers seem strangely immune to fire.

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Rival Designs Race To Harness Ocean Energy

Photo: SeaGen was installed in the tidal currents of Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland in 2008. However, there is a suite of rival designs racing to harness ocean energy (Image: SeaGen / David Erwin)

From New Scientist:

A bout of gawky prototypes have taken to the water for the first time in recent weeks, signalling a new assault on a decades-old problem: how to generate power from the oceans.

While most wind turbines look much the same, the contest to tap that power is more like wacky races than Formula 1. A suite of varied designs are under development in an attempt to work out the most efficient way to generate juice in the harsh chemical and physical environment of the waves and tides.

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Fate Of The Potato May Foretell The Future Of Food

From The Detroit News:

A tale from history offers us a prediction about the future of food.

The wonder crop is new and unfamiliar, lauded by scientists and politicians as having the potential to end famine and feed the poor. But the public is skeptical, regarding this new food as unnatural and dangerous. The reaction to genetically modified crops today? In fact, this is what happened when potatoes were introduced into Europe from the Americas in the 1500s and 1600s.

Scientists were enamored with this new foodstuff because it had several valuable properties. Potatoes thrive even in years when the wheat crop has failed, noted a committee of the Royal Society, Britain's pioneering scientific association, in the 1660s. Better still, potatoes can be grown in almost any kind of soil and take only three to four months to mature, against 10 for cereal grains. And potatoes produce two to four times as many calories per acre as wheat, rye or oats. The case for widespread adoption of the potato, the scientists argued, was obvious.

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The Wonder Of Mars In Its Seasonal Glory

These images of sand dunes in Proctor Crater were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

From The Independent:

The astonishing diversity of the Red Planet's landscape is captured by the world's most powerful camera, reports Science Editor Steve Connor.

The most powerful camera that has ever been used to survey another planet is capturing spectacular pictures of the surface of Mars to reveal a rich tapestry of geological features. Located on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a Nasa probe launched in 2005, the HiRise camera has already taken detailed images of the outlines of ancient extra-terrestrial seas and rivers – the first unambiguous evidence that shorelines once existed on the Red Planet.

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Did an Ancient Volcano Freeze Earth?

Remnant. Toba today comprises a caldera lake, a newly arising cone (central island), and a pip-squeak of a volcanic progeny named Pusukbukit (left). Credit: NASA

From Science Now:

One fine day about 74,000 years ago, a giant volcano on Sumatra blew its top. The volcano, named Toba, may have ejected 1000 times more rock and other material than Mount St. Helens in Washington state did in 1980. In the process, it cooled the climate by at least 10°C, causing a global famine. But could the aftermath have been even worse? A new study puts to rest questions about whether Toba plunged Earth into a 1000-year deep freeze and whether an equivalent event today could jump-start a new, millennia-long ice age.

Giant volcanic eruptions such as Toba briefly cause the opposite of global warming. Although eruptions do emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, volcanoes also spew sulfur dioxide. Combined with water vapor, sulfur dioxide forms sulfate aerosols, which can spread around the globe, blocking solar radiation and chilling the air before becoming acid rain and snow.

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