Genius unappreciated

An awesome comic paying tribute to the unadulterated genius of Nikola Tesla.

Stolen in entirety from here.

When science and fanart collide

It's the numbers, baby ...

Universal language which I don't speak or write.

I ♥♥♥ this guy so much.



Have a nice Labour Day everyone!

You don't have to keep your hands to yourself

This song always makes me smile with its easy honky tonk rhythm, bringing to mind a smoky Western bar with ladies in painted on jeans and big hair and wild make up line dancing to it with men in ten gallon hats. But the deeper message of the song is not that light hearted. Basically it was about a guy who wants a little lovin' without payin', if you catch my drift.

Now, the gents may think that the lady was being a little hard on him, insisting on a wedding ring before engaging in intimacies. But many men don't appreciate that it is always the woman who is left holding the bag, or more likely, the baby. Many denigrate the pro choice team for being "baby killers" but how do you resolve the problem of unwanted pregnancies (whether within a marriage or without)? Women can lose their jobs for getting pregnant. Often they have little to no support to help them either financially, materially or emotionally to have children, even worse for those who have no partner to help shoulder the burden.



I love how this song speaks about the hard choices a woman have to make, often without support because of a mistake or even rape.

For so long the discussion about unwanted pregnancy focuses on women; how they should be more modest, don't tempt men, keep their knees together, and not have sex with men who are not their husbands (like men only have sex with their wives, hah!) and so on and so forth. Because women are the one who will get pregnant, it seems like the onus is only on them to make sure it doesn't happen.

But may I point out, gentlemen, that it takes two to tango?

Why not make it easy on the lady (or ladies, if you fancy yourself a player) in your life and partake on the amazing discovery by Prof. Sujoy K Guha and get yourself RISUG? The procedure doesn't take any longer than your visit to the dentist and you only have to get it once every ten years. Think of how much you can save on condoms! Besides which, condoms do have a failure rate of up to fifteen percent and some men are allergic to latex (you DO NOT WANT rashes on your precious dangly bits or the need to carry EpiPen to ensure the post-coital panting isn't anaphylactic reaction).

So take responsibility for your sexuality, gentlemen and do the right thing! Do it even if your DNA is super amazing and demands propagation! Unless, of course, you wanna be pickin' up the child support cheque. In which case, by all means go forth and multiply.

Note: If you are in the habit of bed hopping, then you need to use condoms (latex or polyurethane) to ensure that the bodily fluids you share ain't gonna carry nasty critters to your partners (or you acquiring said nasty critters). It's kinda awkward having to ring up a bed partner three weeks later to inform her that she may need to pay a visit to the friendly neighbourhood STD physician, you know?

Science rocks!

From particle to people

Under cut because of a lot of cool stuff!

Maths rule!

Okay, I flunked maths. A lot. But there is no denying that the universal language is really numbers and mathematics. If you go to the Andromeda, only earthlings speak English/Arabic/Malay/Mandarin/whatever. But all over the universe, 1 + 1 + 1 will always equal 3. When it comes to numbers and equations, there is no need for a translator, the meaning doesn't change across linguistic acrobatics.

The wave equation explains why some sounds are pleasing to our ears and why some just makes us grit our teeth (nails down the chalk board, anyone?). It is also modified in studying earthquakes to let us understand the phenomenon and predict little stuff like tsunamis.

Maxwell's equations are the base of our communication technology: from the old telegraph to our mobile phones. Schrodinger's cat may or may not be in the box (or both dead AND alive), but his equation translates quantum mechanics into things like your DVD player and smart phones. As for Fourier transform, suffice to say that you can thank him for removing unwanted noise from your recording and the manipulations to make your digital photographs prettier.

Equations make the world go round.

Vive le numbers!

*All stolen from newscientist.com.

Farting danger ...

... particularly so if you are an astronaut. It's not just the smell, but potential for explosion.

And unlike what you see in most movies, explosion (and farts) in space are silent.

Snake oil debunking

OMG! Love this guy!

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

But you gotta admit, this is super cool.

Sounds gassy

No, it's not a fart symphony. But something way cooler than that.

