Ear Worms
I picked up a new CD at the weekend, The Rough Guide to Brazilian Electronica, and it's full of "ear worms." That's not a bad thing, it's a great CD and the songs stick in my head. I found this BBC Science
Topic
Science
A collection of 118 issues
Nonsense on food labels
"Organic sea salt"
Salt is a mineral, so it can't be organic because organic stuff comes
from organisms. I think they meant to say "natural sea salt"
which is better, but it's still plain old sodium chloride, two pretty nasty
chemicals if
More right handedness
In other news, most walruses are right-flippered.
The walrus has been added to the growing list of animals that seem to prefer using one hand, or flipper, over the other. The ivory-tusked sea mammal tends to use its right flipper to forage for clams on the sea bed, say scientists.
Ig Nobel Awards
The 2003 Ig Nobel awards are out. The winners are:
Engineering: To John Paul Stapp, Edward A. Murphy, Jr (both posthumous) and George Nichols giving birth in 1949 to Murphy's Law, the basic engineering principle that "If anything can go wrong, it will."
Physics: The Australian
Thunder
I love listening to thunder. Even though I know it's just the snap of superheated air cooling after a lightening strike rips through, the long drawn out rumble is still
beautiful, almost reassuring. For a strike to land, it has to carve an ionized path
between cloud and
Science web links
Yes, it's been a while, deal with it. Life intrudes.
Found a couple of good websites: Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics and the periodic table of elements. I'm still a physicist at heart.
Pentaquark (particle physics 101)
Quarks seem to like prime number combinations, two, three, and now five quarks combine into one subatomic particle, Behold the pentaquark.
Physicists have discovered a new class of subatomic particle that will provide unexpected insights into the fundamental building blocks of matter. The discovery involves quarks - particles that make
Caffeine dreams
I realise that having a domain name caffeinatedbliss.com is incompatible with saying I've given up caffeine, but there you go, I have. For Lent initially, but surprise, surprise, I'm suddenly sleeping a whole lot better, so the caffeine won't be coming back. (Caffeine
News Roundup
BBC News report: Tea 'to join health menu'
Tea could soon join fruit and vegetables on the list of must-have health foods. Recent studies have suggested the traditional cuppa protects against a range of conditions including cancer, heart disease and Parkinson's. But scientists in the United
Traffic
Driving isn't a solitary thing, it's a group activity. You can read the mood of someone from their driving, who's impatient, who's placid, who should be avoided because they drive up your exhaust pipe. The trouble is, you don't often