At 3quarksdaily, Sam Kean has an interesting essay on the future of theoretical mathematics, whether computers capable of generating proofs will supplant human mathematicians, and what that will mean for the "beauty" of math:
There's general consensus that really genius-level mathematics is beautiful--purely and uncorruptedly beautiful, the way colored light is, or angels. More particularly, it's regarded as beautiful in a way that science is not. With a few exceptions--Einstein's theories of relativity, string theory, maybe Newton and Darwin--no matter how much science impresses people, it…
scrotum
zooillogix | March 25, 2008Our cute Raccoon Dog post (directly below this one) just took a turn for crudeness and hilarity. Thanks to the combined efforts of readers Hypatia and pough, we now know that #1 - Raccoon dogs are known in Japanese folklore to have the magical ability to expand their scrotums and #2 - we got our hands on some truly classic old woodprint images from mid 1800s Japan.
Raccoon Dogs fishing and walking on the street
Raccoon Dogs river fishing and sheltering from an evening shower.
Raccoon dogs doing something religious and depicted as the seven lucky gods (guess Buddhism is a little mellower…