The Great Geek Manual

Astronomy

Discover amazes you with Ten things you don’t know about the Earth.

Is it time to rethink space exploration? Sir David King suggests thinks we need to “re-think of priorities in science and technology and a redrawing of our society’s inner attitudes towards science and technology.”

When its time to move to the Moon, we may be building our homes out of lunar dirt.

Biology

Scientist have discovered a method of Determining your Country of Origin from you DNA.

The world’s first cloned Dog has fathered his first liter.

“Water Bears” are tiny six-legged creatures that can survive in the vacuum of space, making them the only lifeform that will survive the coming alien-precipitated apocalypse.

Your Mercedes’ seat may be making you sterile. Serves you right.

Physics

The New York Times examines Science’s Ten Most Beautiful Experiments.

The true story of How two students built an A-bomb.

Technology

20 Marvels of Modern Engineering.

Racetrack memory, which uses nanowires to store data may be The Key to Smaller, More Powerful Gadgets.

Stanford’s ‘autonomous’ helicopters teach themselves to fly in a manner eerily similar to that of sci-fi films.

Switched-on new nanotechnology paints for hospitals could kill superbugs.

• A useful tools for the paranoid: Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet?
• The BBC reports that the “Big Bang experiment” has started well.
• Get a first-hand view of the end of the world… I mean, the First Beam via live webcast.
• Has Dr. Gordon Freeman infiltrated the Large Hadron Collider? More importantly, will the LHC trigger an unexpected “resonance cascade?!” Wait. Is that a crowbar?!!
• If you ever get curious about what all those impressive LHC photos are, Knowledge is Power has explained many of them.
• In light of this landmark event, Scientific America asks the hard questions, such as, “How long would it take the LHC to defrost a pizza?“
• Popular Mechanics actually steps in to inject a little science in 5 Things You Need to Know About the Large Hadron Collider Now.
• Stephen Hawking explains why the Large Hadron Collider is vital for humanity, and no, it’s not so we can repel aliens.
• The LHC claimed its first fatality before it even went live when a sixteen year old girl committed suicide in fear of the apocalypse its activation would bring. Let’s hope this isn’t like the suicides at the beginning of those Omen flicks. (Que ominous organ music.)
• To ease your fears, Maxim magazine, leader in all things science, share 8 Fictional Doomsday Devices More Dangerous Than the Large Hadron Collider.
• You can check out even more webcam footage, this time of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment.
• You know that the LHC is totally legit, cuz it’s got its own Twitter Feeder
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That’s right! You can now make instant coffee with your two-kilowatt laser, and if you don’t have a two-kilowatt laser, this is the perfect excuse to buy one! Of course, if I were going to abuse my access to a multi-million dollar laser, I think I could do better than instant, but hey…

Astronomy

Leading astronomers are already lobbying to have Pluto’s Planethood Re-instated.

Biology

Don Knotts’ science cred increases as scientists his “Mr. Limpet” performance is validated when scientists Trace Human Speech to Talking Fish.

Gorillas aren’t as endangered as previously though. A new population of 125,000 gorillas have been discovered in the swamps of the Congo Republic.

Could a saltwater crop called Salicornia be the answer to world hunger, fuel shortages, AND global warming? One farmer thinks so.

Energy

MIT researchers may have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing the energy for later use like a plant… more here, here, here, and here.

Will pond scum become the new oil? Will scum magnates be the next oil tycoons?

Physics

The stunning photos of the Large Hadron Collider are so amazing that you almost forget that it might destroy the universe.

Technology

A look at 50 Ways NASA has changed the world over the past 50 years.

Finally, science produces something useful. Live Science talks about how nanotechnology can keep your underwear clean.

Using PlayStation 3 consoles for Molecular simulations is either the most brilliant use or the worst waste of gaming hardware ever.

Astronomy

• The Environmental Graffiti blog offers a gallery of the 30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth.
• NASA has just discovered that Mercury is shrinking. Pluto is having a good laugh over the whole ordeal.

Biology

• Do Worms Do Calculus To Find Meals Or Avoid Unpleasantness?
• Gene Editing Could Make Anyone Immune to AIDS.

Conservation

• Researchers warn that endangered species may become extinct 100 times faster than previously thought.
• Robert Silverburg of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine speculates on the possible exhaustion of the element Gallium, which a great deal of our technology requires.

