Spoof awards honor offbeat research

A man who cracked his knuckles every day for 60 years and a team who made a convertible bra/gas mask have won Nobel prizes. Scratch that. They’ve won Ig Nobel prizes. The real prizes established by Alfred Nobel’s will are to be presented over the next couple of weeks. However, as has now been traditional […]



UFOs and the argument from ignorance

In the following video, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gets asked if he believes in UFOs. As usual, the answer he provides is both hilarious and enlightening. The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam (“appeal to ignorance”), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it […]

Breaking Glass with Sound

Rubbing the rim of a wine glass with a wet finger will cause it to resonate at its resonant frequency. The glass is placed in front of a speaker playing a sine wave, created by the function generator, of this same frequency. When the amplitude is turned up, we can see by shining a strobe […]



Redwoods: the Big Picture

These days, with digitized photography and photo editing, we may not think a whole lot about the process of making pictures, at least those of us with casual camera hobbies. One of the downsides of accessible technology is a kind of normalization of process. I know, since owning a digital SLR that can store hundreds […]

Carbon, Trees, and Fire vulgarized by Richard Feynman

This man is truly a joy to listen to. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone who could explain such a complex idea in such a simple way.

Moon’s damp patch finally located

When India launched its first unmanned lunar probe last year, it hoped to make a splash. It appears to have achieved that in a very literal sense: the impact of the probe’s collision threw up soil samples that have offered the most compelling proof yet that there is indeed water on the moon. Don’t pack […]