The Great Geek Manual

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.

This is the first “zero emission” home unveiled in the Watford, in the UK this week, as an example of new environmental housing standards set to take effect in 2016. The house is carbon neutral, very nearly air-tight, and very open in its architecture. It’s so efficient, the designer claims that owners will only need to heat it four weeks out of the year.
Among it’s conservation mechanisms, it includes:
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Those damned scientists are at it again – ushering in the destruction of man by heedlessly pursuing the creation of the very devices which science fiction authors have been warning us again for decades. This time, science has regrettably taken the next step towards the production of the doomsday material Ice-nine.

Scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories have discovered a way to turn ice into water in just nanoseconds, leaving the ice hotter than boiling water. What’s more, counting liquid, frozen ice, and steam, these scientists claim that ice has a full eleven types or phases … not that we’ll get to see more than the first nine, mind you. Nine is where Vonnegut predicts the world ends in his classic masterpiece, “Cat’s Cradle”.
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