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Discoblog

Archive for the ‘Blog Roundup’ Category

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Weekly News Roundup: Astronauts With Poor Movie Tastes

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• Will wearable kidneys spell the end of dialysis forever? And do they come in pink?

• At last! A scientific explanation for why you get chills down your spine during that Jimmy Page solo.

• The animal kingdom’s most gruesome weapon: The Spanish ribbed newt “pushes out its ribs until they pierce through its body, exposing a row of bones that act like poisonous barbs.”

• If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a video ad in a print magazine.

• Ok, so maybe the human dissections of the early 1900s were a bit gruesome—but at least they didn’t use stolen dogs.

• What movies are the ISS residents watching in space? Hint: It ain’t all The Right Stuff.

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August 21st, 2009 Tags: medicine, sex
by Melissa Lafsky in Blog Roundup | No comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weekly News Roundup: Wine from Space!

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• Bizarre condition of the day: phantosmia, where you smell something and can’t stop smelling it, sometimes for months.

• Thank goodness we’re doing something productive in space: A satellite is tracking and improving French wine harvests.

• The Romantics managed to mesh science and poetry. Any hope for the rest of us?

• Technology can be sexist; news at 11.

• Is the double-secret hangover cure really…asparagus?

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August 14th, 2009 Tags: poetry, space, wine
by Melissa Lafsky in Blog Roundup | 1 Comment | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: Ants v. Bees: A Showdown

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• The bees are dying of some mysterious illness! Oh wait, no they’re not! Instead,they’re being attacked by Rasberry crazy ants. (Yes, we said Rasberry crazy ants.) It’s like Alien v. Predator, except in Houston.

•PopSci, answering life’s existential science questions. Like “Why does Coke taste different out of a glass bottle than a plastic one?”

• True “out of body experiences” one step closer with virtual reality. It’s not quite Total Recall yet, but it’s getting close.

• A new lifelike doll on the market in Spain will breast feed from its “mother.” Cue the raging debate over child psychology.

• I’m sorry I didn’t call you back—a pelican swallowed my cell phone! I swear!

• Google Earth pic captures a “gate to Heaven.” Where’s it located? Brooklyn, ‘natch.

• And finally, we bring you: PandaCam.

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August 7th, 2009 Tags: bees, pandas, virtual reality
by Melissa Lafsky in Blog Roundup | 2 Comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: The Robot Revolution Has Begun

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• Robots are fighting fires in London, and thereby sparing humans from the dangers of blazes started by explosive industrial gas.

• Meanwhile, researchers are looking to pizza parlors for techniques to help them come up with a way to make robots more dexterous.

• He shoots, he scores! Check out this video of a soccer-playing robot. What’s next—World Cup, Robot Edition?

• Batter up! Make way for the robo-pitcher.

Related Content:
Discoblog: Robot Model Struts the Catwalk in Japan
Science Not Fiction: Hungry Robots. What Could Go Wrong?
Discoblog: New Humanoid Robot Shows More Emotion Than Some Humans
DISCOVER: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Robots
DISCOVER: When Robots Live Among Us

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July 31st, 2009 Tags: robots, roundup
by Allison Bond in Blog Roundup | 1 Comment | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: The Science Is Broken Edition

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• First it was toilets in space. Then spacesuits. Then the LHC (well, it was already broken—but now it’s even more broken). Leading one to conclude: The science is broke! Fix It!

• Earthquakes not only move us, they move islands too. (More news for Joe Barton.)

• So yeah, the 40th anniversary of the moon landing happened. But what human achievements will top it? Here’s 5 ideas.

• Cool tech video of the day: a Canon 5D shutter in slooow motion.

• Looking to hit the beach in Texas? Beware the basketball-sized blobs of oil.

• Also, we are official fans of this blog. As should be anyone who cares about science.

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July 24th, 2009 Tags: Large Hadron Collider, NASA
by Melissa Lafsky in Blog Roundup | 1 Comment | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: Killer Kelp, Science Movies, and the World’s Fastest Everything

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• The kelp best known as an ingredient in miso soup has invaded the San Francisco Bay, worrying environmentalists because of the risk it could pose to the area’s delicate ecosystem. Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water…

• One small step for man, one giant leap for Twitterkind! Nature News is twittering the Apollo 11 mission in real-time as it happened 40 years ago.

• If you’ve ever yearned for the chance to re-make Star Wars: New Hope, here’s your chance: The Web site Star Wars: Uncut is crowd-sourcing the movie, offering 472 15-second clips of the film to re-make.

• The Toronto International Film Festival will commence with a documentary of Charles Darwin, brought to you by movie stars and real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, who star as Darwin and his wife, respectively.

• And finally, check out this video of, well, the world’s fastest everything…clapper, cup stacker, sprinter. We got tired just watching it.

