A picture gallery and a tribute to all the fantastic cat-ladders of the world.
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Right now the website contains approximately 730 pictures.
Wish You'd Stop Bein' so Good to Me, Cap'n
Chad’s guest post at the X-Change Files
[T]he first thing I want to do is take issue with the question’s phrasing. While it’s commonly believed that scientists lack communication skills, that’s very far from the truth.
It is almost impossible to be a successful scientist without also being a good communicator. Communicating results to other scientists, through conference talks and journal articles, is critical for scientific success. Additionally, most research funding is obtained through applications to granting agencies like the NSF or the NIH, and successful proposal writing is all about communication.
So, it’s simply not true that scientists lack communication skills in any absolute sense.
Time In
A modest proposal for improving football: the ‘time-in’
If you’ve ever noticed that football games slow to a predictable crawl at the end of each half, the time-in is the rule for you. The idea is simple: When the clock is stopped, for whatever reason, a coach could call a “time-in,” and force the clock to start up again. Think of it as the antimatter version of the timeout.
The time-in is so powerful that I recommend it be strictly rationed: each team would get only one time-in per season. The possibility of a sudden time-in would loom large in every coach’s mind at the most tense points in the game, introducing just enough concern and uncertainty to make the game different. Timeworn clock-management strategies would no longer be a given. And yet, for the average viewer on a Sunday, the game on the field would still be your father’s football.
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Of course, this assumes that the time-in is used that game. If it hasn’t been used yet, it affects the game in a different, but more subtle way: the opposing team will simply have to assume that it might be used. Coaches would enter the realm of game theory: how do we calculate when it’s the best game to use it? And what if the other team is expecting us to think this way?
Audrey III
Giant rat-eating nepenthes plant named after David Attenborough
Nepenthes attenboroughii, a previously unknown variety of pitcher plant discovered on a remote mountain in the Philippines, is so big that small rodents could be trapped inside and slowly dissolved by flesh-eating enzymes.
It apparently doesn’t actually say, Feed me.”
Hello, Goodbye
Matt does the wave. Faster than The Wave and The Speed(s) of a Wave
edit: and Light Sprint
The Barzini Effect
They shot strongy on the causeway. He’s dead.
Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Explain.
Usain Bolt: The Science of Running Really Fast
Even without knowing the times, you can see that this is a special run. The first few seconds are fairly average, and as expected the acceleration trails off after around 40m, but then he just keeps going. Bolt covers 60-80m faster than 40-60m, somehow increasing his acceleration, and takes 80-100m at the same speed, with no significant deceleration.
Nonmoving Motion
Sculptures in Motion by Peter Jansen
Peter Jansen must have watched the slow motion parts in The Matrix thousands of times. A student of physics and philosophy, the Dutch artist captures sequences of human movements within a single frame of space and time.
Energy: It's Nothing to Snicker At
Of Car Crashes and Snickers Bars
Pop quiz, hotshot. Using the caloric energy content of a candy bar (e.g. Snickers, at 250 food calories), what is the kinetic energy of a two-ton behemoth SUV traveling at about 70 mph? A first-order approximation is fine — no need to worry about more than one significant digit.
Got it? Think of your number and then proceed to the analysis.
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Colliding Smoke Rings