Casiello Family Weblog

(via Dave Barry Oh, just go read his blog yourself, wouldya?)

A fun Flash copter game

(via Dave Barry)

http://www.powergenitalia.com/

(via Lockergnome)

…only 12,000 years ago cavemen could draw better than I can now!

(via New Scientist)

…only to be replaced by ‘see ya later’ 23 million years ago.

A new genetic study suggests that Old Word primates (and thus, later humans) may have stopped relying on pheromone signals because they developed color vision.

(via Dave Barry)

It turns out cows breathe out a *lot* of methane, enough to account for 20% of the methane in the atmosphere – about 100-150 gallons per cow, per day.

Biochemist Stephen Ragsdale at U-Nebraska is trying to develop a feed additive to reduce the problem. Besides reducing atmosperic methane, this may also save farmers money – about 16% of what cattle eat ends up just being used to produce methane.

Maybe they could just fit the cows with snorkels, and harvest the methane for power production. Gary Larsen, where are you when we need you?!

(from Nature.com)

According to a Spanish researcher, the universe may not rip itself to shreds after all. We’ve known for several years that the expansion of the unverse is accelerating, the recent ‘Big Rip’ theory says this will end in the galaxies, planets, and eventually subatomic particles themselves will be torn to pieces by the ever-increasing pressure of ‘dark energy’. But maybe not.

Whew!

With apologies to Dave Barry, I’ll conjecture that the galaxies are accelerating away from us just to get away from this guy.

(via APoD)

A montage of the May 31 solar eclipse in which a hot-air balloon showed up in some of the shots.

Gee, two astronomy posts in one day. I’ll hafta find something about cows soon.

(via devnull)

The Earth and Moon as seen from Mars. From the Nasa site: This is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that actually shows our home as a planetary disk.

Robert Burns seems appropriate here:

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us
An’ ev’n Devotion

— from To A Louse On seeing one on a Lady’s bonnet at Church.

(via devnull)

Ronald’s Playhouse: The Wall Street Journal says McDonald’s has a strict policy forbidding the men who play Ronald McDonald to reveal their true identities. Can this really be a problem with any of those men? (Barach)

(via The Independent)

Researchers have developed a tape so strong that the amount needed to cover your palms could let you stick to the ceiling.

A combination of capillary force and Van der Waals interaction supply the stickiness.

However, it turns out the scientists are spoilsports:

“We have also considered producing a large amount of gecko tape, sufficient amounts to enable a student to hang out of a window of a tall building,” Professor Geim said. “However, it would cost too much money, and would not benefit us scientifically, so we have limited our demonstration to the Spiderman toy.”

Check out this movie being made by homeschooling teens – the trailer is impressive! (and I’m not just saying that cuz some of my kids are going to be in it.)

(via Fark)

A new milking method is being tried in England –
a robot that milks cows

(I definitely need a new category just for farm animals!)

At least that’s the illusion James Dyson creates in his entry ‘Wrong Garden’ for the Chelsea (England) Flower Show

(via Metafilter)

The kilogram is losing weight! (NYT link requries registration)

At least, the refence kilogram, defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder, has lost 50 micrograms, so scientists are looking for a new way of defining the kilogram, perhaps as a certain number of molecules of an element. They’re probably afraid they’ll look fat next to a slimmer, trimmer kilogram at parties.

Happy 100th Birthday to Bob Hope

This guy is amazing – his career covered vaudeville, radio, Broadway, movies, and TV, not to mention entertaining troops from World War II to Desert Storm. A cool guy.

(via New Scientist)

Maybe not as small as the one in Men In Black, but these galaxies are pretty darn small!

(via Dave Barry’s blog)

A Calculator for the Pax Americanus.

The BBC has recreated a Dr Who story – Shada – on the web as a Flash animation. This story was written by Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide fame, but filming was never finished, so it never made it on the air. Episodes are being added weekly.

(what about his back?)

Four years after his last album, Running With Scissors, Weird Al Yankovic is back with Poodle Hat

I don’t usually indulge in commecial plugs, but I really liked his last album, (especially It’s All About The Pentiums, and Horoscope) so what the heck! (By the way, I will accept bribes!)

(via IP)

www.alberteinstein.info came online today, a joint project of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and CalTech.

Digitized images of over 900 documents written by Einstein; his scientific and non-scientific writings, diaries, and correspondence, and a database of documents by and about Einstein.