Swans on Tea

The reproduction of donuts

Scott and Scurvy
How the cure for scurvy was found and lost again.
They had a theory of the disease that made sense, fit the evidence, but was utterly wrong. They had arrived at the idea of an undetectable substance in their food, present in trace quantities, with a direct causative relationship to scurvy, but they [...]

That’s where snake oil comes from, right?
Infographic of the benefits of various supplements.
Snake Oil? Scientific evidence for popular health supplements
They claim this is all based on large human blind placebo-controlled studies, and here are those studies. I wonder, though, where do you get blind placebos?

How The Chilean Quake Moved An Entire Planet
Listen to a colleague of mine explain that we can’t measure the time or pole shift, because they’re too small.

Last week I took George Will to task for his scientific illiteracy and misrepresentation of the “no statistically significant warming” statement that has given every global warming denier a naughty tingly feeling during the past few weeks.
I missed something.
I was going to include a graphical example, and I should have, because I would [...]

DNA’s Dirty Little Secret
In Puckett’s case, where there were only five and a half markers available, the San Francisco crime lab put the figure at one in 1.1 million—still remote enough to erase any reasonable doubt of his guilt. The problem is that, according to most scientists, this statistic is only relevant when DNA material [...]

Things I Won’t Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride
aka FOOF
Sulfur compounds defeated him, because the thermodynamics were just too titanic. Hydrogen sulfide, for example, reacts with four molecules of FOOF to give sulfur hexafluoride, 2 molecules of HF and four oxygens. . .and 433 kcal, which is the kind of every-man-for-himself exotherm that you want to avoid [...]

Global warming advocates ignore the boulders
He’s certainly not a scientist, nor, seemingly, is he scientifically literate.
In his latest steaming pile of op-ed on global warming, Mr. Will attempts to call into question the “settled science” of global warming by discussing virtually no science at all. Seriously — a bunch of politicians not being able [...]

Pictured: Incredible gravity-defying ant that can carry 100 times its body weight
The photo shows an Asian weaver ant hanging upside down on a glass-like surface and holding a 500mg weight in its jaws. It was captured by Dr Thomas Endlein of Zoology department at the University of Cambridge who was investigating the sticky feet [...]

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
Mercury(II) thiocyanate decomposition is initiated by heating.

Physics Buzz: How Much Snow did Washington DC REALLY Get?
Washington DC looks like a 10 x 10 mile square with a bite taken out of it. All together the city is 68.3 square miles. It’s not too hard to figure out the total volume of snow dumped on the city so far.
55.6″ depth of [...]

To Deter Plague of Bark Beetles, A Boombox Blasting Bug Sounds
[T]he NAU scientists started by blasting rock music and backwards recordings of Rush Limbaugh (presumably because playing the Rush Limbaugh recordings forward is a punishment too terrible even for the beetles). Unfortunately, the beetles quickly became immune to the sounds of heavy metal and heavy [...]