Video
drorzel | August 8, 2011SteelyKid has used a pacifier from very shortly after she was born. We've been slowly working her off it-- she's stopped taking it to day care, or using it other than at bedtime or in the car-- but she's resisted giving it up entirely.
since she's now a great big three-year old, we decided it was time to ditch the pacifier completely. For help in this, we turned to her favorite tv show: MythBusters:
In that clip, Adam and Jamie investigate how difficult it is to take candy from a baby. This, predictably enough, results in a bunch of unhappy babies. SteelyKid has watched this clip a lot, so…
sciencepunk | August 3, 2011YouTube user Henry Reich is behind an ongoing series of videos exploring concepts of physics in sixty second bursts. You might think that's too short a time to explain wave particle duality, and some of the videos did leave me hankering for extra information, but hey, that's more than I can say for any physics class I took at school!
(Thanks to Noah Raford for the title)
jtoney | July 30, 2011
"Daddy, do you know where this cheese came from?"
I absolutely love this video demonstrating that learning science can be - and should be - fun. Enjoy!
This series is a result of a collaboration between broadcast media (NBC) and scientists (National Science Foundation.)
From Eureka Alert:
National Science Foundation and NBC Learn launch 'Chemistry Now' video series
Videos celebrate International Year of Chemistry; available cost-free to students, teachers and fans of chemistry.
In celebration of the International Year of Chemistry, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NBC Learn, the…
drorzel | July 30, 2011SteelyKid's third birthday is next week, but we're going to Kate's mother's for the day itself, so we're having a birthday party today for her and her friends from day care. So, even though all the news is depressing, it's a day to be happy. So here's a happy song:
(OK, I don't quite know what to make of the final bit with the flower, but the tune is relentlessly cheery, and never fails to raise a smile when it comes up on iTunes. It's the signature Friday tune of one of the DJ's on KEXP, otherwise I wouldn't ever have heard of it.)
drorzel | July 29, 2011We're having a birthday party for SteelyKid tomorrow, so I have a ton of stuff to do today. I may have something more substantive later, but for the moment, here are a couple of videos to enjoy. First, from the Minute Physics set of videos at YouTube, an explanation of why you have quantum physics to thank for sunny days:
There's a bunch of good stuff in the Minute Physics channel, so if you're looking for a way to kill time in small chunks, have at it.
And if you prefer your physics to be classical, this demo from Harvard has been making the rounds:
Isn't physics awesome? Of course it is.
jtoney | July 28, 2011
Why is the sun so hot?
Well, the sun is "like a big nuclear submarine - in the sky."
Henry Reich, who studied Physics at Grinnell College & Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and is now working on an MFA in Film Production at the University of Southern California, explores this question in, yes, one minute. He is developing a series of these innovative videos to explain concepts in physics to help us understand our world.
I invite your feedback and hope you enjoy this minute.
Note that Greg Laden posted this on July 26; my apologies for the redundancy.
drorzel | July 28, 2011A while back, I explained how polarized sunglasses work, the short version of which is that light reflected off the ground in front of you tends to be polarized, and by blocking that light, they reduce the effects of glare. This is why fishermen wear polarized sunglasses (they make it easier to see through the surface of water) and why they're good for driving (they cut down on glare off the road ahead). I almost exclusively buy polarized sunglasses, because I like this feature.
But let's say you have a pair of polarized sunglasses that broke, because they were cheap to begin with (such as…
sciencepunk | July 22, 2011No sooner than the smell of low Earth orbit had worn off the space shuttle Atlantis, Nature editor Adam Rutherford was stitching together footage of its final mission into this wonderful tribute to the golden age of manned spaceflight.
Adam says:
I've made a short music video for Nature and Scientific American marking the end of the Space Shuttle era. It consists of every single one of the 135 missions, in order, set to the a music of 65daysofstatic. It is my love letter to the Space Shuttle.The editing was done by Charlotte Stoddart and Dave Holloway, and the music was remixed by Paul…
jtoney | July 19, 2011The Universal Periodic Review "has great potential to promote and protect human rights in the darkest corners of the world." - Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General
Should nations open themselves up to scrutiny by the United Nations? The Universal Periodic Review, adopted in 2006, takes a very close look at how nations fare in a broad range of areas such as civil rights, immigration and respect for basic human rights.
The United States participated in this review, with the goal of establishing a model for other nations. Surprisingly, the United States fared far worse on this "humanity…
sciencepunk | July 18, 2011YouTube artist and multi-instrumentalist Michael John Blake has been exploring the musical patterns within mathematics, by assigning each note on the major scale a numeral. In this wonderful composition he plays Tau, a number used in a similar way to Pi, for calculating values of circles and whatnot.
drorzel | July 14, 2011On Monday, I posted a short video and asked about the underlying physics. Here's the clip again, showing SteelyKid and then me going down a slide made up of a whole bunch of rollers at a local playground:
The notable thing about this is that SteelyKid takes a much, much longer time to get down the slide than I do. This is very different than an ordinary smooth slide, where elementary physics says we should go down the slide at the same rate, and empirically I tend to be a little slower than she is.
