New genus for the Madagascar palm tree that flowers itself to death

Do you remember that new palm tree species from Madagascar?  It’s the one that essentially flowers itself until it dies.  Well, it’s apparently so different from any other palm species, that they had to create a new genus classification to make room for it on the tree family tree.  More here with another picture and [...]

Pharmaceutical companies spend more on ‘placeless’ ads than research and development

We’ve talked at some length on this blog about the placeless places used in pharmaceutical ads.  Would you believe that the industry spends more on those ads than they do on research and development?  One study suggests so.

S.O.S. Breast Cancer Resources

If you haven’t already been touched in your life by breast cancer, there is a good chance that you will be at some point.  I mentioned in a post a while back that my mother was recently diagnosed with the disease and just had what appears to be a successful surgery to remove the cancer.  [...]

Rapidsea vocabulary exercise: ‘hoon’ and ‘pinniped’

First up, this article from Australia popped up yesterday: “Police on trail of beach hoons.”  I had no idea what a “hoon” was, but the context provided only a few hints.  Well, after a quick Google definition search extensive research to firm up the definition, “hoon” ends up meaning “a loud, obnoxious person.”  Anyway, the [...]

Society’s love of butterflies currently valued at $40,800

Butterflies and their peaceful meadow imagery powers have been all over the place this week (wait until you see the butterfly with the ball and chain that’s in the scan queue).  According to CNN, someone placed a winning online bid of $40,800 to name a butterfly the Minerva owl butterfly or Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae, which is [...]

Oops ~ surfer unravels the mystery of the universe

Okay, just head on over to the article.  Here you go: "Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything" at Telegraph.co.uk.  Hey, Einstein started as a patent officer, so why not?

Smithsonian Ecocenter ~ The Oceans

Smitshonian.com has a great collection of information and links here on the oceans.  I found my way there from the Gates of Paradise photos, which contained the following ad (animated file split into three stills):

It’s a catchy ad because coral reefs are a subject near and dear to many people’s hearts.  I tested this [...]

The How-To of Bikini Barbie Frankensteinium

I thought that the image of the mutilated Chinese Barbie-like doll in a bikini from my previous post was interesting, but I came across a blog through Digg that takes it a step further and actually lights up the Barbie in a small electric chair. That explains the doll in the first post [...]

James Watson shreds Harvard’s “Soviet” science plans

NOTE: This post was written in September 2007, prior to Dr. Watson’s comments in mid-October on race and genetics.  We have been getting a lot of traffic on this post from that controversy.  We completely disagree with his point of view on that issue.  The post that follows deals with Harvard’s future direction in the [...]

Star Gazing in Italy ~ Why the Sun Shines

The article “Princeton scientists confirm longheld theory aboutsource of sunshine” states:

“Our observations [of low-energy solar neutrinos] essentially confirm that we understand how the sun shines,” said Frank Calaprice, a professor of physics and principal investigator of the Princeton team. “Physicists have had theories regarding the nuclear reactions within the sun for years, but direct observations [...]

keep looking »