Galaxy Zoo — the citizen science project with hundreds of thousands of citizens classifying galaxies, catching supernovae, mapping the moon, finding solar storms, and so on far into the night – has sprouted a new project called Old Weather. The reason old weather is more interesting than, say, old socks, is that yesterday’s weather is […]
Curiosities
You feel lousy. Some old lady sneezed on you in the subway. Now you’re achy and tired and feverish. Face it, Bud. You’ve got the flu. Better just crawl back into bed. What’s that? You have to fly to London? You’ve got an important meeting with a client? Well, I guess I can’t stop you. […]
The coordinate grid was laid against the sky to fix the stars and for centuries it seemed to work as planned. Recently, slowly, almost asymptotically, the grid begins to move with respect to itself — abrading, degrading — and therefore deteriorates. In fact, Declination -14 now sags along its whole length so that Declination +14 […]
In perhaps the same way that Americans prattle on about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the French never tire of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte. In fairness, the circumstances surrounding the Little Corporal’s later years, death and burial are…unusual. At age 46, he was exiled to the godforsaken island of St. Helena. He was […]
While browsing this year’s list of Ig Nobel awardees (improbable research is so much more fun than the kind that wins Nobels), I stumbled across a quirky little study on The Peter Principle. What’s The Peter Principle? I’m glad you asked. In 1941, a man by the name of Laurence Peter became a teacher. He […]
This is the story of Massachusetts General Hospital case #31-2010: a 29-year-old woman whom I’ll call Melissa. I’m telling Melissa’s story not for its common-sense lesson—avoid interactions with cats*—but because it shows that doctor detective-work happens outside of TV Land. Melissa was a veterinary assistant at an animal hospital. One day, at work, a cat […]
A few years ago a friend of mine gave a party and screened the movie Microcosmos for the revelers. Perhaps it was the punch I had imbibed, but I seem to recall that the film – a montage of mesmerizing bug scenes including ants drinking from a dewdrop and caterpillars moving in single-file – had […]
Metastable: Down the block, along the street, is a steep bank on which trees have taken root and grown, slanting off the bank and over the road, balancing their holds in the ground with increasing height and occasional high winds and of course gravity. One day sooner or later a good rain slightly liquifies the […]