Pages Tagged “Science”
Reviews
- A City on Mars
★★★★★
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Accessible and intricately researched, with scattered humor to keep the reader’s interest. Getting to space is the easy part. Staying there is going to be a lot more complicated. - The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)
★★★★★
Katie Mack
An engaging read for the general audience about what we currently know about the history and structure of the universe and what that knowledge – and the pieces we don’t know – might mean for its future and eventual end. - Four Lost Cities
★★★★★
Annalee Newitz
Fascinating look at how cities form, live and die, seen through archaeological discoveries at Pompeii, Angkor, Cahokia and Çatalhöyük. - iNaturalist ★★★★★ A citizen science project for reporting and identifying wildlife observations, plus a phone app for use ‘in the field.’ Think of it as Pokémon Go for real animals and plants.
- Soonish
★★★★★
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Fascinating, accessible, funny, and still relevant overview of cutting-edge tech, even though it took me 7 years to get around to reading it. - Under Alien Skies
★★★★★
Philip Plait
A fun look at what it would be like to visit other planets or star systems, weaving together sci-fi scenarios, the science behind them, and the history of how those discoveries were made.
Blog Posts
- Eclipses and World Building
I can go with your scifi/fantasy story’s super-impossible thing being associated with an eclipse. It’s activating or deactivating people’s super-powers? Sure! Certain magic spells can only be cast during an eclipse? Sure! The moon transforms into cheese? OK, whatever. (pun not intended) But please, please get the basic mechanics right!
- Elemental States of Matter
It’s interesting how well earth, water, air and fire map to solid, liquid, gas and plasma. People recognized the four states of matter, but for ages they interpreted them as ingredients instead of structure.
- Asymptomatic Covid and Genetics
People with a particular variation of the HLA gene who had Covid were dramatically more likely to have had an asymptomatic case.
- Prioritizing Trees vs Urban Heat
Combining data on current urban tree cover, heat, health, income, energy sources and more to determine where planting new trees would most help.
- Things to remember with Omicron in the news
1. Science isn’t handed down from on high fully formed. It’s a process of figuring things out based on what you know so far and what you discover. Like trying to determine the picture on a puzzle when the pieces are still scattered around the house. You look for more pieces, you figure out where […]
- Pixar, the Space Shuttle, and Kids’ Museum Memories
Went with the family to see Space Shuttle Endeavour and a Pixar-themed exhibit on computer animation at the California Science Center. The 6YO loved the Pixar exhibit, which broke down all the steps to creating a computer-animated movie into separate hands-on centers where you could do things like… Apply different textures and bump maps to […]
- Science vs MagicâI Mean, Sufficiently-Advanced Technology
An odd contradiction: People are turning away from science as a way to understand the world, even though we keep using more and more advanced technology which is invented using that scientific knowledge.
What if itââ¬â¢s that, in terms of Clarkeââ¬â¢s Third Law, the technology we use is sufficiently advanced that it might as well be magic?
- Wi-Fi Sprouter (The Seeds Are All Right)
Some things to consider about the experiment with seeds and a wifi router. Plus, we tried a similar experiment ourselves and the seeds grew just fine.
- Dosage Matters: The Car Analogy
Yes, something *can* be harmless or even beneficial at low dosages and dangerous at higher levels. Think about that the next time you see a scare warning.
- Lessons from Radioactive Kitty Litter
In February, a drum of radioactive waste burst because they used organic kitty litter as a stabilizer. Totally off the wall, but illustrates some points.
- Gullible
There’s an old children’s joke that goes like this: “Did you know the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary?” Then when the other child goes to look it up, you laugh at them for believing you. On the face of it, it’s a lesson in not believing everything you hear. But when it comes down […]
- Recent Links
Those early Priuses are still going strong, ten years later. Never put critical private information online unless you are certain it’s protected. Your tax documents could show up in search results. Optimizing a Screen for Mobile Use (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox) Why bad science reporting matters: Churn The Other Cheek Homeopathy vs. Science: A Metaphor
- On Science
Once you’re not confused about something, it’s time to move on to the next problem.
- Links: Science as a Subway, App Pricing, Terraforming IRL
Some interesting stuff I’ve found this week.
- Earthquake Frequency
According to the USGS, the frequency of large earthquakes has remained constant over the last century. In a typical year, the planet has roughly 17 “major” earthquakes (measuring 7.0 to 7.9 on the Richter scale) and one “great” earthquake (measuring 8.0 or higher). So, no, earthquakes are not increasing as a sign/symptom of the impending […]
- SMBC Comics on Science
Links to two SMBC comic strips on science: Teaching the controversy, and the question of “why?”
- Mad Science: The Science Behind Science-Fiction – Fringe, Eureka! and Caprica
Sci-Fi show reps talk about horror, space, killer robots, undead legal testimony, and the implied “don’t try this at home” factor with Walter Bishop.
- Santa Hats, Translation, Expelled
Saw a bunch of Santa hats lying alongside the entire length of the 55 South to 405 South ramp – and it’s a long bridge. Maybe a box came open? Got tech support question in Spanish for wrong company. Replied in bad Spanish with link. Checked against Google Translate. Google has a better vocabulary than […]
- Ben Stein Compares Scientists to Nazis
Well, what little respect I had left for Ben Stein is rapidly evaporating. Apparently it’s not good enough for him to claim that “Darwinism” leads to genocide in Expelled, now he’s running the interview circuit making statements like this: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. [PZ] Myers, talking about how […]
- Sci-Tech Links
Scientists have built a computer model of the Neanderthal vocal tract based on fossils, and have simulated the kinds of sounds they could have produced. Ever since I read Robert J. Sawyer’s Neanderthal Parallax novels, I’ve been fascinated by the idea that there were two distinct human species, living side by side, for perhaps thousands […]
- Bad Science. Good Sci-Fi.
There are certain ideas that I find completely acceptable in the context of science-fiction, but completely looney in the context of actual science. Take, for instance, Erich von Däniken’s premise that gods were really ancient alien astronauts. It’s an interesting idea, but it’s way out there in terms of science. It assumes that (a) myths […]
- Gods and Comics
I was thinking about a discussion on last month’s Flash #226 and got to thinking about the way religion figures into mainstream comic books. Not the way religious characters are portrayed, but the way the fictional world works. I’m not familiar enough with Marvel (though I can make some guesses based on the presence of […]
- Billion-year-old Nuclear Reactors
From the Astronomy Picture of the Day, it’s the remnants of a two-billion-year-old nuclear reactor discovered in 1972 in a mine in Oklo, Gabon. Apparently in the old days there was enough uranium-235 in the Earth’s crust that, under the right conditions, nuclear fission could occur naturally. Over time the fuel was used up, and […]