What is the sound of one claw snapping?
Wikipedia, you’ve done it again.
I randomly found the “unsolved problems in physics” page on Wiki tonight, and after multiple clicks to multiple other pages, I came across this one on sonoluminescence. Firstly, “it was too difficult to analyze the effect in early experiments because of the complex environment of a large number of short-lived bubbles” is probably one of the best sentences ever. Secondly, as I read further down the page, this whole phenomenon sounded somewhat familiar to me, but I didn’t know why.
Then I got to the near bottom of the article where they talk about the pistol shrimp, who naturally produce a type of sonoluminescence as a way to kill prey. I read their page and realized that I’d either read or seen or heard something about these shrimp at some point before, but I couldn’t remember when. But I do remember the death bubble.
Yeah, turns out these little guys pretty much sonic boom their prey to death. Check it out here:
I freely admit the “OH SNAP” comment from a viewer had me laughing.
The fact that a creature can do something so cool is proof that nature’s pretty badass.
Also, I dare you to show this screen capture to anyone and see if they can guess what the hell’s going down:
And for those of you wondering: yes, it is possible to get from “Sonoluminescence” to the “Pornography” page in six clicks (Sonoluminescence -> Viscosity -> Mistletoe -> Kiss -> Herpes -> Oral Sex -> Pornography)
Today’s song: Blue Bench by Sasuke
Woosh, it’s blog time!
Very interesting little article. Also kind of disturbing. Also sucks to read when you’re sitting in your ridiculously cold office.
Today’s song: Cassius by Foals (yeah, you knew I couldn’t stay away)
This just made my year
This is FREAKING AWESOME!!!!
BLOGS ARE SHORT BECAUSE LIFE SUCKS RIGHT NOW
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32968917/ns/technology_and_science-science/
Huh…never even knew the colors were different.
HELLO GOOD SIR JUST STOPPING IN TO TELL YOU HOW AWESOME LEIBNIZ IS PIP PIP TALLY HO
So apparently there’s a Monad Constructors here. They also have Choco Leibniz at the Safeway on 4th.
Two Leibniz references in one day make me a happy camper.
ALSO:
Legitimate statements or not, that music’s badass.
Mind = blown
I wonder how accurate this all is?
Have half an hour to kill?
Kill it with science!
More
More fun facts for y’all. I’m bored.
- When Greek mathematicians first proved that the square root of two is an irrational number, they celebrated by sacrificing 100 oxen (beware of Greeks bearing math!).
- The notes made by Marie Curie during her research are still highly radioactive.
- The planet Neptune has not made a complete revolution around the sun since it was discovered in 1846. With an orbital period of 155 years, it will have completed an orbit in 2011.
- Pan, one of Saturn’s smallest moons, orbits within Saturn’s A-Ring and helps clear out an area between the rings called the Encke Gap. Scientists believe that if Pan didn’t exist, neither would the Encke Gap.
Shazbutt
Some cool and mind-blowing stuff here (assuming truth, of course).
- There are an estimated 50 thousand million galaxies in the universe, with the typical galaxy containing 50 thousand million to 100 thousand million stars. It is estimated that there are 1022 stars in total in the universe.
- The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was the first person to propose that what we now call galaxies lay outside the Milky Way and were indeed galaxies (or “island universes”, as Kant called them) in their own right (yay Kant!).
- The Earth is rotating on its axis at a rate of 460 metres per second at the equator, and is orbiting the sun at a rate of about 30 kilometres per second. The sun is orbiting the centre of the Milky Way at a rate of about 220 kilometres per second. The Milky Way is moving at a speed of about 1000 kilometres per second towards a region of space 150 million light years away called the Great Attractor.
- The matter in the universe is so thinly dispersed that the universe can be compared with a building twenty miles long, twenty miles wide, and twenty miles high, containing only a single grain of sand.
- The star Betelgeuse, a bright star in the constellation of Orion, is estimated to have a diameter of around 700 million miles. If it were placed at the centre of our solar system, it would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter.*
*Though recent studies show that it is actually shrinking. At least, I think they were talking about Betelgeuse.
To the MOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
You know what’s entirely underappreciated?
The Moon.
It’s closest to us, it’s the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System, and we’re sitting down here going “OMFG MARS!”
Other reason’s why it’s awesome:
– We don’t know exactly how we acquired it.
– It screws around with the oceans.
– It’s under the same jurisdiction as international waters. According to Wiki, “this treaty also restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes, explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction.”
And that’s just freaking great.
Waiter! There’s some Plato in my Play-Dough!
The size of us here on earth in relation to the size of the overall universe: this kind of stuff boggles the mind. I love trying to comprehend it. I’ve searched around in various places to try to find stuff that would create a more comprehensive visual demonstration of size and perspective. So here come the YouTube videos.
First this: powers of ten, zooming from wide perspective to narrow perspective.
Then this little factoid, which I’ve mentioned on here before but I think it’s very relevant to get a good idea of the sheer size of the sun: The sun loses 7 million tons of material every second, but all the material lost so far amounts to less than 0.01% of its total mass since it started shining.
Here is a model of just the solar system to scale. Now look at the sun, how big it is.
Now this: another video I’ve linked to on here before (and on Facebook) but only because it’s ridiculous to think about things that size.
With this one you can compare them all more side by side.
Finally this one. It helps with the distance and the freaking huge expanse of the universe. Despite the implication near the end that a supreme being was responsible for all this, I think it’s a good demonstration. Keep in mind, this is traveling at the speed of light, taking us to the edge of the universe and then back in for perspective.
I love this stuff. Hope it was informative to you all.
Betelgeuse: making Uranus look small since 9,283,759,283,592 B.C.
Note: that is a random number in the title.
Puttin’ things in perspective for ya.
Just thought it was interesting.
SECRETS FOR SEDUCING THE XY CHROMOSOMES!
Doughnuts.
Seriously. They rank as one of the most arousing scents for men. The smell of them increases penile blood flow.
Other scents include lavender, pumpkin pie, and vanilla. All are better than perfume, according to studies.
Eigenblogger 