Great White Shark Clip

A clip from BBC Planet Earth. Incredible footage of great white sharks.

read more | digg story

New York City Bans Trans Fats from Restaurants

In an effort to help Americans eat healthier, NYC health officials have implemented new requirements including a ban from using artificial trans fats, and requiring many restaurants to post food calorie counts right on their menus.

Read more details from these news articles:

LiveScience.com - "NYC Bans Trans Fats From Eateries"

The New York Times - "New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants" (log-in required)

"Sugar Plum Fairy" on Bike Parts

Tchaikovsky on bicycle? This site plays a short clip of a challenge by bike part manufacturer Specialized to play holiday music using bicycle components. A very nice effect. The page describes how it was done, plus even more pictures. I hope they arrange more!

Legendary Violins Were Chemically Treated?

Texas A & M researcher, Joseph Nagyvary, hypothesizes that the beautiful sound of the famous Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments could be from the wood being chemically treated.

Read more about the mysteries behind these legendary violins at LiveScience.

Furrier Transform

Short story: The Shoulders of Giants

Escape Pod has another great sci-fi podcast. This one's a "what if" about what could happen if humanity sends a sleeper colony ship to another solar system. What do they do if they find someone's there? This one's PG.

AbbyMath.com

A great educational site led by Abby Brown, an enthusiastic math teacher at Torrey Pines High School, AbbyMath.com introduces fascination of math and science to young students and encourages their enthusiasm. The site is updated as her classes evolve, producing examples of how other students can learn about math, including some that are interactive on the web. She and her students presented their work at the recent Wolfram Technology Conference. See also her MathRules.org site.

Note the new permanent link on the right!

Spooky Astronomy!

Happy Halloween!

Did you know that Halloween or October 31st is a "cross quarter date," meaning approximately midway between an equinox and a solistice? There are four cross quarter dates in a year. Lots of folklore and legends related to these dates.

Read more by visiting Spooky Astronomy at SpaceWeather.com.

How To Make a Great Cup of Coffee

I love coffee and always on the lookout for tips to make the "perfect cup". This LA Times story has some great tips.

read more | digg story

Sweet Tired Cat

I could not resist sharing this cute little video. Enjoy!

Imagine Earth without people

Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away tomorrow, transported to a re-education camp in a far-off galaxy. (Let's not invoke the mother of all plagues to wipe us out, if only to avoid complications from all the corpses). Left once more to its own devices, Nature would reclaim the planet.

read more | digg story

Jupiter's Little Red Spot Changing...

A NASA press release today reveals that Jupiter's Little Red Spot is growing stronger and has changed color from white to red.

Read more from the NASA press release.

Comet Swan

A newly discovered comet is visible this week with binoculars. It is in the northeastern sky not far from the Big Dipper. It is visible before dawn these next few days.

Read more about the comet at Astronomy Picture of the Day.

New Discoveries from Saturn

Saturn sports a new ring in an image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Sunday, Sept. 17, during a one-of-a-kind observation. Other spectacular sights captured by Cassini's cameras include wispy fingers of icy material stretching out tens of thousands of kilometers from the active moon, Enceladus, and a cameo color appearance by planet Earth.

read more | digg story

After 40 Years, Star Trek 'Won't Die'

It seems like the TV show that never dies. Forty years ago a science fiction show debuted on television with a paltry budget and a bold mission to go where no one had gone before.

read more | digg story

SMART-1 crash landing on the moon

No this was not by accident but planned. The European Space Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft impacted the moon on September 2 at 10:42 PM PDT (5:42 UT, September 3).

Detailed images of before impact and after can be seen at the ESA SMART-1 website.

Learn more about the SMART-1 mission and its accomplishments.

A Smoke Angel from Airplane Flares

Astronomy Picture of the Day has a great picture of a smoke angel formed from a flare released from a jet.

Read more about the picture from the APOD website.

Male Sympathetic Pregnancy

A Quirks and Quarks podcast on male monkeys who gain weight after their partners are pregnant, even before the female shows significantly. They propose that the fathers are helping to prepare to care for the infants.

Star Trek Inspirational Posters

Amusing posters to inspire! Available for download to your computer.

See them all here: Star Trek Inspirational Posters

Cat parasite affects human culture

A cat parasite affects human personalities, according to a story in LiveScience. Makes one wonder about households with lots of cats....