Science Etcetera Venusday, 20080321

March 21st, 2008

Mei Xiang

Mei Xiang, the female giant panda at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo
Photo by Jessie Cohen/Smithsonian’s National Zoo

You know spring is here when giant panda mating season kicks off at the National Zoo.

Spring is also here way too early, as researchers have found by comparing a May 30, 1868 photo to a photo of the same location today (compared photos are not in the article, grrrr…).

The City of Seattle is giving up on bottled water.

In other water news, it takes 37 gallons of water to make a cup of coffee, 634 gallons to make a hamburger.

In other other water news, check out these cool measuring cups that put things in perspective. (HT oranchak).

Men mistake an friendly smile as a come on from a woman because they are oblivious to the subtleties of non-verbal cues.

Science! Progress! Reason! Equality! It’s the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse!!! (HT Sijadasi)

Atheist Apocalypse

Atheist Apocalypse

Dark Matter the movie. I’ll reserve judgment till I see it.

According to simulations, some carbon buckeyballs can hold “volumes of hydrogen so dense as to be almost metallic,” which holds promise for future hydrogen power technologies.

Mars is covered in table salt, which is good news for when we go looking for fossilized life there.

Natural sciences describe our world, mathematics describes all possible worlds. The Riemann zeta-function holds the secret to how prime numbers are distributed, and the discovery of a new L-Function may hold the key to understanding the Riemann zeta–I have no idea what 95% of this article says, but I know it’s cool.

Social Networking needs to get more Web 2.0, the fact that we have to log into these applications is proof that they aren’t. “Tear down this wall (Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Linkdin, etc.)!!!”

Today’s Moment of Science, in memory of Arthur C. Clark:

4 comments to “Science Etcetera Venusday, 20080321”

The November 2006 Issue of Discover has those Lowell Mass. Cemetary pictures you are looking for.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/nov/climate-change-vegetation/
by Vicky March 21st, 2008 at 9:52 am
Since when is science fiction considered science?

-BMF
by BMF March 21st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
science fiction “is the herald of possibility. It is the plea that someone should work on the future. Yet it is not prophecy. It is the dream that precedes the dawn when the inventor or scientist awakens and goes to his books or his lab saying, ‘I wonder whether I could make that dream come true in the world of real science.’”

- L. Ron Hubbard
by ideonexus March 24th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Cool quote from a man who has personally done much to hurt science with his legacy.
by ideonexus March 24th, 2008 at 10:44 pm