Nyan Cat’s Rainbow Moves The Feline Pop-Tart At Mach 7
An 8-bit Pop-Tart kitty moves twice as fast as the fastest jet ever created. That’s because this cosmic cat, this ubiquitous meme, has to take off and land adorably in space.
"science"
The Fungus that Reduced Humanity to The Last of Us
Pop culture is again in the quickly decaying grasp of a shambling horde. For how many times zombies have appeared, they rarely have a real scientific reason to.
When You Decide To Dispel The Santa Claus Myth, Make It A Teachable Moment
On a bitingly cold morning in 2011, I was sitting quietly in a repurposed Chicago bar listening to a physics teacher kill Santa Claus. Apparently, physics teachers and educators do this all the time...
Why Rudolph Should Have Never Joined Santa's Reindeer
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. Late one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, "Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" Rudolph declined, noting that when flying around in foggy conditions, a bright red [...]..
Why You Should Envy, But Not Worship Sherlock Holmes
"You see but you do not observe!" Why would you envy a man who doesn't know the names of all the planets, is a "high functioning" sociopath, and has no friends?
Could a Star Trek Villain Crush Your Skull? I Explain at Slate
If you trekked into a theater in the last two weeks, you saw the latest addition to Star Trek weaponry: the genetically enhanced bare-handed skull crush.
Rosalind Franklin vs. Watson & Crick -Clever Kids Rap It Out
Creative science teachers who allow their students to make science history, science stories and science activities their own are, in my opinion, the greatest asset to furthering science knowledge for civilization...
Creationism Feels Right, but That Doesn’t Make it So
Psychological researchers suggest that evolutionary thinking is unnatural
Outside the Ivory Tower: Science Writing, Social Media, and Non-Painful Networking.
On Friday, I was invited by a friend at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington to give a talk to an undergraduate colloquium about Science Writing/Blogging and how students might be able to pursue it as a potential career path...
Psychology’s brilliant, beautiful, scientific messiness.
Today, sitting down to my Twitter feed, I saw a new link to Dr. Alex Berezow’s old piece on why psychology cannot call itself a science.
The Symbiartic SciArt Roundup: Exhibits On View Now
Our recent effort to galvanize people around great #sciart on Twitter was a raging success, proving to us that science art is growing by leaps and bounds.
Art Takes on Science: An Experiment in ScienceArt & Blogging
This July, Symbiartic will celebrate its 4th birthday along with the entire Scientific American Blog Network. To date, we have featured more than 230 science artists in over 460 posts as the field continues to expand and come into its own...
Another 1/230,000,000th of a Galactic Orbit
As the solar year ends, let's try to stop being so parochial
The Science of Growing Smarter with Annie Murphy Paul
Science writer Annie Murphy Paul’s fresh perspective on intelligence and personality prompt a heart-to-heart about learning, intelligence assessments, growth mindsets and rethinking intelligence...
An Intricate 3D-Printed Dress, No Assembly Required
One of the most inspired design studios working at the intersection of science, art, and technology today is Nervous System, a Massachusetts-based team led by Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg...
SciArt Destinations: The Paleolithic Caves of Cantabria, Spain
Think of the last time you were in the presence of something really old. Was it a cherished possession of one of your family members? Was it a used book or antique that spoke to you from a dusty hole-in-the-wall shop?...
Home ExpeRIments With Your Kids
Perhaps you’ve reached that point in the summer where your kids might be sitting around the house saying “I’m bored!” or perhaps you want them to be more engaged with the world around them...
Cosmic Solitude, Exoplanets, and Books
Earlier this week I had the very great pleasure of catching up with Lee Billings, the author of Five Billion Years of Solitude, a beautifully written and provocative new book about the quest to find other Earths, other life in the universe...
This Is What We Don’t Know About The Universe
In recent days I’ve had some interesting conversations. There’s a giddiness going around, related to an outpouring of science love – the kind you get from President Obama introducing TV science shows, the kind that has wonderful visuals, but is, well, a wee bit simplistic (a sin that none of us could ever, ever be [...]..
Octopus, How Do You Count Your Suckers?
We all know that the male octopus uses his third right arm as a penis. (Oh, you didn’t? It’s true. Sometimes he even detaches it to give to the female.) In fact, all of the arms, if not so specialized, are easily identifiableas numbers one, two, three or four on the left or right side...
