Goodies // Random Awesomeness I Encounter

Incredible Images of our Amazing Star: 5 Years & 2,600 Terabytes

By Ben | science, space

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is celebrating its fifth year of continuously observing the Sun. [&hellip

That greenish mineral? Trilobite poop.

By Ben | science

Investigating the composition of sand from around the world is a fairly common activity in many earth [&hellip

Flying through the Solar System at the speed of light

By Ben | science, space

It turns out the solar system is really, really big. From the video description: "In [&hellip

Animation: Pollution is never a local issue

By Ben | environment, maps, science, weather

[Researchers] found that pollution from China affects cloud development in the North Pacific and strengthens [&hellip

Audio Illusions: You too can understand gibberish

By Ben | science

Your brain is really good at pattern finding, but as demonstrated in the audio clip [&hellip

3D Laser Scans of China's Supercave

By Ben | nature, science, technology

Southern China is home to some large caves, featuring some amazingly large chambers. A part [&hellip

Literally Visualizing Sound

By Ben | photography, science

Using a tricksy method called Schlieren imaging, it is possible to record differences in air [&hellip

Dead Whale Explodes [gross]

By Ben | animals, science

Two sperm whales beached themselves and later died on the Faroe Islands. It was decided [&hellip

Chickens: Now with Artificial Dinosaur Tails

By Ben | clever, science

It's research like this that makes me love science. I mean seriously. They raised chickens [&hellip

Islands of the Four Mountains

By Ben | nature, photography, science

I love volcanoes. And their (not entirely) subtle reminder to us all that this Earth [&hellip

What is Sea Level?

By Ben | nature, science

I'd never given too much thought to how the elevation we call "sea level" is [&hellip

Soda, Pop, Coke (American Dialects, part 2)

By Ben | culture, infographics, maps, science

I've previously posted some of Joshua Katz's wonderful American dialect maps based on Bert Vaux's [&hellip

Saturn is Beautiful.

By Ben | photography, science, space

Holy Saturn, Batman! In perhaps one of the most beauteous pictures ever, this image was [&hellip

Magnet + FAT Copper Pipe = "Anti-Gravity"

By Ben | science

OK, so it's not anti-gravity, but rather Lenz's Law. As the magnet's magnetic field moves [&hellip

What happens when you pour molten aluminum into an anthill?

By Ben | animals, art, science

The results are amazing and beautiful. They'd fit in beautifully in a sculpture garden. Next [&hellip

All the World's Water in a Big Cube

By Ben | infographics, maps, science

What would it look like if you took all of the Earth's water and put [&hellip

A Physics Definition of Velociraptor

By Ben | science

  Personally, I'd've preferred using the slope of a displaceraptor-timeraptor graph... via Know Your Meme

Caught on Camera: The Pitch Has Dropped

By Ben | science

As previously covered in these pages, the Pitch Drop experiment involves setting up a funnel [&hellip

Cortex: 3D-Printed Exo-skeleton Casts

By Ben | science, technology

Fortunately, I've never broken an arm or leg and been forced to wear an itchy, [&hellip

What Other Planets Would Look Like if they Were as Close as the Moon

By Ben | science, space

The Moon is approximately 1/2 a degree in diameter when you look at it from [&hellip

Disco Lava: Lava poured on ice

By Ben | art, science

Part volcanology research, part performance art, in 2010 & 2011, the Syracuse Lava Project melted [&hellip

50 foot long bead chain seems to defy gravity

By Ben | science

The video looks completely fake, but don't worry, it's just physics. They explain what's happening [&hellip

The Periodic Table of the Muppets

By Ben | art, clever, science

Artist Mike Boon has made perhaps the awesomest twist on the periodic table I've seen [&hellip

Thickness of Ice Sheets

By Ben | science

by xkcd

Motion Amplification Reveals Invisible Motion

By Ben | science, technology

From the Bits blog at the NYTimes: "The amplification process is called Eulerian Video Magnification, and [&hellip

See-through Brains

By Ben | science

"Scientists have come up with a way to make whole brains transparent, so they can [&hellip

American Dialect Differences: A Fascinating Time Suck

By Ben | culture, infographics, maps, science

My wife and I seriously spent two evenings going through all 122 dialect maps from [&hellip

Earthquake Astrophotography Light Painting

By Ben | photography, science, space

What happens when you combine a long-exposure photograph of Jupiter and the Galilean moons with [&hellip

Periodic Tables of Star Wars

By Ben | art, film, infographics, pop culture, science

Hey, if you're going to organize the characters from Star Wars into some type of [&hellip