nerd
grrlscientist | February 14, 2010tags: nerds, valentine's day, comedy, funny, humor, parody, offbeat, music video, education, streaming video
I did what this guy suggests and went one further: I married a nerd (but not on VD).
It's kinda hard being a nerd on Valentine's Day.
Cause Statistically ladies don't feel the same way.
So i say to all the girls,
From the nerds across the world.
Hug a nerd on Valentines Day.
Oh it only takes me one minute so solve a rubix cube.
But when it comes to the ladies I'm a really big noob.
So i say to all the girls,
from the nerds across the world.
Hug a nerd on Valentine's Day.
Spoken: YOU…
cwilcox | April 27, 2009"Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" - better known as EPCOT - was originally Walt Disney's vision of a perfect city, home to 20,000 people. In his words,
"EPCOT... will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise."
Disney's vision was never…
cwilcox | January 27, 2009OK, I couldn't help myself. I see all these super-special bloggers making their own gear, and I want some too!
So, I cafepressed.
Here's the designs available, if you need a nerdy gift:
Definitely A Nerd (example, tote bag)
I always wanted one, so FINALLY, here's the "I am Statistically Significant!" shirt:
And, of course, Observations of a Nerd!
cwilcox | January 20, 2009If you're a fan of once-a-week info bites like my Sci-Fi Parasites or Doses of Cute, you should check out Biochemical Soul's new Adaptation of the week. It's sure to be a great new weekly digest of adaptations at their finest!
cwilcox | January 20, 2009Here's a nice San Diego beach scene, made by swabbing fluorescent bacteria on a culture plate:
Now that is just cool. Here's some nerdy-background info on the artwork: the scene, by Nathan Shaner (photo: Paul Steinbach) is made from eight different colors of bacterial colonies expressing variations of the GFP and red-fluorescent coral protein dsRed. It was made in the lab of Roger Tsien, who as you might know received the Nobel Prize for his work with GFP.
cwilcox | January 15, 2009So, every once in awhile I check my feedburner stats, to see what kind of stuff attracts people to my site. You know, where people link to me from, etc. Well, I usually have a few from random google searches like "science nerd" or "tiger" (something about my Tiger Wine post is apparently very popular with google search). Sometimes, though, it's just good to know a person found what they were looking for. Like this guy:
That's damn right, biatch. Another satisfied googler, I'm sure.
cwilcox | January 11, 2009Thanks to Allie, I've found a bunch of new ways to waste time, all thanks to Sporcle.
Can you remember all 20 of the standard amino acids? (yup. Got all 20. Cheating, though, that they give you the 3-letter and 1-letter abbreviations. Makes it too easy... though spelling them right is hard!)
How about the entire periodic table? (67. Eh.)
The Geological Timescale? (I'm sorry Prof. Brooks! I totally failed this one... I am not worthy...)
Or maybe, if you're not as scientifically inclined, you want to try The 32 NFL teams or the U.S. Presidents. Does it say something bad about me that I can name…
cwilcox | January 5, 2009You may have seen the proof before. Roughly speaking, it goes like this:
girls = time x money (because girls are time and money*)
time = money (proverbial cliche) therefore:
girls = money2 Then, since
money = evil1/2 (generally credited to The Bible, I Timothy 6:10), THEREFORE:
girls =( evil1/2)2, or girls = |evil|
However, it has recently come to my attention that the assumption that "money = evil" may not be entirely accurate. Indeed, according to Chinese proverb:
time > money
Subsituting this into the proof, we find that girls are not, in fact, the root of all evil, but…
cwilcox | January 4, 2009Well, the time has come folks - The Open Laboratory 2008 winners have been announced. The Open Laboratory is a publication of the best of scientific blogging throughout the year. After a long and arduous process, the judges have narrowed the extensive list of entries down to a mere 50 blog posts to publish. And guess what?
OBSERVATIONS OF A NERD MADE THE CUT!!
That's right! My post, Having some fun with evolution is to be published among the best of them. Not to be too nerdy, but...
W00t!
So I guess the year isn't starting off too badly over here. Happy 2009 and cheers to another year of…
cwilcox | December 31, 2008Those reading my nerdy gifts posts #1 and #2 might have noticed there was supposed to be a #3... OK, so this post is a bit past the holiday shopping time, but to my credit, I got busy with the whole holidays thing. So anyhow, here, though a bit belated, are some good nerdy stocking stuffers:
What scientist doesn't want a voo-doo Albert Einstein keychain for extra smart luck? That, and he's just so CUTE!
Click on the title or this link to see the rest of the nerdy stocking stuffers!
