Swans on Tea

10 Fascinating Elevators

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 [...]

Tim Allen has apparently rewired somebody’s toaster
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Those which involve duct tape, and those which do not.
There, I fixed it
Someone needs to start an experimentalist version of this (if it does not already exist) — lab kludges

Apparently “Swan flu” is a common search term, supposedly a mistake by people researching swine flu, but I think we know what’s really going on.
You don’t have the flu. You’re just hot for this blog.

The Ultimate Spy Plane
One nit:
Created as the ultimate spy plane, the SR-71, which first took to the air in December 1964, flew reconnaissance missions until 1990, capable of hurtling along at more than Mach 3, about 2,280 miles per hour—faster than a rifle bullet—at 85,000 feet, or 16 miles above the earth. It is the [...]

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.

Nuke ‘em
Ground Zero II
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in your city? With Google’s Maps framework and a bit of Javascript, you can see the outcome. And it doesn’t look good.

Anyone who doesn’t get why this is considered a ‘wireless’ device.
Everyday Scientist: wireless memo book
You’ll notice that if you flip through it fast enough, it even plays movies.

Too complex to exist
Complexity and connectivity, and the problems they can cause. And the notion that “too big to fail” might mean “too big to be allowed to exist.”
Much like the power grid, the financial system is a series of complex, interlocking contingencies. And in such a system, the biggest risk of all - [...]

ApolloPlus40 - Tweeting the Apollo 11 Mission
Nature News twitters the Apollo 11 moon mission as it happened — 40 years on. Followers can read about technical milestones, political challenges, and related events in the space race starting today, just over a month before the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing.
(Gliese 581 being a system, [...]