Physics

• Biotech Breakthroughs: 15 Developments That Will Eventually Affect YOUR Life
• Movie Physics: Can YOU Bend a Bullet?

Technology

• The Discovery Channel takes a look at the Top 10 Speediest Supercomputers in the World.
• The NewScientist asks, Do we have the technology to build a bionic human? Short answer: No, but we’re coming close.

Astronomy
• Berkley scientists now believe than It Once Rained on Mars, though, of course, Ray Bradbury has been telling us as much since the fifties.
• Have you ever wondered How long can you survive in the vacuum of space? Predictably, not for long. But did you know the time varies from person to person?

Biology

• Every year, thousands of new species are discovered, but only ten are interesting enough to make the International Institute for Species Exploration’s list of the Top New Species, which spotlights flora and fauna cataloged in the previous year, such as the Pink Dragon Millipede.
• Top 15 Amazing Facts About The Human Body

Physics

• PopSci asks What Can Movies Teach Us About Space Travel?
• Stephen Hawking’s explosive new theory explains why the Big Bang led to the vast cosmos that we can see today.

Technology

• The Discovery Channel highlights The world’s nine largest science projects, which include the Large Hadron collider at CERN.
• The World’s first rotating skyscraper has been unveiled in Dubai. Yes, rotating.

AI and Robotics

• The Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society published an interesting paper on the ethics of creating artificial life which asks whether Cyber Gods are creating Moral Monsters.
• The New York Times profiles Daphne Koller, a Stanford scientist Pursuing the Next Level of Artificial Intelligence.

Astronomy and Space

• NASA has posted a photo of a Sunset on Mars on their Image of the Day Gallery.
• Open the Future takes a moment to Ponder the Fermi Paradox.

Biology

• List Universe has compiled a list of the Top 10 Extinct Creatures That Aren’t Extinct.
• Paleontologist Jack Horner tells us dinosaurs weren’t really earth-toned. Next we’ll hear that Raptors can’t really open doors.
• Scientists can tell our native language by scanning brains. The first application? Checking to see if terrorist detainees can understand the questions they’re being asked.
• You can rest easy. After year of work, geneticists assure us that The Sheep Fart Gene Has Been Mapped.

General

• The Bizzare has posted a gallery of 10 Awesome Must See Electron Micrograph Images.
• The List Universe has compiled a list of the Top 10 Scientists Killed or Injured by Their Experiments, but the omit Newton, who did, after all, develop a nasty lump…
• Scientific American has posted a gallery of Snowflakes that Reveal Nature’s Symmetry.

Psychology

• The Science Blog reveal that Bikini-Clad Women Make Men Impatient.

Technology

• Environmentally Friendly Bombs Planned… This sounds like something out of a Kurt Vonnegut book…

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

• Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University seriously poses the question When will computer hardware match the human brain? The short answer: it is predicted that the required hardware will be available in cheap machines in the 2020s.

Biology

• The NewScientist addresses 24 myths and misconceptions about Evolution.
• Null Hypothesis explains How Crying Works

Chemistry

• Learn Chemistry in Less Than Two Minutes with this helpful (and humorous) YouTube video.

Entomology

• CBS News features a video about a Florida State professor who makes aluminum moldings of the interior of ant colonies.
• “Crazy rasberry ants” are on the loose in Houston, shorting out electronics everywhere… and no, this isn’t a B-Movie plot.
• From coast to coast, populations of Butterflies are in decline, inspiring efforts to protect the beloved insects.

Environment

• A sixteen year-old high school student isolated microbe that Decomposes Plastic Bags in Three Months.
• Could Methane Trigger a Climate Doomsday Within a Human Lifespan? It turns out that the movie The Day After Tomorrow may have had it completely backwards.

General

• MSN has compiled a list of The 10 Worst Jobs in Science, including some that strain belief.
• Null Hypothesis takes a look at the Top Ten Things Science Can’t Explain.

Physics

• Wire’s Underwire Blog takes a look at BattleStar Galactica, asking Why So Sweaty on Demetrius?

Tech and Gadgetry

• We may take Space exploration for grant these days, but How Stuff Works has rounded up Ten NASA Inventions You Might Use Every Day without realizing it.