Science Etcetera Mercuryday, 20080227

February 27th, 2008

Butterfly fish
Chaetodontri fascialis

Butterfly fish, a popular tropical fish, May Face Extinction, but The Great Beyond wonders, are they just too stupid to live?

The Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault is now online.

“My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.” has won the National Geographic planetary mnemonic contest. Lisa Loeb is recording a song based on it.

Shop till you drop!!! Wards Natural Science, which specializes in homeschooling kits is having a clearance sale!

Cool Blog Alert! Scientists in the desert are practicing for living on Mars, and they’re blogging about it.

Humans don’t have them, but some flies have “parasperm,” infertile sperm cells whose sole purpose is keep fertile sperm alive.

What a tease. Lessig Won’t Run for Congress.

Turn the volume down on your computer, and then check out the visualization demonstrations at Cascade on Wheels, a project to help visualize automobile usage.

Hiccups are a leftover from when our ancestors were fish, it’s a signal from our brain stems trying to tell our gills to get working (from the book Your Inner Fish).

For today’s moment of science, check out this video of clouds streets, an intriguing natural phenomenon (HT Pink Tentacle):