Amazing photos of insect eyes
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Shikhei Goh knows his way around a macro lens. Check out his incredible gallery of insect eyes at 500px. (Via This is Colossal)
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Homework and guesswork, reconstruction and speculation: That’s always been the stuff of biographies. Still is. Don’t be fooled by newfangled methods... more
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Is Pluto a Planet or Not? [Video] via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
Have you ever wondered why Pluto lost its status as a planet? This video explains why it happened and shows the set of criteria that scientists use to determine a celestial body’s status as a planet or not.
Is Pluto a planet? [via Geeks are Sexy]
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Human Rights Without God: A Dialogue
via Big Think by Will Wilkinson
Noah Millman intervenes sensibly in the great Douthat-Sanchez debate about morality and religion:
Okay, so humanists don’t have strong reasons for their faith in human rights. Do Christians have strong reasons for believing in Christianity? Strong in the terms Douthat is talking about here?Read More
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
“Becoming a member of the Communist Party nullifies all trace of intelligence,” Dali warned Buñuel, who clung to two ideals: Stalinism and Surrealism... more
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The sordid history of a perfect poison
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Suxamethonium chloride is a common hospital anesthetic that has, off and on, moonlighted as murder weapon. Used to paralyze patients so that doctors can more easily insert a breathing tube, the drug can kill very easily if the person who gets a dose of it doesn't have access to things like respirators, or a medical team. And when somebody is killed by “sux”, the death can look conveniently like a simple heart attack. More importantly, writes professional chemist and anonymous science blogger Dr. Rubidium, for many years, there was no way to test for sux in a dead person’s bloodstream.
read the readt of Maggie’s post here
You can also link to Dr. Rubidium’s post at The Journal of Are You Fucking Kidding and a blog carnival of toxic chemicals.
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Why “the Self” Is Really an Illusion
via Big Think by Orion Jones
In his new book on consciousness, The Self Illusion, University of Bristol psychologist Bruce Hood says the idea that each individual has of who he or she is begins to flake apart at very early levels of investigation. Consider the words “I” and “me”.
Read More
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What does Eric Kandel, who’s spent the bulk of his remarkable career fixated on sea-snail neurons, know about art and aesthetics? A lot... more
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Enter the world of the xenopus
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Every now and then, I get a glorious reminder of just how much the Internet has enriched my life. Fifteen years ago, if I had arrived at a conference center – as I did yesterday for my stint in the Marine Biological Laboratory Science Journalism Fellowship program – and seen a sign in the lobby announcing the presence of a “Xenopus Workshop” I could have, eventually, found out that a Xenopus was a frog frequently used as a model animal in medical research.
Thanks to the Internet, though, I was able to learn the following things in a remarkably short period of time:
Xenopus Fact: Xenopuses (Xenopodes? Xenopi? Freshman Latin was a really long time ago, you guys) were used in one of the earliest reliable pregnancy tests. That’s because exposure to even a tiny amount of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin will cause a female Xenopus to lay eggs. Inject a female Xenopus with urine from a human female and, if the Xenopus lays eggs, it means the female human is knocked up.
Xenopus Fact: You know how some lizards can grow a new tail if you cut the old one off? Xenopuses can do that with the lenses of their eyes.
Xenopus Fact: Because Xenopuses are so widely used in laboratories, there's a whole industry of suppliers of Xenopuses and Xenopus accessories. Case in point, the “Xenopus enrichment tube” in the photo above – apparently, they like to have something to hide out in. Also, you can buy synthetic slime to replace your Xenopus’s natural protective coating that is often lost through frequent handling.
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Car heads down subway stairs via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza
AFP. Photo: REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen
A driver tried to drive into the Chaussee d'Antin La Fayette Metro station in Paris, reportedly having mistaken it for a subterranean parking garage. The driver, who gave his name as Johan, told AFP: “There's a sign saying 'Haussmann Parking' right in front (of the Metro entrance), and ... I made a mistake.”
Parisian drives car down Metro stairs (full story in France24)
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