Big Pickles

Amusingly, the toilet on the International Space Station really did break down. It's fixed now.

Twitter ties it all together.

Labels: science, tv

I wonder if Richard Feynman has this picture hanging up somewhere?

Bonus points if you can count all the theories, conjectures, constants, and cats represented here.

Labels: science

You have fifteen minutes to name as many elements as you can.

You don't have to know where they go on the chart, but you do have to spell their names correctly.

Ready... GO!

(I got 40 in seven minutes before I gave up. I'm sure some of you out there can fill in the whole chart.)

P.S. What's with elements 112-118? Are they new? I don't remember ever learning them. And talk about unoriginal names.

Labels: games, science

The 2007 Periodic Table of Elements Printmaking Project.

For example, here's Potassium:

I though it would be fun to show the element in a more different way, as to where it is found (bananas) and what the element was classified as : metal... so I thought that making a structural banana with plates jumping into the foreground and informing the viewer some basic data, the atomic number and name of the element.

Labels: art, science

Who knew? The opposite of Absolute Zero is the Planck temperature, 10^32 Kelvin, the temperature beyond which the molecules of matter become black holes unto themselves, or something.

Some scientists believe that we, or at least our universe, have already experienced the Planck temperature, although it went by so quickly you may have missed it. It occurred at 10^-43 of a second after the Big Bang, the great cataclysm in which the universe was born. (10^-43 of a second, in case you're not hip to the notation, is an incredibly tiny fraction of time. Time enough to create the universe, but not, as a University of Chicago physicist was once at pains to explain, time enough to get off a disputed last-tenth-of-a-second shot against the Chicago Bulls.)

(I had no idea that Planck had so many units.)

Labels: science, wikipedia

There are some awesome pictures of Antarctica here. I always thought the entire continent was covered in ice all the time, but I was wrong.

By the way, does anyone know if we treat Antarctica like space, in that no country is allowed to claim all or part of it as their own?

Labels: geography, science

This is a pretty impressive graphic of every star, planet, moon, asteroid, and TNO in the Solar System (over 200 miles in diameter) all lined up in size order.

I think you'll agree that Mimas, Saturn's smallest moon, is actually the Death Star.

Labels: pictures, science

According to this article, there is a 1 in 30,000 chance that an asteroid will collide with earth in 2036.

Considering that the odds of a person dying in a terrorist attack are 1 in 88,000, I think this justifies a War on Asteroids. Or two or three.

And since the impending attack is scheduled to occur at least ten years before Social Security goes bankrupt, and fixing that was such a priority in 2005, well, you can see that we should have begun worrying about this years ago.

Labels: politics, science

No points for creativity? Seems a bit harsh.

Labels: fun, general, science

And we'll follow the ceramic toaster with the cure for cancer.

Labels: general, science

Very cool animation that walks you through each dimension.

Labels: science, video

I can imagine Clark having a similar conversation with his own kid someday.

Labels: fun, science

Every year they ask one open-ended question and some of the most brilliant people on the planet give their answers.

This year's question is "What are you optimistic about?"

Last year's was "What is your dangerous idea?" and the year before it was "What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?"

There is some really thought provoking stuff here--along with a few crazies, of course.

Labels: general, science

In commemoration of the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's death, Joel Schlosberg has organized a Carl Sagan Blog-a-thon. Everyone with a blog who considers themselves a fan of Sagan is encouraged to say a little something.

I first encountered Sagan when I read The Demon Haunted World in July 2002. I can honestly say it changed the way I think about the world around me. I am now constantly asking myself "How good is the evidence?" when considering new ideas or even when reevaluating long-held beliefs. Not to mention that in my line of work, my Baloney Detector gets plenty of exercise.

In honor of this day, I recommend the May 12, 2006 episode of Radio Lab, all about Space. The first part, entitled Looking Up, features an interview with Ann Druyan that captures the romance that characterized space exploration during the 1970s.

Labels: audio, science

Our NPR affiliate just started running this excellent show, and while it doesn't air at a convenient time for me, that's what the Internet is for. It's about science, but it makes learning fun!. Give a listen.

Labels: audio, science