January 21, 2008 – 3:56 pm
You may remember that in October I reported the birth of roaches in space–now there’s an update:
“VORONEZH, January 17 (RIA Novosti) - Cockroaches conceived in space onboard the Russian Foton-M bio satellite have developed faster and become hardier than ‘terrestrial’ ones, a research supervisor said on Thursday.
The research team has been monitoring the [...]
January 21, 2008 – 11:24 am
I thought I would post a link back to a timely essay from Shark-Fu about MLK, Shirley Chisholm, and how she honors them both:
Pondering Nuclear Empowerment
Here’s the documentary that ABB was writing about, BTW. Note that there are free lesson plans and other materials for teachers!
January 20, 2008 – 10:05 am
Via Boing Boing, I found these amazing photos of the abandoned Detroit Public Schoolbook Depository. For someone like me who’s obsessed with books (and education), this is especially painful to look at. There is still beauty in the photos, though.
Read the photographer’s blog for a lovely essay about Detroit, past and present:
“Pallet after pallet of [...]
January 19, 2008 – 9:33 am
Now, here’s a random find:
Set One of the “Beautiful Buggers” Photoshop Brushes
This set includes 6 individual high resolution brushes that were hand-drawn, then meticulously traced into vector illustrations for a super clean design.
Check out the page for examples of how you could use these. Nifty!
They promise a second set is on the way. I am [...]
January 17, 2008 – 12:35 pm
I’m still super busy, so don’t look for many posts from me for a while! While I’m out, I’ll let you read about the 2008 Butterfly-A-Thon, a project to promote Xerces Society’s efforts to protect endangered, threatened, and rare butterflies:
“Robert Michael Pyle began a grand year-long adventure to find, experience, and identify as many as [...]
January 14, 2008 – 12:30 pm
There are no words to convey how totally GEEKED I am about this.
You can buy your copy (or one for me, if you want major brownie points!) at EZtakes.
You can also read a roundup of MST3K news for the year at Deep Ape.
In other news–I will probably be MIA for most of this week–major stuff [...]
January 12, 2008 – 10:26 pm
Two great things–together at last!
Scientists are working to prevent the problem of crunchy ice cream–the way ice cream or frozen fruit is never quite the same texture when it partially thaws and re-freezes. Hurray! From a New Scientist article:
“Edible antifreeze developed by a US researcher could keep ice cream tasty and smooth, [...]
January 11, 2008 – 12:38 pm
The BBC had an entertaining article about the yearly census taken by British zoos to make sure no animals are missing, and all the permits match up. (We do a similar thing here at the bird sanctuary.)
Interestingly, the rules vary quite a bit about what “counts” as an animal:
“British and Irish Association of Zoos and [...]
January 11, 2008 – 9:25 am
I can’t believe that this lawsuit didn’t go through, since I feel exactly the same way about this totally effed up Michigan Primary. Here’s how it stands for Democrats right now:
None of our delegates will be seated at the National Convention
Not all of the candidates are on the ballot, and if you try a write [...]
January 10, 2008 – 10:10 am
Busy busy busy. I’ll leave you with this lovely photo today, since I’m going to be scrambling around outside.
Photo of this water strider courtesy of Pandiyan
