Swans on Tea

This reminds me — I need some new batteries. A few of mine just died from overcharging.
Adventures in Rechargeable Batteries
For one thing, there’s the issue of discharge rate. It turns out that massive 2500mAh capacity of the Energizer rechargeable battery doesn’t mean much when the battery drains itself within a month.
[...]
So putting a larger [...]

The World’s Worst Toaster
Fortunately it doesn’t belong to me. But the web experience described does — I buy stuff for the lab. I run across the “bad toaster” interfaces all the time. For the life of me, I don’t get why certain segments of the science/tech world won’t tell you how much [...]

New Sarcasm Meds (from the makers of Damitol)
The speed of sarcasm: Mock 1

You Say Organic Potato, I Say Poisonous Lump of Neurotoxins
I was thinking of weaponized potatoes, and was going to entitle this “Potato in the Hole!” but that quickly brought up a decidedly uncomfortable mental image.
But it’s not just potatoes that can kill you with their toxins. Apple seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides, which can [...]

You say MRI, I say NMR. These sound almost like William Steig would have used them, but not quite.
Chad over at Uncertain Principles give the lowdown on the phenomenon of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
[...] Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), which is the “M” and the “R” in “Magnetic Resonance Imaging”– they ditched the “N” because “nuclear” [...]

It’s also pepsi-through-the-nose funny, especially if you are a reasonably strict grammarian.
Read about the f’amazing Dr. Novoselov

US currency is ugly, and the new $5 bill, which entered circulation a few weeks ago, especially so. A purple “5″ on a green bill? Fugly. The fun thing about visiting other countries is seeing currency and coinage that looks interesting. I never realized how bland US currency was until I [...]

Stonehenge and Stonehenge Replicas

Lest you think that physics research is all about smashing shiny new large hadrons into each other (or even used economy or subcompact hadrons), or something to do with conductors (whether they be super, normal or semi), or the groupies — let’s not forget the groupies — there are folks out there studying the physics [...]

I was poking around the blogdom — with the rise of science-y, i.e. non-diary (and, I suppose non-dairy) blogs, surfing the web has become interesting again — and ran across a link to How to Build a Cloud Chamber, and that reminded of the person that built the cloud chamber using a Starbucks cup. [...]

Physics conspiracy: LHC could kill us all
Conspiracy nuts have suggested that it might also inadvertently destroy the Earth (or maybe even the entire Universe)
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[B]asically the cranks think that the collider will also cook up either an exotic particle or a tiny black hole that will suck up everything around it. It’s pretty much bunk, as [...]

The 6 Cutest Animals That Can Still Destroy You
Pay special heed to #5.