crome.org

My next blender is going to be a BlendTec for sure.

NASA scientists have found a new, but related form of life in Mono Lake.  The Lake is full of Arsenic, and the nasa guys thought that since Phosphorous and Arsenic share many attributes, perhaps there are some extremeophiles in Mono Lake that thrive on Arsenic.   And it appears they have found some that have replaced Phosphorous in their DNA with Arsenic.

If true, that’s really super cool.  Unfortunately, it may be a mistake.  We’ll have to wait and see what further study turns up to see if this really is a new life form.

Hey folks, it’s been a while…  Here’s a neat video that tracks how people and places connect to each other via $1 bills.

http://rocs.northwestern.edu/clips/?assets/Follow_the_Money_SD.mp4

The other videos there are interesting too.

What do you know?

The Pew center for somethingorother performed a poll on over 3000 folks of various religious backgrounds and found that — what do you know — atheists come out on top in general knowledge of world religions.  With Jews and Mormons running a close second.

This correlates with my own experience.  I took the poll myself, and I forget my exact score, but it was something like 85%, as compared to about 50% average.

Interestingly, even though I’m an atheist I find religion very interesting, and I’ve studied it quite a bit.  Regardless of your religious bent, I highly recommend some of these lectures from The Teaching Company:

• Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication
• American Religious History

(Thanks R&T for turning me on to The Teaching Company — I love them)

Anyway, I don’t really have a point.  It’s just interesting I think that that the least religious among us seem to know the most about religion.

Take the Quiz Here

Let me know how you score

BTW for my friends, I can loan out some of my Teaching Company courses.  I’ve got some good ones.  Also, FYI, the prices on TTC web site are crazy high — except that all of the courses go on sale at least once a year, and they come down to a reasonable, though not cheap, price.

Some crazy cool Aussies have created unbelievable animations of cellular processes.   The complexity of how our bodies work is just amazing, and how much we know about it is also incredible.  Clearly, we’re far from knowing it all, but take a look at how cell apoptosis works.  Truly amazing.  Thanks for the pointer Rob.

Go here for more animations.

Did you know that cats’ hearing goes out to nearly 80 kHz?  Crazy.  That’s about 4 times higher in pitch (2 octaves) higher than the highest tone we can hear.

In physical terms, that’s a wavelength of about 1/8 inch.  I’d hate to have to build a loudspeaker for them that covers the full 10.5 octaves from 60 Hz to 80 kHz.  Or an artificial ear with good response.  It would be tricky.

While we were watching game 2 of the world series tonight, and my wife and I wondered, “what the heck are those big rope necklaces the baseball players are wearing.”

Well, it turns out that they work by the principal of magic.  They’re called Phiten necklaces, which somehow magically “balances” the body’s “signals”.  What the hell does that mean?  They use magic to transform titanium into ‘aqua-titanium’, which is a water soluble form of titanium.  And then more magic happens, and you get in balance.  Neat.

Well, fortunately, it works opposite of what they claim:

See the necklace? These guys scored zero points.

And... Without the necklace, these guys scored 9. Coincidence? I don't think so!

Well crap, okay oaky.  It is a coincidence, and I know that there are plenty of dumbasses on the Giants that also wear them.  But like the deity, the Phiten always gets credit for good things, but never blame for bad things.  Oh well, whatcha gonna do?

This is an awesome and inspring video of a father and son team that sent an iPhone to space.

Incredible.

Check out the Brooklyn Space Program website.

And watch this video!

Click on the image for a full-sized-laugh-inducing version.

Alternative Medicine Flowchart. Nice Work Crispan Jago.

Check out Crispan’s Web site here.

This is cool: a javascript visual 6502 simulation based on reverse engineerd mask sets from an original 6502 microprocessor.   Click the image to go see it run in not quite real time.

I found this on Bunnie’s Blog.  It’s worth a look too.