Monday: June 15, 2009
- Photo of rare clouds stumps weather watchers, ignites need for new cloud type classification.
New clouds described from one on-looker as looking like 'Armageddon'. I'm sure science will think of a less fearful name.
Tuesday: May 18, 2010
- Brand new computer algorithm actually capable of detecting sarcasm.
...the team scanned 66,000 Amazon.com product reviews, with three different human annotators tagging sentences for sarcasm. The team then identified certain sarcastic patterns that emerged in the reviews and created a classification algorithm that puts each statement into a sarcastic class.
- Everything you never knew about ball lightning hallucinations.
For hundreds of years eyewitnesses have reported brief encounters with the golf ball- to tennis ball-size orbs of electricity. But scientists have been unable to agree on how and why ball lightning forms, since the phenomenon is rare and very short-lived.
Wednesday: May 12, 2010
- Scientists have discovered that Jupiter somehow managed to lose a stripe.
The band was present at the end of 2009, right before Jupiter moved too close to the sun in the sky to be observed from Earth. When the planet emerged from the sun's glare again in early April, its south equatorial belt was nowhere to be seen.
- Rogue star mystery finally deciphered thanks to Hubble Space Telescope.
The massive, hot star seemed out of place when astronomers first spotted it in 2006, and now thanks to Hubble, we know why. The misfit, 30 Dor #016, appears to have been ejected from a cluster of even heftier stars, pinging off of them and off into space at tremendous speed.
Tuesday: May 11, 2010
- A photo gallery from inside the Pavilions of Expo currently underway in Shanghai, China.
Go on in and have a gander at some photography of the event courtesy of Popular Science. You'll see some interesting things such as the world's largest IMAX screen followed by the world's largest baby (relax, it's only a model).
- Scientists discover that colossal squid is actually just a lazy pink blob.
The researchers found that the colossal squid would have had a slower metabolism and so moved slower than expected, waiting for prey rather than running it down. 'Everyone thought it was an aggressive predator, but the data suggests otherwise,' Rosa told LiveScience.
Monday: May 10, 2010
- Scientist verifies that the human brain contains a master switch.
Shin believes his discovery may be useful in understanding brain malfunctions such as autism, epilepsy and others. While researching brain function, Shin has previously shown that taking statin drugs to lower cholesterol may actually inhibit some brain function.
Tuesday: April 20, 2010
- Some amazing photos of that pesky volcanic ash for you to gawk at.
If you happened to be doing some overseas traveling over the past few days you might have noticed a delay or two (possibly more numerous than that). While this would've made for a really good excuse to justify the lack of recent GLM postings, sadly (or happily - depending how you look at it) it wasn't the case. More on that later.
Monday: April 12, 2010
- A gallery of the ten worst jobs in science according to Popular Science.
If anyone would know which jobs in science are the worst it would have to be Popular Science, right? If you choose to read on you'll learn about all kinds of disparaging work opportunities in the science field from the oceanic snot-diver all the way over to the feces piper. Lovely.
Tuesday: March 30, 2010
- Large hadron collider smashes protons successfully after some minor power issues.
This is thought to have a profound role in the structure of the Universe, and would enable scientists to explain why matter has mass - something which, at a fundamental level, they have difficulty doing at present.