Archive page 100
Futurism: Why Atom Lasers are Awesome
Technological advancement moves in strange ways. It’s often the technologies that come from just outside our mainstream field of vision that change things the most radically. The properties of semiconductors were well known decades before...
The GhostBot Robot Fish
Northwestern University scientists have have created a robotic fish (GhostBot) that mimics the swimming motions of the black ghost knifefish found in the Amazon. Ghostbot can move from swimming forward and backward to swimming vertically...
Alien Pool Party! Strange Cases Of Vanishing Water Blamed On Spacemen
One day you’re floating in your backyard above ground pool. Sipping on a Costco purchased pre-made margarita listening to C&C Music Factory. Life is good. You head to sleep with dreams of another day of aquatic lounging splashing around in...
Hoax Of The Day: 1960 Batavia River Monster
Imagine a tale of suburban terror in the Upstate New York town of Batavia in the Mad Men-era year of 1960. Several youths report banshee-like screaming while crossing a town bridge. Days later the kids investigate and later tell...
Australian Birds Use Fear To Attract Mates
Male splendid fairy-wrens flirt using fear and sing a special song each time they hear the call of one of their predators, the butcherbirds. Although this behaviour exposes their position and puts them in danger, it has been determined...
Scientists crackle the code
I don’t know how this got by us in 2006, but apparently scientists have finally figured out what makes Rice Krispies snap, crackle and pop. It turns out that the fact that they’re made by frightening little Lebensborn demon elves has...
Does surviving swine flu super-charge your immunity?
Researchers studying nine patients who survived swine flu during the H1N1 pandemic have noticed that they produced a wide range of antibodies that could be used to fight off other strains. Currently they’re looking to see if they can use...
Woolly Mammoths By 2015?
One man is on a mission to bring woolly mammoths back from the dead. A technique for successfully recovering frozen cells to use in creating clones was pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental...
Sun Rises Two Days Early In Greenland
No one knows exactly why the sun rose roughly 48 hours ahead of schedule in the remote Greenland town of Ilulissat which like many arctic circle towns spends prolonged periods in total darkness. Some say global warming has melted the ice...
The Legend of Old Hitler
Along the west coast of Florida, fisherman have been swapping stories for years about a monster hammerhead shark that goes by the name of “Old Hitler”. He is said to be between 20 and 25 feet long and lurks in the waters of the Gulf of...
Real Life Superhero Gets Nose Broken, Narrowly Avoids Death
The question of how the law should hand real life super heroes is a very interesting one. On one hand, they are mostly well-intentioned citizens who deter crime in a neighborhood. After all, if you were going to mug someone would you want...
And Now: A Terrifying Picture Of A Baby Cephalopod…
From PZ Meyer’s Pharyngula blog. Click through to see the full picture. This could, without alteration, be the cover of a metal album. [Pharyngula]
Pull over, that black hole is too fat
Weighing in at over 6 billion times the mass of our solar system, astronomers have found the most massive black hole yet at the center of galaxy M87. Three times large than Pluto’s orbit, it’s very, very big. Not to be outdone, chubby...
Who Wants To Hear About Leading Edge Bigfoot Research? Come To The Sasquatch Summit!
The greatest minds in Sasquatch research will gather in British Columbia this April to best asses where we are in the long hunt for the crypto creature and to honor those who have done significant work in the field to track down and...
Minecraft, Tron and the Singularity
One of the fascinating premises of movies like Tron and the Matrix is the idea of a computer powerful enough to simulate life itself. Although some process (like protein functions) are way beyond our current capabilities, replicating them...
We’ll make great pets: Why we shouldn’t fear our new alien overlords
So a new research paper has come out and told us what Hollywood has been telling us for years; if we meet aliens they’re most likely going to act like 16th century conquistadors and take our resources and annihilate us in the process....
Subway Surprise
Rise and shine! [Animal Planet]
Random Mass Bird Death Caused By New Fault Line?
Podcast: Dead, Angry Birds
Meet The Beetles: New Law Requires Full Disclosure On Use Of Beetles In Food
A very specific kind of beetle is used as an edible red dye. It has been used in foods you’ve eaten your entire life. Now, you’ll be required by law to be aware that you’re munching on the remains of a bug. [Live Science]