Back in 2020, we discussed DeepMind’s impressive advances in protein structure prediction, as evinced by their showing at CASP14. They’ve finally made good on their promise to publish their work on AlphaFold2! In the interim, though, David Baker’s gr…
Space cake, fridge scat, and cow-shouting for SCIENCE!
Question: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in the name of science?
“Administered enemas made of raspberries to mice.”
(Twitter thread found via Nature Index)
The Art, Science, and Mystery of Sleep
Sleep schedule all jacked up*? Stuck at home? Explore–virtually–the American Visionary Art Museum’s current exhibit, The Science and Mystery of Sleep (alt YT). What about the exhibition’s visual components?
“It is anchored by three handmade bedrooms…
The Preferred Nomenclature
Fifteen years ago, biologist and Cohen brothers fan Ingi Agnarsson christened two newly-discovered spiders Anelosimus dude and Anelosimus thebiglebowski (includes a spider photo). Why? Most spiders will be aggressive toward their own, but for these two…
Mechanisms at Play: The Audio-Kinetic Sculptures of George Rhoads
May I interest you in a moment of mechanical joy? George Rhoads, the man who designed delightful kinetic sculptures made of twists and turns and gears and track, died on July 9, 2021. His audio-kinetic ball machines can be found across the United State…
A question of guts and brains
Fecal transplants reverse signs of brain aging in mice (Science Magazine) – A new study published in Nature Aging shows a transplant of gut microbes, in the form of feces, from young mice to old ones can turn back the clock on the aging brain. The firs…
Leaping squirrels!
Parkour is one of their many feats of agility (from UC Berkeley/Berkeley News): Their claws are so failproof, Hunt said, that none of the squirrels ever fell, despite wobbly leaps and over- or undershot landings.. “They’re not always going to have thei…
Let there be light
Physicists Detect Strongest Evidence Yet of Matter Generated by Collisions of Light.
If you smash some photons together with enough energy you get matter!!!!
Go figure.
A[BillionBillionBillion]undant Prochlorococcus
Penny Chisholm won the 2019 Crafoord Prize for her 1985 discovery of the most abundant living thing on the blue dot. Obligatory TED talk. Exec summary. Maybe Procholorococcus qualifies for “weird forms of life”? In 1985 Penny Chisholm and Rob Olsen too…
Liquid Oxygen is Magnetic
Liquid Oxygen is Magnetic (SLYT)