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July 17th, 2009 Tags: Darwin, marine life, star wars
by Allison Bond in Blog Roundup | No comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: Drunk Badgers, Zoo Battles, and Citrusy Tires

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup. • Tires made with orange oil instead of petroleum are in the making! Perhaps they’ll exude a light citrus scent on the highway.

• A badger intoxicated from a binge on overripe (and therefore alcoholic) cherries disrupted traffic in Berlin when he parked himself in the middle of the road. Apparently the little guy got pretty belligerent, too: “Having failed to scare the animal away, officers eventually chased it from the road with a broom,” according to Reuters.

• The owners of a runaway dog are pretty pissed off. They’re following the canine’s example in the hopes of bringing the pup back: Spraying their own urine around their neighborhood. Let’s hope they don’t try using, er, option number two.

• The zoo-against-zoo fight in Germany over celebrity polar bear Knut is finally settled…to the tune of $600,000.

• Cell phones: They’re not just for talking anymore, and some of the pictures people take with them are surprisingly high-quality. Check out these awesome cell phone pics sent in by readers to the New York Times.

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July 10th, 2009 Tags: Blog Roundup, intoxication, urine
by Allison Bond in Blog Roundup | 1 Comment | RSS feed | Trackback >

Monday Weird News Roundup: Ramen Robots, Glucose Games, and Goldman Codes

• Is the world’s most valuable source code currently out in the open? And has anyone told Goldman Sachs?

• A ramen-making robot lets Japanese customers choose the flavoring they want. So where’s the cheesecake robot?

• Who says gaming has no value? BigPharma firm Bayer has created a DS plugin to let diabetic kids turn monitoring their glucose levels into a game.

• An amazing spider builds life-size decoys of itself to distract hungry predators. Sarah Palin is reported to be examining a similar strategy.

• A popular online gamer ran up debt, stole from the virtual bank he ran, and exchanged it for actual cash on the black market. And then got busted. No doubt Paramount is buying the story rights as we speak.

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July 6th, 2009 Tags: gaming, medicine, robots
by Melissa Lafsky in Blog Roundup | 3 Comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: Invasion of the Jellyfish!

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup.• Between global warming and trans fats, there are plenty of things to worry about. But we bet you forgot about this one: A massive jellyfish invasion that some Japanese researchers fear could occur this year.

• If you think you’re important, think again—unless you have a fish or insect christened in your honor. Check out this list of species named after famous people.

• Always having to see with your eyes can get tiring. Luckily, you can use sound to “see” by using echolocation, the same technique used by dolphins and bats to guide themselves and find prey. Experts in Spain say it takes just a few weeks of training to master the method.

• Add one more thing to the list beer can do: Send you into space on Sir Richard Branson’s spacecraft. Guinness is offering one lucky winner the chance to hurtle 68 miles above the Earth at three times the speed of sound. The contest is accessed via the company’s Web site and is open to people in 28 countries.

Related Content:
Discoblog: The Curious Case of the Immortal Jellyfish
Discoblog: Remote-Controlled Flying Jellyfish!
Discoblog: Celebrities Sell Cars, Beer, Clothes…and Toilet Use?

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July 3rd, 2009 Tags: beer, insects, jellyfish
by Allison Bond in Blog Roundup | 1 Comment | RSS feed | Trackback >

Weird Science Roundup: Wallabies on Drugs, Microsoft Lawsuits, and Predatory Nymphs

Yee-haw! It’s the blog roundup. • Humans aren’t the only ones who can feel the narcotic effects of opium; wallabies can, too. In fact, farmers in Australia have reported that the animals “get high” from munching on the stuff, which grows in open fields, then form crop circles when they repeatedly hop in circles.

• Hey, lay off my layout! Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, has been accused of plagiarism by Kayak, a web site that helps customers find inexpensive plane fares. Apparently, Bing looks so similar to Kayak, it’s confounding customers.

•Talk about DIY: The woman who biopsied and treated her own breast cancer in 1999 while at the South Pole died on Tuesday, June 23.

•Remember those one-legged frogs deformed by chemical pollution? Turns out that there may be another explanation for those missing limbs: dragonfly nymphs, which feed on tadpole legs. Tasty!

Related Content:
Discoblog: It’s Raining Tadpoles? Fish, Frogs Shower Japanese Residents
Discoblog: Go To Jail—You Smell Like Drugs
Discoblog: Move Over, Google: The All-Knowing Search Engine Is Coming Soon

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June 26th, 2009 Tags: opium, plagiarism, roundup
by Allison Bond in Blog Roundup | 7 Comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

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      Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.

      Discoblog also includes the daily feature NCBI ROFL, in which two prone-to-distraction grad students post real scientific articles with funny subjects. Email your tips to ncbirofl [at] gmail.com. Follow the ROFL feed here.

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