I've learned three really cool new phrases lately, in my studies of the nature of void!

(shut up, we've all got hobbies)

1.  Spacetime foam:  The term for what space and time look like on a quantum (teeeeeeeeny) level, such as in the first moments after the big bang, when they (space and time) blur together in a way that scientists ( Read more... )

So one time this culture discovered that a readily-available plant had a really tasty component, and they began harvesting, and then cultivating and later, processing and refining and making all kinds of analogs and variations on the tasty stuff. Everyone loved it, and it sold like gangbusters, and the refineries and plantations and products ( Read more... )

This has been out a little while, but I just got around to watching it, and HOLY CRAP MY FAVORITE MUSIC THING EVER.


So, A) I'm in love with that girl.  Seriously.  If you know her, please deliver her fondly this piece of my ear.

B) I've studied music a ton, especially in the context of piano, and experimentality in the context of ( Read more... )

This is what I get for surfing at four a.m. apparently:  A really nice, long, juicy article about why we sleep!  It tackles some new research and proposes a sort-of-new conclusion, too.  Good read!  It's always nice to be reminded why sleep is important, as I think keeping this in mind can only help our efforts to do it more efficiently.

And ( Read more... )

In my stumblings today, I wound up watching this Nova episode on Richard Feynman:

Click to view

Now, this is partly notable because I'd been pretty sure there wasn't much on Feynman that I hadn't seen or read already. I'm a huge…well, not fan; I don't think there can be a Feynman "fan" since if you know anything about the man, you know he wouldn't have ( Read more... )

Oooo, if you haven't messed with Google Ngram, you shooooould!  Instant pretty graphs of the occurrence of any words and phrases in tons of books over time?  YES PLEASE!

Here, for example, you can see that the phrase "in the beginning" was used a lot in 1800 and has been in steady decline ever since, while "in the end" has been on the rise during ( Read more... )

::clapclapclapclapclap::

Stars from Space

[HD video, really worth your time to let load, hit fullscreen, sit back and get ready to grin like a maniac]

Originally published at *Transcendental *Logic. You can comment here or there.

Well, either I bit my lip or something in the night (possible), or I have a real honest-to-Pete cold sore coming on.  ::stifles panic::  Now, I know that cold sores are normal - they're expressions of Herpes Simplex 1, which something like 80% of the population carries and is one of the viruses associated with the common cold - but I've only ever ( Read more... )

I thought this made for a nice quick "Oh!  Huh" kind of moment - not that the points below can't be argued (haha what fun are things that can't be argued, right?) but it is fun to think about in that light.  (Here's the full pdf, which I found on Google in a moment of undirected curiosity.)  And if you're really fascinated, the Google and Wikipedia ( Read more... )

The Slippery Slope of Reality with Jerry Trumbule Part 1 | Shrink Rap Radio Psychology Interviews.

This is a good podcast - two scientists candidly discussing some of the problems with the scientific method.

It comes down to an argument I've been making since I was a freshman studying logic and mathematics: The systems may be perfect, but they're ( Read more... )