Again thanks to Laura for this site. If you’ve ever wanted to know what non-food bits are allowed in food (we’re talking insect parts, rodent hairs, mold, etc) then check out the US FDA/CFSAN Defect Action Level Handbook.
Okay it is gross. Kinda scary too. File under: “OMG I can’t believe I eat that“. You’ve been warned.
Technorati tags: food safety, food contaminants
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Quick, name Newton’s laws … eh, don’t bother I have them summarized below. Regardless sometimes the concepts of inertia, equal and opposite reactions, and force can be hard to wrap your head around. Over on ScienceBase I found this little YouTube video on these very principles. Oh and here’s the list:
Newton’s laws underpin so-called classical mechanics, as opposed to quantum mechanics or relativity theory. I’ve summarised them below, but you’ll get a much clearer understanding of bodies in motion if you watch the video.
Objects stay still or move with constant velocity unless a force pulls on them or gives them …read more
I can always count on Laura for good links in the morning. Okay, except the gnome one, but she hadn’t looked at it first, so no hard feelings there.
So here is a scary one, well at least for us caffeine addicts. A group tested the effect of "mind-altering" substances on spiders and their web making skills. The results are below:
Eeek! What I found funny was that the mary jane dosed spiders just lost interest after a while. Okay if this is what caffeine does, I’d hate to see nicotine. Oh, wait I know that one. It would kill them.
Tags: spiders, …read more
One of the great science mysteries of the ancient world is the famous Archimedes Death Ray. The gist is Greek soldiers using highly polished shields to focus the Sun’s rays on an enemy ship and cause it to burst into flame. Of course, this is based on the always fun magnifying glass and Sun trick (which has caused untold carnage to insects). Mythbusters tried to make the Death Ray and said it was busted. Well leave it to geeks at MIT to prove them wrong.
Okay it took some time and they probably weren’t 100% successful, but you know, they came …read more
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Thanks again to Laura for this really cool link (she fessed up she got a calendar for Xmas with a cool link a day). Ever want to know more about snow and snowflakes than you ever thought possible? This is the place. I haven’t scratched the surface of the site, but I’m sure there will be cool (ha ha) projects and stuff to do.
Speaking of snowflakes, on CSY:NY last night one of the CSIs fix a snowflake to a slide with superglue to look at its structure and then be able to set a time. Okay, I know CSI is …read more
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Yes. Of course it does. It has too, it is sound after all. It has been an urban legend for years though that a duck’s quack doesn’t … proof? Lot’s here …http://buzz.smm.org/buzz/blog/does_a_ducks_quack_echo
SPOILER: Yes, a duck’s quack, like any other sound, echoes. But the WAY a duck quacks, with the long "AAAAAACK" sound at the end of the call, tends to mask echoes, making them hard to hear.
Tags: urban legends
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One of those big questions that has been hanging around for a long time in Physical Anthro (long before Quest for Fire and Clan of the Cave Bear) is the whole Homo sapiens and Neanderthal question. Originally it was thought that Neanderthals were part of our genetic/evoloutionary line. Then it turned out we were all hanging around at the same time. So … how did Neanderthals (a dead-end on the whole Homo sapiens line) influence our genetic makeup? Was there significant interbreeding and intermixing? Looks like … no. Sure it appears to have happened (this should come as no surprise), …read more
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Part of this answer is rather cool, leaves don’t actually turn red (or yellow or orange) … they are always that colour it’s the green chlorophyll that masks it. As trees stop photosynthesis in the fall, the chlorophyll goes away and reveals the "true colours".
There is a greater science question here though. Things in nature don’t just happen for now purpose or reason. The reason why leaves turn, what was the physiological or adaptive strategy in play here, is something of a mystery. ScienceBase linked to a Wisconsin U. article with one theory. In order to store the nutrients and …read more
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This news is actually a month old, but I just saw it on CNN and man did it make my blood boil. So a researcher at the University of Western Ontario (usually just called Western) did a study using data from the SATs (those evil tests foisted on kids who want to go to college in the States) and says his results show that men are smarter than women (coverage LiveScience, Daily Mirror).
What makes me angry about this? Come on I’m a man, shouldn’t I be happy to get this news? It’s the use of a known flawed dataset. Look …read more
I love the weather. I’ve already talked about my favourite weather signs, now what about something a tad more scientific. How about a barometer? Making one is really, really easy and I’m going to show your how. The kind I’m going to show you is called a weather glass. You can find them in home and garden catalogs, but come on, let’s just make one instead!
Before I get into the make, let’s talk about what barometers do. Barometer’s measure the minute changes in atmospheric pressure that indicate changes in weather. Minute? Yeah, really, really small. Okay low pressure (usually associated …read more
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