Given the underwhelming response to the last ‘what in the world is it’ contest, why not try it again!
The answer we were looking for in the first contest was L. ehrenbergii (a diatom) clinging to …

It looks like these may be ready in the next 5 years or so. Now if I only had the $100 million to put one in my backyard. I may have to ask for a …

10 points extra credit if you can guess what this is. No fair peeking! This image won the photography category of the NSF Visualization Challenge for 2008. I also think the Squid Suckers are wickedly …

Google is committing $10 million for ideas that help the most people in a short amount of time. So what’s your idea to change the world?

Project 10100 (pronounced “Project 10 to the 100th”) is a …

In keeping with the current ‘writing’ theme, here are my favorite books on writing. I think of the first four as ‘must haves’ though I obviously have them all!

The Elements of Style, The (4th Edition) …

It’s probably just coincidence… yeah, that’s probably it.

7. Become a great writer.
No matter what field you hope to go into, and no matter what job you hope to have in that field, writing skills will …

It should be obvious by now that writing for the sciences is much different than for the arts and humanities (though it doesn’t have to be), and learning the distinctions requires practice. In this list …

After working through the assignment with a few test subjects (I mean beta testers! – thanks Nicole, Meghan, and Jon!), I’ve put together a more complete description.

Find an interesting molecule – it must contain a …

This one is for the Tesla fan in the room… You know who you are!

The companies say the all-electric model will challenge the Tesla all-electric sportster in performance, with the equivalent of 644 hp and …

While it is likely that the studies used were funded by those with a vested interest in the outcome (shock and awe), I’m not sure exactly which study is in question. I’m assuming (a bad …

Unlike the Prius, Civic hybrid, and upcoming Honda Insight, the Chevy Volt uses its gasoline engine to charge the batteries and is never used to directly drive the wheels (serial hybrid vs. parallel hybrid). That, …

If you read/follow any weblogs, you’ll find that reader comments can be one of the more interesting aspects of a given post. Comments can add a level of participation and ‘conversation’ that extends beyond the …

Can you imaging being in the middle of this?
[via daringfireball]

The header image for this website is a simple mod of the default image that comes with the theme. While I appreciate the elegance of its simplicity, I’d like to find something that better reflects …

From Linked and knotted beams of light

third, we show that approximate knots of light may be generated using tightly focused circularly polarized laser beams. We predict theoretical extensions and potential applications, in fields ranging from …

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is now online and we’re still here, for now… here’s a little to tide you over until then:

First beam in the LHC – accelerating science
‘Greatest Physics Experiment Of All Time’: …

Like the molecule for week 1, I chose this just because I think it’s pretty cool. Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (Sessler, J.L.; Kim, S.K.; Gross, D.E.; Lee, C.; Kim, J.S.; …

We built on our discussion of symmetry and introduction to character tables by ‘generating’ the character table for the C2v point group using the set of coordinate vectors (and the idea of ‘orthogonality’), and defined …