To celebrate the best day of the year, how about a video showing a deleted scene from Tim Burton’s “A Nightmare Before Christmas”, where Jack attempts to use science to uncover the meaning of Christmas?
Happy Holidays, folks!
Add comment December 25th, 2006
As promised, here’s a link to a video showing the unexpected effects that vibrations can have on a cornstarch solution. Most people know that when constantly agitated (e.g. by rolling in your palms), a mixture of cornstarch and water will remain solid, only to return to a liquid state once you put it down. But who knew that by shaking it, you can make creepy finger-like projections reach out of the mixture?
Add comment December 24th, 2006
Seeing as it’s the holiday season, I thought that I’d keep in ethos of SciencePunk by linking a video that has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. Expect a lot of Awesome Science Videos over the next few days as I’ll be too busy stuffing my face with turkey and chocolate to write proper articles. Should you click on the link below, you will be directed to fascinating footage of rice grains neatly arranging themselves into pretty patterns, purely under the influence of sound waves. This phenomenon is known as Chladni Patterns, and you can read more about them here.
In the next few days I may well post some more footage of resonance in action, including vibrations that make custard go crazy and sound waves used to levitate small animals. Awesome!
Add comment December 23rd, 2006
A komodo dragon at Chester Zoo has recently produced offspring without male contact, reports the BBC. The process, known as parthenogenesis, is documented in only a handful of vertebrates, and has never before been seen in these lizards.
The hatchlings are recombinants of their mother’s genetic material, but not identical clones. This discovery could develop our understanding of how islands are populated by these lizards.
2 comments December 21st, 2006
Never before has the axiom “Less is More” been demonstrated so clearly as via this curious sandwich pricing by Tesco.
Perhaps if you’re bored, you’d like to suggest the formula used for pricing these sandwiches? More strange sandwich pricing can be seen here.
Thanks to Keith Thomason for taking this pic!
6 comments December 19th, 2006
From the Guardian:
How could James Baker and Lee Hamilton be so obtuse? The way to stop all the wars that are going on at the moment is not to change the mission, plan a phased withdrawal or begin a fresh campaign of diplomacy, but to get thousands of hippies to have a synchronised orgasm.
It is Paul Reffell and Donna Sheehan’s fervent wish that on Friday December 22, “you and everyone you know” should bring yourselves to orgasm in the manner of your choosing while concentrating your thoughts, as much as possible, on peace. Their goal “is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world”.
I think a masturbation drive on this scale surely warrants a collaboration with the people behind SpermCube, who could make good use of all that surplus spunk.
Thanks to Teek at the Bad Science Forums
1 comment December 19th, 2006
Throughout the ages, the smartest minds on the planet have tackled the great questions of the world. Foremost upon these is the Tootsie Roll Pop Problem, which asks us: “How many licks does it take to get to the centre of a Tootsie Roll Pop?”. For British readers, the Tootsie Roll Pop is broadly equivalent to a chocolate-filled Chuppa-Chup. For illustration purposes (and I do use that term loosely), here is an attempt to address this question using an owl, a tortoise, and a gramophone.
Over to George Waksman, who has spent over two years and several dollars researching this problem. Formulating a strict methodology, Waksman has been making slow but steady progress discerning the true number of licks it takes to reach the centre of a Tootsie Roll Pop. His preliminary findings suggest that it takes approximately 248 licks if licking is concentrated on one side of the Tootsie Roll Pop. However, with such a small team and sample size, George has calculated a standard deviation of 170 licks, on which he admits:
The small number of trials makes for a very large standard deviation. The standard deviation is so large, in fact, that it is not reasonable to assume the conclusions are accurate.
If you thought that George was battling alone in his quest to solve the Tootise Pop Roll Problem, think again. A brief web search uncovers a hive of activity dedicated to cracking this conundrum, including students at Purdue University who constructed a licking machine to aid the quest for knowledge, with mixed results.
These grassroots efforts may not have ended debate on the true number of licks it will take to reach the centre of a Tootsie Roll Pop, but it brings a swell of pride to my heart to see such democratic participation in science.
4 comments December 18th, 2006
The internet is a wonderful place, where every little whisper about you is logged, saved and written down for all eternity. To fully appreciate the nuance of the following comment, it’s worth bearing in mind that SciencePunk is forever indebted to Ben Goldacre of BadScience.net, who supported my first ever foray into bad science debunking when he published my comments on Shark Energy Drink in the Guardian. Since then, I’ve dedicated my spare hours to taking on abuses of science, and relied upon him for criticism and encouragement. All of which made the following so gleeful to me when it appeared on a messageboard under the thread title “What is your favourite or just an entertaining site to visit?”
