When I first saw the video above taken from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory the “Tears In Rain” soliloquy delivered by Replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) immediately came to mind. These twisters are as large (or larger) as the Earth itself, gust at 300,000 miles per hour, and are a relatively cool 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Continue reading
Heart-shaped maps are one thing, but maps of the human heart are quite another, and I’ve got both on this Valentine’s Day. The charting of emotional territory, as opposed to physical space, has resulted in the production of several interesting maps from the seventeenth century to the near-present. Below are the companion Map of the Open Country of a Woman’s Heart and Map of the Fortified Country of a Man’s Heart, ostensibly and anonymously drawn “by a lady” and published by the Kellogg Brothers of …
When one imagines worlds undiscovered and untouched by humanity, thoughts of far-flung planets many light-years beyond our own come to mind. However as any oceanographer or polar scientist will tell you, there are worlds filled with alien lifeforms a few thousand feet beyond our grasp. Continue reading
When you stop and think about it, evolutionary science is pretty amazing stuff. On one hand you’re dealing with infinitely complex systems that are constantly changing to adapt to myriad elements of the environment in which they exist. Continue reading
Ever since I was a kid I’ve been a sucker for the fine line where science and parlor magic seem to coexist thanks to the likes of Don Herbert (a.k.a. Mr. Wizard) and others. Thanks to his Mr. Wizard’s Supermarket Science I had my parents and grandparents constantly running to the grocery store to pick up random odds and ends that on more than one occasion required clean-up efforts on par with an EPA Superfund site. Continue reading
66%
Yesterday social media monitoring firm Radian6 released an analysis of nearly 700,000 conversations about New Year’s resolutions from 28 December 2011 through 03 January 2012. They measured sentiment, demographics, subject, and a variety of other characteristics to arrive at the cutesy infographic included below. Continue reading
So you’re thinking about a New Year’s resolution and what better kind of resolution than one focused on self-improvement? Maybe you’d like to recycle more or get a new, higher-paying job? Excellent! Continue reading
47.3 million (47,300,000)
Based on the most recent AECOM Theme Park Attendance report, the annual attendance for the four major parks that make up the Walt Disney World totaled approximately 47.3 million for 2010. Continue reading
When robotics professor Masahiro Mori coined the term “uncanny valley” in 1970, he was both paying homage to Ernst Jentsch’s concept of “the uncanny” (and Sigmund Freud thereafter), as well as forever changing the way in which people look at lifelike robots. According to Wikipedia, the term itself is a hypothesis that robots (and 3D animation) which are designed to closely - although not perfectly - resemble and act like human beings causes revulsion in human observers. Continue reading
The hits keep on coming for Jawbone's UP | "Jawbone Explains UP Wrist Band Failures and Offers Full Refunds" bit.ly/tCpC1u—
Marshall Stanton (@marshallstanton) December 09, 2011
