December 2010
12 posts
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Science.gov Image Search
“Science.gov Image Search searches the metadata from images provided by 3 federal agencies. More image databases will be added to Science.gov in the coming months.”
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End of the Universe as we know it? Just wait a...
“Perhaps 10 to the power of 100 years from now — a time so far away that our 13.7-billion-year-old universe would appear to be an infinitesimal fraction of a second old to that future universe’s year — practically nothing will be left in the cold, diffuse and enormous universe except black holes, which will be radiating away into nothingness excruciatingly slowly.”
Here is the...
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Discover your own planet!
Yes, you can.
“Ever dreamed of being the first to make a discovery? Want to find a planet of your own? Thanks to http://www.planethunters.org, the latest Zooniverse project, you might just be able to, using data from NASA’s Kepler mission.”
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Arsenic Life skeptics
This article from the University of Colorado has quotes from many scientists who are skeptical of the recent arsenic life reports. For example:
“Cleland said Wolfe-Simon’s results are ‘intriguing,’ especially if it were true that bacterial cells were using arsenic in place of phosphorous in their nucleic acids and proteins. ‘Unfortunately, the evidence deployed in their...
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"Why Scientific Studies Are So Often Wrong"
From the Discover Magazine Blog on Health and Medicine.
“Many, and possibly most, scientists spend their careers looking for answers where the light is better rather than where the truth is more likely to lie. They don’t always have much choice. It is often extremely difficult or even impossible to cleanly measure what is really important, so scientists instead cleanly measure what they...
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We need new solar system placements
Mike Brown, Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology explains why in this great Boing Boing post — Die, Pluto Die!
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Smithsonian Commons
“In July, 2009 we completed a Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy that describes an updated digital experience, a new learning model that helps people with their “lifelong learning journeys,” and the creation of a Smithsonian Commons, a new part of our digital presence dedicated to stimulating learning, creation, and innovation through open access to Smithsonian research,...
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A different kind of life form on Earth
“A couple of years ago, scientists found bacteria in California’s Mono Lake that used arsenic compounds, rather than water, as an ingredient of photosynthesis. In fact, there’s been a lot of weird life research centered around Mono Lake. Hot, salty, low in oxygen, and high in lots of other useful chemicals, the Lake has been described as a here-and-now model of the old primordial...