Microscopic working engine

I love microscopic machines. "German physicists say they've built a heat engine measuring only a few micrometers across which works as well as a normal-sized version - although it sputters, they admit."
Via: www.tgdaily.com

Faster than light particles!

Yikes! There is a claim that CERN scientists have measured particles going faster than the speed of light! If so, this would invalidate Einsteinian physics. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

I like this response, reported in the story about this at the journal Science's website:

"Chang Kee Jung, a neutrino physicist at Stony Brook University in New York, says he'd wager that the result is the product of a systematic error. 'I wouldn't bet my wife and kids because they'd get mad,' he says. 'But I'd bet my house.'"

Gamers make scientific breakthrough!

The protein-folding game FoldIt has made a major scientific break-through: gamers figured out the structure of a protein involved in AIDS.

Evolution and motorboat sounds.

It's hard not to like this video that combines beauty pageant girls a.) trying to talk coherently about evolution and b.) making weird sounds.

The universe as rounding error

Image via Wikipedia

I enjoyed this quote: "Nine out of every 10 atoms in the universe are hydrogen, the first element and the major constituent of stars. The other 10 percent of all atoms are helium. That's already 100 percent. The rest of the periodic table, Elements 3 through 118, lithium through ununoctium, barely register on a cosmic scale. The rest of the universe, you and I included, is a rounding error."
                       Sam Kean/  Hydrogen: Where It All Started in Slate

Science Conspiracies

Lots of people believe, that the "Large Hadron Collider", will destroy the world, similarly to making a wee version of a sun using 192 uber powerful lasers (see the article for more information) by 2022.

Also, an extremely popular video explaining in vague details what the LHC does can be found here.

A pretty good video proving the LHC conspiracy is "Science!" (though it goes off topic quite a bit).

Vortex cannon fun

The girl who doesn't age

Looking into a black hole

"Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy." [The picture is an artist's illustration, not a photo.]

FoldIt

FoldIt is a game with a useful purpose: trying to figure out how proteins fold. Proteins are made of chains of small molecules called amino acids. Figuring out the shape the chain will fold into is a very difficult problem for scientists to solve, so they invented this game to get people to try it. Make the world a better place while you play!

Great Optical Illusion

I love this very compelling optical illusion (you can't see it above because it requires motion: click the link). More here.

IBM Roadrunner

The fastest computer on earth... at a peak of 1.7 petaflops the processing power of about 1000 PCs.

Great DNA visualization

IYA Sites 2009 and Darwin

International Year of Astronomy sites: Parteners: NASA, Astro League and AAVSO. Finally the interesting evolution site: Evolution: Darwin

Space.com

Space as in the Universe not as in room although there is a lot of room in the Universe. Space.com may explore many of the up-to-date information of the constantly advancing astronomy category of Science. Photo here.

Confirmed: Scientists Understand Where Mass Comes From | 80beats | Discover Magazine

"Particle physics explains that the bulk of atoms is made up of protons and neutrons, which are themselves composed of smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons. The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks [accounts for] only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?"
Confirmed: Scientists Understand Where Mass Comes From | 80beats | Discover Magazine

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[Image: Singer Mariah Carey, who has an album called E=mc²]

Thoughtware.tv

Thoughtware.tv is a site that collects "only the best videos and news on Human Progress, ranging from topics such as Transhumanism, Artificial General Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Robotics, Nanotechnology, Life Extension, Biotechnology, Genetics, Ethics and many other fields of Social, Scientific and Technological interest." There is some interesting stuff here. Some of it makes me think of the futurist Ray Kurzweil.

New Scientist

Deepest fish ever seen. For more video click here.

www.periodicvideos.com

The periodic table is a way of representing the 118 elements (one of which, #117 Ununseptium, has never been seen and apparently will decay in a few nanoseconds if it is ever formed). I like this site from the University of Nottingham in England, that links each cell in the periodic table to a charming YouTube video about each one of those elements. The scientist with the wild hair is great.
I linked the video for sodium here. It's a pretty random choice, but this is a typical and quite amusing video.

Science is canceled.

I like this panel, snipped from Big Fat Whale comic by Brian McFadden. It is referring to the fact that Kansas has laws that forces them to teach creationism (= non-science) in the science classroom.