You can see it in it’s original glory here.
You win this time, Ben, but I’m going to start posting images of big breasted women, and then we’ll see who gets all the hits!
Add comment December 17th, 2006
Sometimes you just know they won’t reply.
Dear Scott’s of Stow,
I recently came across your catalogue whilst browsing the web. I was surprised to see that you sell suitcases that, according the description, are “Lighter Than Air”. This leads me to ask three questions:
1) As the items are lighter than air, are you prepared to waive the shipping cost?
2) Do the items have any special storage instructions, e.g., will they need to be tied down?
3) I noticed the dimensions of the cases seem to be slightly off. At 5.7kg, the “large family case” will need to be approximately 2.5m x 1.6m x 1.1m to live up to its name. This is almost 40 times the stated size. Can you confirm this?
I look forward to your reply.
Frank Swain
2 comments December 15th, 2006
I realise that I’m buying into the viral marketing on this one, but there is nothing more awesome or more science punk at the moment than the series of videos put out by Blendtec, entitled “Will It Blend?”
Imagine, for a second, that you are a ten year old boy, and you’ve been left alone in the house with nothing but a blender for amusement. That is the simple premise behind these adverts, where your host Tom Dickson blends all the things you wanted to put in your mum’s blender, and more. Why am I including this on SciencePunk? Because it’s exactly the kind of rudimentary curiosity that fuels science. Scientists even have blenders in their lab, though they call them fancy names like homogenizers.
We’re not talking ice cubes and hazelnuts here: think big, like a credit cards, golf balls, whole can of Coke (can included), a crowbar, an oar, a rake, marbles, or an entire Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, all of them will indeed blend. The videos are divided into “try this at home” and “don’t try this at home”, and naturally, all the cool shit is in the second category. You can even suggest items yourself via the website.
Only question is: why would I want a blender that makes golfball smoothies?
Add comment December 13th, 2006
Well, I can’t for the life of me figure out why the site, with an embedded video, looks fine from one PC, but on another is all chewed up. Any advice, do let me know, until then I’ll just have to keep linking them.
Add comment December 12th, 2006
Everyone knows the best videos involve explosions, and accordingly I have found a science-themed explosion video which isn’t some old nuclear test footage. Excite yourselves with amateur footage of an MRI machine exploding, thankfully not when it was scanning a patient.
From what I can gather, the machine was removed from the hospital and undergoing venting in the parking lot (probably to make it safe for transport). This involves allowing the liquid helium to boil off, but unfortunately the vents weren’t quite up to the task, and the failsafe seals, designed to crack open if the pressure inside became dangerously high, didn’t. Luckily nobody was hurt, although cleaning up all that debris can’t have been fun.
1 comment December 12th, 2006
Some of you regular readers might have noticed that it is over a week since Dr Niko Tiliopoulos issued a cease-and-desist against me and my incorrect statements regarding him and Carpe Diem. This deadline required me to retract my statements or face legal action. Regular readers be assured: your favourite science punk is not getting sued! Dr Tiliopoulos has graciously accepted my apologies and alterations to the original document. He’s also accepted my criticisms of the formula, which is no small thing when one of us is a fully paid-up PhD-bearing academic, and the other is a office-based data monkey. For those who have no clue what the hell I’m talking about, read about how I nearly got sued, and deservedly so.
2 comments December 11th, 2006
Ever pushing the boundaries of “liberal”, those wacky French have come up with a new way to give Middle America nightmares. It’s called SpermCube, and it’s an art exhibit comprising of 1m3 of sperm, as donated by the general public.
Volunteers are invited to.. err.. contribute to the exhibit via mail.
All I can think is, this is how IVF would work under communism.
Via RetroSpectacle at ScienceBlogs
1 comment December 11th, 2006
“Couples are being given the opportunity to exchange jewellery made from samples of their bone grown in the laboratory” reports the BBC. The article details a joint project between Dr Ian Thompson, a research fellow at King’s College, and artists Tobie Kerridge and Nikki Stott. Living bone tissue was recovered from wisdom teeth and used to grow bone on a scaffold material called “bioglass”. The work is part of a collaborative effort to understand methods of crafting complex structures from bone tissue.
Eventually the techniques will be used to grow purpose-built repairs for patients with damaged bones.
Examples of biojewellery can be seen at an exhibition in the atrium of Guy’s Hospital, London, from 7 December until 14 February 2007.
Add comment December 11th, 2006
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