This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.
I have marked my favorite links with a ?. Enjoy.
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Science to Read, Science to Write, Science to Watch
Want to point out bad science? Go ahead, but don’t link to it…that only makes it more visible
? “The greatest example of trial and error the world has ever seen is evolution.” The math of the 17-year cicada
Are squids intelligent enough to feel pain? Is that the right question to ask?
How to shoot a monkey for science!
Even if you have perfect pitch, what you hear depends on your surroundings
“More Than Honey” looks like a fantastic new bee documentary
? Why autopsy Ganolfini? Because nearly a third of the time we are wrong about what kills us
The entire anatomy of the human brain in 10 trillion beautiful bytes. (With an awesome hi-res shot of the brain-slicing machine)
Are you happy or horny? Step into my fMRI…
? Dracula’s Children: How vampire bats evolved a venom cocktail (And they gallop!)
A visualization of the climate change consensus
The Problem with the Neuroscience Backlash. Sometimes, the critique of neurobollocks goes too far.
Musician wants to jam with cicadas, kinda more like gets attacked by cicadas
*Audible Wow* Watch a shock wave propagate from a volcano blast. And how much pressure do you need to pop the top off the Popocat?petl volcano?
? Great and comprehensive longread: The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science
Need to survive an actual bear predation? Don’t play dead, don’t run, don’t climb. Fight
? Taking a look at the weirdest demonstration of “tele-kinetic” powers you’ve ever seen
You spin me right round baby, right round, like an army ant right committing suicide
Guns don’t kill people, people *with guns* kill people
Raising concerns about GM food is fine, unless those concerns have been answered by science. Then that’s denial
Don’t take your (mega) vitamins
Meet The Mad Hatterpillar!
? The physics behind this man’s 60+ hour underwater survival are fascinating
Every single male spider of this species spontaneously dies after sex. It must be good
Does a child die of hunger every 10 seconds? Or is there more to the statistics?
How do you properly evaluate if someone is making bad claims about the “dangers” of vaccines?
LEGO Faces are Getting Angrier; So What?
How exactly do bees make honey?
“Sometimes…in the microscope you see aliens. But look closer; they may be more familiar than you think”
? Doesn’t matter where the needles go or even if they penetrate: “Acupuncture is theatrical placebo.”
How does a quantum computer work?
Half of the next batch of NASA astronauts are women
It’s lovely to see how seriously The Big Bang Theory takes its science content. Thank the professors!
Does the new Nautilus magazine have a religious agenda?
? Dolphins are not New Age healers. They are wild, intelligent, and are suffering in captivity
How the mind creates morality and sees agency in everything
What we can learn from ancient solider poop in a crusader’s castle
? A bookmark for anyone who argues about GM food: The S?ralini Rule
Liquid soylent isn’t quite the food of the future, because our bodies aren’t engines, they’re a mess
Your friend’s feces could save your life, but it’s far from standard practice
We have basically seen Mercury completely naked
Pay Attention! How your brain deals with information overload
The “Bias Bogeyman” used to deny science has to be met with science
Nerdom at its Finest
? Costanza and the Whale: Could You Make a Blowhole in One?
What is the shortest poem? Does that matter?
You should not get in a splash fight on a bromine lake
? These phrenology diagrams from 1902 are *fascinating*. The center of human nature is “firmness”
I must be late to this, but these are the best Star Wars posters I’ve seen
? The Transit of the ISS Enterprise
Sitting in this octopus chair must make you feel like the baddest of asses. 20,000 leagues under the awesome
“You can’t ‘steal’ fire Zeus!”
There are like 1,000 amazing nature images on this Pinterest: Nature So Crazy
Spent 10 minutes with this Mars panorama viewer
Why home-field advantage might just be a real thing
? There was never a time when people didn’t think media was destroying our brains
Technically, this is what an old book smells like
The first Star Trek as a 90-sec 8-bit video game
You could run on lava, but you shouldn’t, but it’s pretty badass. And Hollywood is totally wrong about how you die in lava
GIFs and Images for 2-seconds of Fun
I want fractal broccoli!
? Friction drilling is the best kind of drilling. (You know what I mean)
Apple maps makes it look like New York was overrun by the undead
This GIF taught you how to pick a lock
Sometimes a fungus grows like a little atom bomb
How do the g-forces not kill this pilot doing an acrobatic roll in a fighter jet? The compression suit must be good
The tip of your pen, really close up
? How do you test if a flying snake can fly? Throw it off a platform! For science!
Why didn’t we learn a lesson from Jurassic Park?! Pythons can use doors now!
This is one image, not four, and it breaks my brain
An infrared image of the underside of a shuttle reentry. It was going Mach 15
I have never seen anything like this: What Earth looks like during a solar eclipse
? Shuttle thermal tile is so good at dissipating heat that you can grab it after being heated past 2000 degrees
Psychologist Richard Wiseman knows that perspective is everything
Smashing a frozen carnation with a hammer. Beauty in destruction
A Luger always looked weird to me until I saw this GIF
How your fist makes stars go faster. (Relative motion illusion?)
Nightmare fuel: A feeding angel shark
A different (and much cooler) perspective on the capsized Costa Concordia
? Can we all agree that drinking water in space is bizarre?
Oh Yeah, Other Things Happen in the World
? I almost never agree with Fox News, but Stossel sure demolished the argument about videogames and violence
Buzzfeed had a scare-mongering food post which these chemists are quick to correct
The Center for Investigative Reporting makes a hilariously nerdy video about how much pot is seized at the border
BOOKMARKED: Should I Work for Free?
Only 1/3 of alternative therapies have ever been tested for safety and efficacy
? How Bill Nye became the “Springsteen of Nerds”
XKCD: Balloon Internet
Great profile of Neil deGrasse Tyson and why the University of Texas considers him “the one who got away”
Making *amazing* 3D drawings out of two sheets of paper
Has this guy cracked the “Biblical clock” code? Um, no