Defending Physics Against Cracked.com : Starts With A Bang
Feb 6, 2012 Science
Imagine my disappointment when I read this, and realized that the “6 Scientific Discoveries that Laugh in the Face of Physics” turn out to all be things that physics understands and can explain! Looking at it today, you can see that well over 1,000,000 people have read this, so let’s see if we can’t get the correct information back out there to as many of them as possible. Without further ado, let’s take a look at these six scientific discoveries, and do our best to get it right!
Social Dynamics of Digg
Feb 6, 2012 Science
Online social media provide multiple ways to find interesting content. One important method is highlighting content recommended by user’s friends. We examine this process on one such site, the news aggregator Digg. With a stochastic model of user behavior, we distinguish the effects of the content visibility and interestingness to users. We find a wide range of interest and distinguish stories primarily of interest to a users’ friends from those of interest to the entire user community. We show how this model predicts a story’s eventual popularity from users’ early reactions to it, and estimat
APOD: 2012 February 5 – Lunation
Feb 6, 2012 Science
Our Moon’s appearance changes nightly. This time-lapse sequence shows what our Moon looks like during a lunation, a complete lunar cycle. As the Moon orbits the Earth, the half illuminated by the Sun first becomes increasingly visible, then decreasingly visible. The Moon always keeps the same face toward the Earth. The Moon’s apparent size changes slightly, though, and a slight wobble called a libration is discernible as it progresses along its elliptical orbit. During the cycle, sunlight reflects from the Moon at different angles, and so illuminates different features differently. A full luna
Crystalline Materials Enable High-Speed Electronic Function in Optical Fibers
Feb 6, 2012 Science
Scientists at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with Penn State University have, for the first time, embedded the high level of performance normally associated with chip-based semiconductors into an optical fiber, creating high-speed optoelectronics
Did Early Humans Ride the Waves to Australia?
Feb 6, 2012 Science
Until 150,000 years ago, all our ancestors lived in Africa—and then they started spreading out. Matt Ridley examines the theories around the exodus.
Norovirus: What It Is, How We’re Fighting It
Feb 6, 2012 Science
If you have spent a day or two in bed with vomiting and diarrhea sometime over the last two months, you are certainly not alone. Winter is here, and with it comes so-called “winter vomiting disease.” Your mother might have called it “the 24 hour bug;” others know it as “the cruise ship virus.” Whatever you call it, it’s miserable. And although people rarely die from this illness, most feel like they are going to die!
Your state sucks at science
Feb 5, 2012 Science
Seriously. This map suggests that unless you live in California, a smattering of states out East, or a small handfull of other states sprinkled across the country, you’re looking at a very grave problem when it comes to scientific illiteracy in your community’s youth (and, presumably, its…
"Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth" The Other Half
Feb 5, 2012 Science
NASA said that their Blue Marble 2012 was “the most amazing image of Earth ever.” Now they have released the other half, answering to popular demand.
NASA: Colbert Advocates Space Station Research
Feb 5, 2012 Science
This is the last video I expected to run across on NASA’s site.
Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept a comet
Feb 5, 2012 Science
Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept a comet and to make history. In 2014, Rosetta will enter orbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenkoand land a probe on it, two firsts.