I am going down yet another rabbit hole. It diverges from the one I was falling down about a year and a half ago. At least somewhat. All roads lead to Rome, but not all are main highways and will get you to your final destination; they do move you forward, though. My new rabbit […]
Yes, this post will be about boobies. Also known as tits. Mugs. Jugs. Bazongas. Melons. Breasts. Breasts and the big squeeze. Also known as getting a mammogram. In Norway, all woman are automatically offered bi-annual mammography examinations between the ages 50 and 69. Just before Easter this year, I got the letter informing me of […]
A commenter to this movie on YouTube wished hawks were like dogs so you could pet them when they do stuff like this. That’s what I was thinking! Birds of prey are both so beautiful and so graceful. Just how graceful is shown in this BBC video. I’m also fascinated by how feathers move in […]
I own the extended DVD set of “What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?”, also known as “Down the Rabbit Hole”. I can’t remember now how my browsing the internet today started, but I ended up learning a lot about the science in “What the Bleep”: It’s terribly inaccurate. There are other inaccuracies or downright errors, […]
This brilliant film is making the rounds. I found mine over at A Pacific View. Here’s the comment I left there after seeing this video: Absolutely stunning video! Finally one that clearly gave me an idea of scale. Especially going back home. If any aliens are visiting us, it must be purely by accident, because […]
The latest activity to capture the interest of the fringe and lunatics (never was that description more apt) is the fact that NASA/the US is going to set off a nuclear bomb and blast our dear Luna out of its orbit. Following the sage advice of others to consider Google my friend (though there are […]
Here I was, thinking that the data the Norwegian meteorological institute (NMI) uses to forecast the weather for the 70,000 places it brags about forecasting via the website yr.no was collected by charming geezers in wayward places, who empty little cups marked in tenths of millimeters to say how much rain has fallen and observe […]
My evening outing to Bergen’s cultural history museum to hear a lecture about its collection of mummies and the recent CT-scans taken of two of them, prompted yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday and a reminder about an interest I once had: Archaeology. I don’t get the fascination with antiques. But make whatever the object is old enough […]
The symptoms of (peri)menopause are many. It’s almost bizarre what happens to the body in the name of reverse puberty. Like indigestion. I have had a cast iron stomach my whole life – until now. Now I find myself experiencing GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) and heartburn. The really bad part is that it takes away […]
I hope you remember(ed) to count One Mississippi after 23:59:59 tonight before popping the champagne cork at midnight. Have a wonderful 2009!
A researcher, Bente Ailin Svendsen, in linguistics at the university in Oslo has concluded that bilingualism is an advantage (Norw. article). It doesn’t lead to confusion; it leads to greater flexibility. The article says about her findings (quoted text my translation): Bilinguals react faster to stimuli than do monolinguals, and the brain seems to stay […]
Wordless Wednesday I’m sure you’ve seen the Google logo for the super collider already. I’m reposting because in one way, it is historical.
Comics are educational. Today’s User Friendly comic got me curious, and I ended up learning something new about the kilogram – or rather, how one keeps a standard of weight so we know whether or not we have a kilo (as we “locals” say). I got curious about the reference to the roundest objects in […]
I grew up in an era where there was a call of “back to nature” (the influence of the flower children of the 60’s), where more and more humans stopped defining all the members of nature (from bacteria to whales) as having the quality of good or bad. We had embraced ecology and the awareness […]
There is much to be tickled and awed by on the web and if you read sites like Neatorama or Boing Boing or even Cute Overload, you’ve already seen a lot of the stuff. Thanks to link curiosity via something else Neatorama posted, I came across this little video on machine mimicking nature. http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/1348306/robots_inspired_by_animals.swf Robots […]
The US is facing a possible agricultural disaster. Honey bees are vital to fruit crops because they pollinate the flowers of fruits and vegetables. But in 2006, hives were suddenly being abandoned. The bees themselves disappeared without a trace, leaving no clues behind, and no other bees came to take over the hives. The phenomenon […]
I rediscovered an old favorite, User Friendly, and started poking around in the archives. I came across this: I got the joke/pun and laughed out loud, but then I started wondering what a brane actually was so I went a-lookin’ (using define:”whatever” you need defined without the “” in Google’s search box) and found this […]
I’m in awe. This man shifts huge blocks of concrete weighing many tons – alone, without fancy tools or machines. He’s reconstructing Stonehenge in his backyard. Get a fun physics lesson from Wally Wallington: (Via Boing Boing.) PS: Can somebody please explain the “two small rocks” method? I’m not clear on either where the pebbles […]
A blood drive at work (I didn’t participate at this time) offered some trivia about the distribution of blood types, which got me thinking. I gave blood a couple of times back when I lived in California, so I knew my blood type (O) was very common and very much in demand. I was therefore […]
On this planet we have deaf drummers and composers. Our planet may now be fostering blind astronomers. Via Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy Blog, I have learned of a woman who had a marvelous idea: Making astronomy books you can touch so the seeing impaired, too, can discover what’s up in the sky. Head over to […]
A Roll in the Universe 