I Love the Smell of Engineering in the Morning!

The Science (and social ‘dos’ of) building better Syrian barrel bombs. The Al-Assad regime’s campaign of ‘barrel bombs’ gets Brown Moses interested, so he’s providing in-depth commentary, box scores.  Should I be sad or happy that all these equations are ‘canonical’ in the trade? “Based on this equation, the optimum fragment mass can be computed to increase barrel bomb performance”:

Gun suicides kill the equivalent of two Sandy Hook shootings a day. But it’s just so goddamn depressing to talk about, so we just … don’t.

These New-Fangled Books Will Doom Us All! “New Media” has been controversial for going on 600 years.

Bill, watch out for that ‘Gish Gallop’! I fear this may not end well.

Hey, guys? I brought the hacky sack! : Dolphins ‘deliberately get high’ on puffer fish nerve toxins by carefully chewing and passing them around.

On the Established Origins of Particular Beasts from the Monster Manual.

Death from above, below and within

The meteorite that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February may have been a member of a gang of asteroids that still poses a threat to Earth, a new study says. The evidence is circumstantial, but future observations could help to settle the question.

For centuries, people have reported hearing a sound made by meteors as they streaked across the skies overhead, but that’s not as crazy as it might sound!

How the USAF keeps tabs on space junk.

In 2012, wind energy became the number one source of new U.S. electricity generation capacity for the first time – representing 43 percent of all new electric additions and accounting for $25 billion in U.S. investment, according to a Department of Energy report released this morning.

Hello, old friend! Bottlenose dolphins can remember their friends after 20 years apart, study says. Each dolphin has a unique whistle that functions like a name, allowing the marine mammals to keep close social bonds.

Robert Krulwich on dinosaur sex. ‘Nuff said.

Wil Wheaton is more than a little ticked off at The Discovery Channel over their utterly bogus “Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives” crockumentary. What’s next, Discovery Channel,  “Megalodonado“? 

Jonathan Yoder, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gives us the rundown on what we do and don’t know about brain-eating amoebas.

Free energy, cancer cures and breakthrough technologies: where did all those amazing discoveries go?

Here’s 15 things everyone would know if “the media” was “liberal”. How many of these facts have you heard lately? You’ve heard more about the royal baby, right?

Robert Reich thinks he knows three reasons the GOP wants to keep unemployment high…besides them just being bad people.

Look Homeward, Angel!

Say “cheese”! On July 19, the Cassini space probe – in orbit around Saturn – use its wide angle camera to capture a spectacular view of our own planet as a speck in the distance, past the looming view of the ringed giant. Taken from the ‘dark side’ of Saturn, the photo shows a distant Earth, (898 million miles/1.44 billion km away) as a blue dot at center right – our Moon can just barely be seen as a fainter protrusion off the Earth’s right side (this narrow angle shot shows the two more clearly).

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Anakin Skywalker’s hometown is about to be overtaken by sand dunes.

“Make no landing there”. Ever heard of North Sentinel Island? Probably not… even though it’s one of the most unusual places on Earth. What makes it so odd? The people -they’ve been there a long time, completely cut off from the rest of the world. And that’s the way they seem to like it.

You can make a map of any part of the world, of places that don’t even exist… or map stereotypes, even.

After over 20 years of studying “crack babies” one conclusion is clear: “Poverty is a more powerful influence on the outcome of inner-city children than gestational exposure to cocaine.”

Call me “Mr. Flipper”! It’s pretty clear now that dolphins have names and answer to them.

Sometimes you just have to build a frog sexbot, and that can teach you a lot… FOR SCIENCE!

 Most radiologists can’t see them, apparently! Beware the invisible gorillas, they are everywhere.

He is most famous for bending spoons but what you probably didn’t know is that Uri Geller is actually responsible for saving us from a Third World War and Armageddon. That what he says, anyway.

There are carrion bees in Panama that take a pass on the pollen and digest rotting meat instead. I’d take a pass on the local honey if I were you.

This weekend I was using a chainsaw to remove  a pecan tree that had grown through the roof of my greenhouse/tool-shed. I was ten feet up on a ladder when that wasp nest that I hadn’t seen took umbrage and YOW! Only five stings in total, and I made it down the ladder with all my fingers and toes. That’s what panic was made for.