Who doesn't want a pen that also functions as a USB drive and a Laser pointer? Of course, they're…
cwilcox | December 29, 2008I love it when I stumble upon a study that I really wish I'd thought of. I'm not a jealous researcher - I don't wish I'd sequenced the GFP gene before everyone so that I got a Nobel Prize instead. I don't wish I'd made some significant breakthrough in my field. No, I wish I'd thought of this first: Bees on Cocaine.
I mean, seriously? Who thinks of these things?
Honey Bee... hitting the nose candy?
Anyhow, a group of scientists (including a team of very lucky undergraduates) looked at how honey bees reacted to being fed a little Big C. Apparently, there was speculation previously that…
cwilcox | December 27, 2008One of the largest groups of parasites, the trematodes, have all kinds of strategies to trasmit between hosts. The genus Microphallus causes its hosts like shrimp, to swim upwards or otherwise endanger themselves so that they are eaten by the parasites next host - birds.
Sure, it looks harmless.
But perhaps the coolest trematode is Dicrocoelium dendriticum. It has a very unusual lifecycle, which is between grazing animals like sheep, snails, and ants. The adults in the sheep's liver reproduce and shed eggs into the feces. The eggs are then picked up by snails, which apparently are fairly…
cwilcox | December 25, 2008In an increasingly digital age, one researcher looked at the differential effect of reading print versus online, which seems like a logical choice. However, she found that online reading is less rewarding - and perhaps effective - than reading printed material. The reasons for this include less physical manipulation of the computer and the flashy multimedia on the pages.
There needs to be more consideration, she thus argues, as we integrate more and more technology into the classrooms and our daily life. So it might be better for you to go read the newspaper than to scan the internet and read…
cwilcox | December 21, 2008You know, in some ways, this explains a lot.
A new study from the American Journal of Public Health reveals that kids with higher IQs tend to drink more when they get older. The association is particularly true for smart women. The likelihood of developing a drinking problem if one were well above average intelligence increased 1.38 times in women and 1.17 times in men.
Now, to be fair, the kids who were just a bit above normal didn't have this problem. It's only the real geniuses that were prone to drinking. So if your kid's just a little smarter than everyone else, that's cool.
But if your…
cwilcox | December 18, 2008Now that I have survived the frigid north and have returned to the real world where there is electricity, the sun is shining and there's no such thing as ice storms, I can return to providing you the most up-to-date and important science news and such from around the world. I know, you're all so excited!
So personally, I've been spending the past day or so getting myself all jolly for the holidays. Of course, we're talking tree decorating, gift wrapping and the lovely sound of holiday pop songs to set the mood.
Apparently, some researchers from Loch Lomond Sea Life Centre in Balloch,…
cwilcox | December 7, 2008Got a lovely nerdette in your life and desperately trying to sweep her off her feet this holiday season? I've got a few ideas that might bail you out...
If you can't think of a better way to show her how you light up when you see her? How about a T-Shirt! Well, this one, anyway. These shirts show a set of hearts that, when separated, are only half-lit. But magically, or, you know, scientifically, when the two are brought together the hearts on the shirt - like your own - light up!
Of course, nerdettes are still women, and there's a gift all women love: Jewelry. But if you're going to buy…
cwilcox | December 5, 2008As the holidays draw ever nearer, I've been trying desperately to put together a Christmas list for my family and friends. After a lot of internet-searching and idea-hunting, I've stumbled upon some great nerdy gifts, and I figured I might as well share them with you all. After all, if you read this blog you're either a science-nerd or a nerd-lover, so these gift ideas just might come in handy. Here's part one of nerdy gift ideas for the holidays, with gifts for any nerd you love
A simple gift for any science nerd is a piece of the lab they can use anywhere, like this classic Beaker Mug. It's…
cwilcox | December 4, 2008The. Cutest. Kitten. Ever.
EVER.
Photo of the little ocelot kitten care of Zooborns, the best source on the internet for cute doses.
cwilcox | December 3, 2008
First Mammalian Casualty of Climate Change?
It may be time to pay our respects to the White Lemuroid Possum. It appears that the fuzzy white animal beat out Polar Bears to become the first mammalian victim of climate change, according to Australian scientists.
White Lemuroid Possums are a very rare subspecies of Hemibelideus lemuroides, found only in the upper altitudes of Queensland's northern rainforests.
"Prior to 2005 we were seeing a lemuroid every 45 minutes of spotlighting at one main site at Mt Lewis," Professor Stephen Williams, director of the Centre for Tropical Biodiversity…