Imagine finding one of these on your window. Link: http://youtu.be/9e9NCAfp5-E Link: http://youtu.be/y1dY59vhQlo I’m not etymologist, but I believe these are hornets, which are large “eusocial” wasps, meaning they live in cooperative colonies like ants and honeybees. The term is derived … Continue reading
A gargantuan new dinosaur, similar in shape to the one that was the symbol of Sinclair gasoline stations decades ago, has been discovered in southern Patagonia near the tip of South America. What’s particularly noteworthy is that almost the entire … Continue reading
When wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park after a 70-year absence they had a remarkably wide-ranging set of effects. Most immediately they helped control the elk and coyotes, not just by killing some but by altering their behavior. As … Continue reading
What fraction of people getting a particular medical treatment will be helped versus harmed? Link: http://youtu.be/e_ytF2-4NkI This is a follow-up to a previous commentary on the “number needed to treat” calculation mentioned in this previous post. Here Dr Carroll offers … Continue reading
An aurora seen in northern Canada as captured on video in real time. That is, this is not time-lapse, it’s actually what auroras look like. I saw similar ones when I was stationed in Iceland. Aurora Substorm – Real time … Continue reading
Pediatrician Aaron Carroll explains how to compute various measures of benefit for various health interventions, including drugs, diagnostic techniques, and diet. One of the most useful and easy-to-understand measures is the “Number Needed to Treat” (NNT), meaning the number of … Continue reading
This is really worth a look. British comedian John Oliver interviews Britain’s most famous scientist, physicist Stephen Hawking: Link: http://youtu.be/T8y5EXFMD4s Imaginary time, by the way, is a theoretical additional time dimension that eliminates singular points in theoretical analysis of spacetime, … Continue reading
Isaac Newton takes on Bill Nye in a rap battle, but the winner might be the surprise special guess. Then again, Newton can rap really, really fast. Link: http://youtu.be/8yis7GzlXNM by … Continue reading
(Turns out I had used that title on a previous blog post here, but I want to use it again, and what are you going to do about it?) I’ve been pondering lately about cosmology, which I know just barely … Continue reading
Currently the only means of travel between the Earth and the International Space Station is via of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. This fascinating European Space Agency video describes the process of returning home, and I was amazed by how scary … Continue reading