In order to pay homage to one of the greatest man of all time (and one of our idols here at [GaS]), Etsy shop owner and artist John Larriva made this perfectly awesome (and a bit creepy) Carl Sagan wind-up toy. Check it out: [Via BoingBoing | Etsy]
Mark Roth studies suspended animation: the art of shutting down life processes and then starting them up again. It’s wild stuff, but it’s not science fiction. Induced by careful use of an otherwise toxic gas, suspended animation can potentially help trauma and heart attack victims survive long enough to be treated.
A new study has proven it is possible to get some insight into a person’s thoughts simply through a brain scan. But while it could help research into memory loss, it’s not quite to the point of literally reading people’s minds. The research at University College London follows on from a previous study there which [...]
Scientists from IBM and Stanford University have unveiled discoveries that could lead to the development of new types of biodegradable, biocompatible plastics. The result of a multi-year research effort, the breakthrough also could lead to a new recycling process that has the potential to significantly increase the ability to recycle and reuse common PET and [...]
More than 20 years later, I can still remember the first time my mind was truly blown. While at elementary school in the mid 1980s, we were taught about the Voyager probes which had been launched in 1977 to take advantage of a rare event (“the planets in alignment”, in this situation, not being a [...]
Neil Fraser wondered if a lava lamp would still work in the higher gravity environment of Jupiter. How such a question ever occurs to anyone is a matter of wonder in itself, but Fraser went ahead and built a ten-foot centrifuge in his living room to conduct an experiment to answer the question. The centrifuge [...]
Dishwashing (or washing up, depending on your location), while a calming and meditative time for some, is not everybody’s idea of fun. But fortunately it offers two factors which should appeal to any geeks: science and logic. Whether you’ve been taught by a kindly relative, discovered it from trial and error, or resorted to a [...]
By hooking up an EEG to a pinball machine, scientists from the Berlin Brain-Computer Interface project have demonstrated that brain power could be used to control almost any device. Check it out. [Via Neatorama]
Do you fancy helping scientists save the planet, or at least its communications and power systems, from the comfort of your own computer? A new project helps you do just that, even if you don’t have any specialist knowledge. Solar Stormwatch is an appeal by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London for public volunteers to [...]
Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our “experiencing selves” and our “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy — and our own self-awareness.
The Poetry of Reality is John Boswell’s fifth installment in the Symphony of Science series. The video features 12 scientists and science enthusiasts, including Michael Shermer, Jacob Bronowski, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Jill Tarter, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, Carolyn Porco, and PZ Myers, promoting science through words of [...]
By Jimmy Rogers (@me) Contributing Writer, [GAS] A few weeks ago we received a message from the fantastic guys over at the Discovery News Friday Feedbag podcast. It seems one of their loyal listeners passed along a story of ours and they liked it so much they asked us if we’d like to do a little interview [...]