Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

MythBusters Mini-Myths (s9 ep 5)


05 Nov

Do you think “I know it like the back of my hand” is a silly phrase, since you have never paid particular attention to the back of your hands? The MythBusters found out that we really do know the backs of our hands, better than we know other body parts.

Also, professional pitchers cannot throw a needle through a sheet of glass without shattering the glass, but the air gun succeeded. Bicycles can be ridden underwater but not well. And the potty dance and/or meditation may or may not help you stave off the need to go to the bathroom.

MythBusters Halloween Special (s9, ep4)


29 Oct

My favorite thing about last night’s episode was that it is apparently easier to maneuver a dead body than a corresponding bundle of the same weight, and that the reasons you would think it might be harder (awkward shape, limbs, etc) is what actually makes it easier. It turns out that while friends help you move, you don’t really need real friends to help you move bodies.

Last night was one of the few nights when I was happy I am not a Mythtern (can they really be called that anymore). No scorpions or snakes for this girl, thank you.

Mind over Pain


25 Oct

What would you think if your doctor gave you the option of virtual pain relief? You might be concerned that “virtual” pain relief would not relieve anything, but for those who are concerned about developing an addiction to powerful narcotics, the option might be very welcomed.

Enter SnowWorld, a virtual reality game that is played by burn patients during their daily would care- care that can be more painful than getting the burn itself. SnowWorld gives the patient something else to focus on, and does it so well that they often feel less pain than they did when taking drugs.

Send the Fossils Home


18 Oct

We all know that I am fascinated by paleontology, considering how many times I’ve written about it. And the truth is, I’d rather not have to travel as far as Mongolia to see a specific kind of dinosaur skeleton (well, that’s not entirely true, Mongolia is one of those places on my life list), but no matter how much I like convenience, I can’t have any support for people who steal, especially not people who steal things that could be considered national treasures- like fossils from a dinosaur that was only found in Mongolia. Tarbosaurus bataar should be sent home.

MythBusters (sp9 ep2)


15 Oct

Caught the Titanic episode last night before the new episode, and since I’m not a Titanic/James Cameron fan, I thought it was okay. I did like the new episode- earth moving machines and explosions- what’s not to like. Even the small scale tests for waves in trenches were really cool.

As for using balloons as an airbag- not surprised by the result. However, in their control, the driver wearing a seatbelt wouldn’t have survived. I’m pretty certain seatbelts save lives at 35mph all the time, so I’m not sure how accurate their dropping a car from a crane really is.

Learning to Cook Online


11 Oct

Love to watch cooking shows? Fascinated by “cooking” with liquid nitrogen? Want to learn both traditional and modern cooking techniques? Do you own or covet Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking?

If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, you might want to check out ChefSteps. ChefSteps is a new, free online cooking school being run by the guys behind Modernist Cuisine. They don’t care if you’re a professional chef with your own set of knives or a curious home chef looking to try some new recipes. It’s a culinary school for all of us.

Going Boating on a Moon


02 Oct

We have landed multiple rovers on Mars with great success- including the rovers having longer life spans than originally planned for. So what is next? While it does not come out of NASA, there is a group in Europe (Spainmostly) that is currently presenting the idea of landing a boat in one of the large lakes on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

If we can land cars on a planet, why not a boat on a moon? We know Titan is covered in lakes and rivers (of methane, apparently, not H20), which makes it a possible location for microbial life.

Mrs. Jesus?


20 Sep

As a follow up to yesterday’s post about a possible wife of Christ, the publicity blitz has unsurprisingly brought a large number of people out against it. Some say it’s a fake or forgery (I’m not certain how many of them have actually seen the fragment or just pictures). Others want to avoid the authenticity question by saying that without a detailed record of where it came from, academics should ignore it, regardless of how interesting a “find” it may be. And the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities simply concludes it can’t be real, as they’ve never heard of it before.

Mrs. Jesus


19 Sep

I find this piece if papyrus in which Jesus begins a statement “My wife…” fascinating. And while I believe this might be the closest to original source material we have, I don’t believe this is the first reference to Jesus having a wife in the historical literature. Why? Because Dan Brown wrote a best seller about it.

Dan Brown didn’t create the theory. He used the research in the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail. But those authors didn’t create the theory, either. They just researched it more fully than anyone previously.

Not a new theory, just a new puzzle piece.

Finding a Missing Monarch


13 Sep

Since I didn’t even know that King Richard III’s body was missing, I was rather surprised to hear that archaeologists in England think they may have found his skeleton. It makes sense that because he was killed in battle during the English civil War of the Roses that his body was not taken to London to be buried, but instead was buried somewhere near where he fell. It just hadn’t occurred to me that one of the monarchs of England had been “lost”.

They don’t know for certain yet if this is Richard III, but they are starting DNA tests.

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