Science Etcetera, 20080514

May 14th, 2008

It works pretty sluggishly, but this navigable life-size image of a blue whale is pretty spiffy.

Life Size Blue Whale
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

Keeping Astronauts on the Moon free of dust will be crucial to their long term health. CoLabs in Second Life has several engineering examples to overcome this obstacle.

New York State’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) saves $10 in health costs to every $1 spent.

Why did the EPA fire toxicologist Deborah Rice after bestowing one of its most prestigious scientific awards on her just a few years before? Because the American Chemistry Council told them to when she was assigned to investigate them.

People avoid mathematics because they think it’s too geeky.

The Vatican says it’s okay to believe in aliens.

Cornell researchers who genetically engineered a human embryo are stirring up an ethics debate.

Art made from flowers.

Lizette
By Elsa Mora

Red cars are percieved as being louder.

Inspiring or creepy? New York has established an ambulance for harvesting organs.

Nissan plans to have an electric car built by 2010.

Can you read the text in these images?

A letter by Einstein reads, “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

Even more science in Second Life.

Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope has gone live. I’ve downloaded it, but have yet to see how it compares to google space.

Using microwaves to cook ship ballasts is the most surefire way to prevent invasive species from entering home ports from overseas.

Here’s a play on a popular Dove ad (good commercial, recommended), critical of the company for using palm oil in their products, which contributes to deforestation of the rain forests:

One comment to “Science Etcetera, 20080514”

The lunar dust problem is compounded due to the fact that it tends to be electrically charged. It’s too easy for many people (including some physicists, I’ll have you know) to think that the moon is in space which is a vacuum. Except that it isn’t a vacuum; interplanetary space contains a plasma, the solar wind, that bombards the surface of the moon. Then of course the moon passes through the Earth’s magnetotail and can travel through the central plasma sheet, which is a denser plasma.

All in all, a bit of a problem.
by Kav May 14th, 2008 at 4:52 pm