Go watch.

Creative, but ...

... decapitating yourself using the tractor loader possibly isn't how Caterpillar envisioned the use of their machinery.

Oh boy.

I do NOT have ADD!

(stolen from here)

My fondness for opening multiple tabs in my Firefox browser has NOTHING to do with ADD (attention deficit disorder), thank you very much. Nor my tendency to be working on 4-5 items simultaneously. It's not because of my ferret-like attention span that .... oohh! Sparklies!

... made me jump from subject to subject.

It's just that I have too much brain.

*grin*

That's right. The little grey cells (to quote Msr. Hercule Poirot) of my left superior parietal cortex (the part of the brain that is roughly three finger span behind my left eye) are just too plentiful.

Trust me. Scientists said so.

However, this does not mean that I am any cleverer (hah!). In fact, it actually means that "a greater volume of grey matter may indicate a less mature brain, perhaps reflecting a mild developmental malfunction".

Erk.

How can this be fixed?

Apparently, the team who wrote the paper is working on stimulating the mega-brain area by "placing electrodes on the head to deliver an unnoticeable electrical current to the immediate area".

Unnoticeable electrical current, yeah right. Now pull the other leg.

Time for your electroconvulsive therapy, m'dear.

How do you measure love?

Apparently it is possible to estimate the value of Love using basic algebra of need, perhaps some calculus, maybe a bit of the geometry of innocence, and a lot of wishful thinking.

You start with:

        (Love - 0) / No limit

And other mathematical gobbledygook that I don't understand (since I was this close to flunking Additional Mathematics) ...

Which leads to the conclusion:

1. Love is infinite if X is finite.
2. Love is indefinite if X is zero.
3. Love is infinitely negative if X is negative.
4. Love is imaginary if X is imaginary.

How do you mend a broken heart?

Chocolates? Alcohol? Beating up some unsuspecting stranger/not-stranger (literally or figuratively)?

Phhbbbttt ... so old school.

If you want to go for the most cutting edge measure, you gotta go the stem cell way.


How do you mend a broken heart? (Full version) from British Heart Foundation on Vimeo.

On the other hand, setting the property belonging to the person who broke your heart on fire may also help. However, make sure that you either have a good lawyer on your side or that you can't be caught.

*grin*

Who says scientists aren't arty?

Don't believe me? Watch this.

Stuff that makes you apoplectic

Apoplexy is a very popular word in historical romances (one of the genres that I devour like a chocoholic inhales Godiva). Some guardian/father/members of nobility/etc will be in an apoplectic fit over the harum scarum adventures of our intrepid hero/heroine. Apoplexy can also mean stroke, which is one of the major causes of death and disability the world over.

Hence, it behooves us to know what can cause stroke and make sure we reduce our risk factor as much as possible. The usual ones are quit smoking, maintain a healthy weight, etc etc, but do you know what are the most common activities that leads to an apoplectic fit?

Drinking coffee. Sex. Being angry.

Straining while on the porcelaine throne (aka straining to shit). Blowing your nose. Shock.

The poor snow leopard could have had a stroke!

Don't believe me? Read it here.

This means that if you want to live longer, don't have sex, eat lots of fibre and keep your mucus to yourself.

As if I'm not paranoid enough in rivers ...

... now I hear that crocodiles can traverse oceans. Granted that this was seven million years ago, but since crocodile design hasn't really changed since then, this is pretty scary.

Oh yeah. Crocs are salt tolerant and can survive six months without food. So by the time they reach the beach where you are frolicking innocently, they are starving and you look like a delicious meal.

Humans are doomed.

(Image ganked from here)

Not these crocs, okay? Only scary near escalators.

Yay!!

Validation for all coffee lovers the world over!!

Kickin' DIY ass

All the laboratories complaining that they don't have enough money for a scanning electron microscope should watch this.



I salute you, Mr Krasnow.

From here.

Not shooting blanks

Measuring fertility in men often seems to involve a porn magazine, a sterile container and a microscope. However, it appears that there is a less "invasive" way to find out whether your swimmers can actually hit the target.

Gentlemen, time to whip out the measuring tapes!