Swans on Tea

Gigapan collection of electron-microscope images of an ant
Gigapan: Ant - Eutetramorium mocquerysi
This Gigapan is part of the NanoGigaPan project. Which is working to take high resolution images of very small things.
More at the Nano Gigapan blog
Also ant-related Mr. Ellis, Ant mega-colony takes over world
[I]t now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the [...]

Carnivorous Clock eats bugs, begins doomsday countdown
This prototype time-piece from UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau traps insects on flypaper stretched across its roller system before depositing them into a vat of bacteria. The ensuing chemical reaction, or “digestion,” is transformed into power that keeps the rollers rollin’ and the LCD clock ablaze.
So when [...]

Over at incoherently scattered ponderings, there’s a post on safety at academic labs, which links to an article at Slate about an explosion at a lab which killed a worker, and discusses the difference in safety standards for students vs workers, and academia vs industry.
Why the difference between industry and academe? For one thing, the [...]

Food, energy outpace production
By 2050, world population is expected to exceed 9 billion people, up from 6.5 billion today. Already, according to the report, a gap is emerging between agricultural production and demand, and the disconnect is expected to be amplified by climate change, increasing demand for biofuels, and a growing scarcity of water.

Via Fine Structure, The World’s Greatest Physicists (as Determined by the Wisdom of Crowds)
Mikhail Simkin and Vwani Roychowdhury at the University of California, Los Angeles, have come up with a way of ranking physicists by equating their achievements with their fame as measured by hits on Google.

Color and Reality. Another take on color vs. the brain’s interpretation of color, discussed (OK, linked to) previously in Color on the Brain
We were all taught about Sir Isaac Newton who discovered that a glass prism can split white light apart into its constituent colors.
While we consider this rather trivial today, at the time [...]

Great white sharks hunt just like Hannibal Lecter
Great white sharks have some things in common with human serial killers, a new study says: They don’t attack at random, but stalk specific victims, lurking out of sight.
The sharks hang back and observe from a not-too-close, not-too-far base, hunt strategically, and learn from previous attempts, according to [...]

Why taste is as regional as dialect
Prof Taylor said: “Taste is determined by our genetic make-up and influenced by our upbringing and experience with flavours.
“Just as with spoken dialects, where accent is placed on different syllables and vowel formations, people from different regions have developed enhanced sensitivities to certain taste sensations and seek foods [...]

Fingerprints and Grip - Wrong vs Incomplete
I saw the headline to one version of the linked story (Fingerprint grip theory rejected) a few days back. I didn’t delve too deeply into it, and this thought had not occurred to me:
What struck me, and what the article did not mention, is that glass is [...]

This has it all. A scientist, working on his own, discovering something new (and useful) using proper scientific methodology … and he’s in high school. WCI student isolates microbe that lunches on plastic bags
First, he ground plastic bags into a powder. Next, he used ordinary household chemicals, yeast and tap water to create [...]

The world’s oldest barbecue has been uncovered by archaeologists
The world’s oldest barbecue has been uncovered by archaeologists – and on the menu were gigantic mammoth ribs.

Coaxing bees into making honeycomb sculpture
“I knew they were ordered and regimented,” the Pennsylvania artist says about his honeybees, which built the three otherworldly sculptures on view at Eleven Rivington. “I had an intuition that I’d be able to organize that, architecturally.”