(via New Scientist)
The Aramaic inscription, translated to “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” on a stone box used for burial of bones was added in modern times.
Further suspicion was raised because of the inscription on the back: “Dad always liked you best.”
The BBC reports that eating three bowls of Miso soup a day could reduce breast cancer risk 40%.
(via Nature.com)
There are lots of palindrobe gene sequences on the Y chromosome. Coincidence, or a defense mechanism?
The Y chromosome’s mutation rate is thousands of times that of other chromosomes. Maybe that’s why so many of the X-Men are, well, men.
Dave Barry points to this site, specifically the Insaniquarium game.
(via Dave Barry Oh, just go read his blog yourself, wouldya?)
A fun Flash copter game
(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.
Sadly, Ben’s team (in the semis) and Damon’s team (in the finals) lost, so nobody’s going to Regionals this year. It’s especially disappointing for Damon’s team, they’ve won the season and lost State Cups the last four years. Twice, now, to Inter (congrats to them!), this time it went to penalty kicks. Nine players into PKs, Inter took it.
I’ve heard that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If that’s true, Damon must be The Incredible Hulk by now
(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.
Damon’s U15s beat FC Puma 3-0, advancing them to the semis, undefeated and un-scored-on in the round-robin.
Puma and Nor’easter are tied for second, their head-to-head game’s score isn’t posted yet, so we don’t know who gets the wildcard slot.
Ben’s U18s defeated Lusitano 3-1, taking the top berth in their round-robin division. Lusitano and Cape Cod united are tied for second, and their head-to-head game isn’t posted yet either. Weird!
More weirdness: Juventus beat both Cape Cod and Lusitano, and Cape Cod and Lusitano both beat Inter, but Juventus only tied Inter. I guess that’s why you play the games.
(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.”
Damon’s team had a good weekend at State Cups in two of their three round-robin games. On Saturday, they beat Nor’easter 2-0, and on Sunday they beat Tri-Valley Eagles 8-0. Since Puma had a goal scored against them vs Eagles, even though they won, we only have to tie them in our last round-robin game in two weeks to advance. Of course, they’d prefer to win, but a little cushion is nice.
Ben’s Juventus team still has to play Lusitano this week to find out if they advance to the semis.
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!)
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