So what's the difference?
First of all, let's be a little more quantitative about this. Here's…
jtoney | July 13, 2011
Sheril Kirshenbaum has studied why we kiss and what happens biologically. One artist, Natalie Irish, has taken this to a whole new level.
She paints using her lips! Her creative method is demonstrated in this video:
I wonder what's going on biologically as she creates these paintings?
From her website: curious indeed.
To say the least, young Natalie was a child prodigy. Her wizardry in drawing, painting, and sculpture truly showed no bounds. Her transcendent intellect, flowing blonde hair and angelic face simply added to her magnetism as a young artist. Her charm and philanthropic…
jtoney | July 11, 2011
Beauty can be everlasting, ephemeral {internet sensations} and above all else, in the eye of the beholder. Poets and artists have explored this mystery for centuries, but can science reveal new insights?
Ed Yong at DiscoverBlogs recently wrote about a fascinating brain imaging study done that begins to address this question, exploring visual and musical stimuli. Yes, beauty can be express itself in many other ways, but this is a start.
Tomohiro Ishizu and Semir Zeki from University College London watched the brains of 21 volunteers as they looked at 30 paintings and listened to 30 musical…
drorzel | July 11, 2011We took SteelyKid to the playground at one of the local elementary schools on Sunday morning. this one includes an odd sort of slide, made of dozens of rollers that are 1-2 inches in diameter (they're all the same size-- the range is just because I didn't measure them carefully). They're on really good bearings, and while it's kind of noisy, it's a reasonably smooth ride.
There is, however, one slightly mysterious aspect to this slide, clearly visible in this video that Kate was good enough to shoot for me:
SteelyKid takes something like 6 seconds to go down the slide, while it only takes me…
jtoney | July 9, 2011
Photo source.
This is a guest post co-written with Nathaniel Epstein-Toney.
SpongeBob and Patrick's episode "Idiot Box" (2002) brillinatly portrayed imagination games inside a cardboard box. Could it (Did it?) inspire the 3D virtual box or the 3D virtual CAVE?
We believe it could have. No, SpongeBob and Patrick are not scientists. But their playfulness and imagination is the very essence of scientific discoveries. If you have not experienced a 3D virtual box or a 3D CAVE, in which you are fully immersed in a 3D environment, a reminder of this wonderful episode may give you an idea:
From…
jtoney | July 8, 2011
Why do we itch? Is there a cure?
Counterirritation is an effective treatment, used for decades, based a simple idea:
Pain masks the itch
For example, if you're suffering from poison ivy, taking a very hot shower can bring some relief, or ingesting something with capsaicin, the pain-inducing compound in hot peppers such as jalepenos, can be effective. Can the nerves that transmit sensations of pain and itch be separated or are they intrinsically intertwined? As shown in this "ball of nerves," separation of sensations is no easy task.
Courtesy of Xinzhong Dong
Ball Of Nerves
Just before…
jtoney | July 7, 2011I've written about Going Gaga, but this is a curious turn.... Republican Presidential Candidate Tim Pawlenty Goes Gaga. Is he becoming a "little monster"?
Can anyone explain a Republican candidate for President of the United States providing ad lib supportive commentary on a pop superstar, known for her support of the gay community {e.g., marriage equality}, amidst the intense negotiations about our nation's debt ceiling? I think I know the answer.
His "all time" favorite performer is Bruce Springsteen, but he asks his interviewers what their favoriate Lady Gaga song is, then launches…
jtoney | July 6, 2011Can animals be immortal?
This question is explored by RocketBoom in an interesting way - providing examples of regeneration in nature, from fungi to jellyfish to...well, I'll let Molly explain.
Nothing lasts forever, but the animals on today's episode stick around a lot longer than the rest of us. Molly
In case you're not familiar with their website, it provides fresh perspectives to a wide variety of topics:
Rocketboom is a daily international news and entertainment network of online programming based in New York City. We cover and create a wide range of information and commentary from…
jtoney | July 6, 2011Stop smoking? Absolutely. Easy as swallowing a pill? Think again.
A study just published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by my colleague Dr. Sonal Singh indicates that Chantix can lead to "increased risk of a major harmful cardiovascular event" by 72% compared to placebo.
"People want to quit smoking to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease but in this case they're taking a drug that increases the risk for the very problems they're trying to avoid," says Sonal Singh, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of…
jtoney | June 30, 2011
American taxpayers are supporting more and more private faith-based schools, including anti-science creationist curricula, whether you like it or not.
Consider this, from an article draft that I am currently writing with Sir Harold Kroto:
From 1980 to 2001, the opening of private schools outpaced public schools by nearly two to one (15,131 vs. 8,130). During the same period, the number of private schools increased by 73% whereas the number of public schools only increased by 9%. Current data show that about two out of five schools are private, compared to one out of four in 1980. Three…