Web gems have been sent my way.
- ASPEX, makers of scanning electron microscopes, offer to scan your sample for free and post the image on their site. Finally you can learn about the micro-structure of your tear-duct sleep gunk!
- Pablo Zalama Torres makes lovely replicas of archaeological pottery.
- An amateur volunteering for the Stardust @ Home project has probably discovered "the first known sample of matter ever collected from the local interstellar medium". Space dust!
- James Randi has come out of the closet. Congratulations, Randi! Your houdinesque escape will make it easier for other gay skeptics in the future.
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Oh, but I do rankle Mark Armitage. He has taken to cc'ing me his email to others, all in this bluff, indignant, "me am too a scientist" pose, and it is hilarious. This is probably the last one I'll post here, but I do hope he keeps sending me this stuff — it provides a moment of levity.
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I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM, and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within…