Archive for December 8th, 2009

Dark matter discovered??? – “The essence of blogging is of course spreading wild rumors. This one is definitely the wildest ever. The particle community is bustling with rumors of a possible discovery of dark matter in CDMS…” The 6 Weirdest, Scariest Processed Foods – “Today, at the start of the 21st century, the miracle of [...]

Tags: ,

You Asked: Why do fish float on their sides when they die? — Cierra, Franklin, Ind. Marshall Brain Answers: When a fish dies, it can do one of two things: it can float or sink. Dead fish tend to float, at least for awhile, as seen here: That happens because bacteria in the intestines produce [...]

You Asked: Will we ever see cars run on nuclear power? — Peter, Calgary, Canada Marshall Brain Answers: I’m a big believer in “never say never”, and I have even written an article on nuclear powered cars called How the nCar works (Yes, that was a April Fools article…) But it seems unlikely that we [...]

Tags: , ,

One hundred feet below the town of Corsham in Wiltshire, England, is a 35-acre, once top-secret city called Burlington. And, yes, it’s a whole city. There are 60 miles of roads, a railway station, hospitals, kitchens – there’s even a pub called the Rose and Crown, according to The Times. And if you were living in this city, you might well like a pint of ale. Why? It was built in the 1950s to accommodate 4,000 government cabinet members and civil servants in the event of nuclear war.

The subterranean city of Burlington includes a lake, believe it or not, which was supposed to provide drinking water to the 4,000 residents – that is, until it would inevitably run dry after about three months.

Tags: , ,

Get it while it’s hot, kids: The future of free TV at Hulu is up in the air at the moment thanks to the proposed Comcast/NBC deal, but as of this morning, you can sample five episodes of the cult classic “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

Tags: , ,

As we continue our voyage through space music, I thought it might be time to discuss space musicals. For my money, we just don’t have enough song and dance pictures set amid the stars — and there’s an even greater dearth of musicals concerning the exploits of cowboy/roughneck astronauts. I speak of Cory McAbee: writer, director and star of “The American Astronaut” and 2009′s “Stingray Sam.”

Tags: , , , , ,

NASA is getting ready to launch its WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission: NASA to Launch Sky-Mapping Spacecraft NASA’s latest space telescope will scan the sky in search of never-before-seen asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies, with one of its main tasks to catalog objects posing a danger to Earth…. If all goes as planned, WISE [...]

Tags: , ,

There are a few things I definitely wouldn’t want to be the last thing I saw before I went under general anesthesia for an operation. I would say seeing Satan muttering behind his hand to his minions who then look at me and laugh scoffingly would really suck, especially if Satan says “See you soon,” real casually as I am wheeled past on a gurney and I say, “What did you say?” and he says, “Nothing. Nothing.” I wouldn’t like that at all.

Tags: , ,

Yeah, I thought so. And I promise you, this short video clip is interesting enough to warrant a few minutes of your time. Besides, just look at the way that smug little red and white striped Ford Aspire is mocking the guys from MythBusters — it’s looking for trouble, if you ask me.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Google Goggles has come to life as a new way to search – visually: Use pictures to search the web With your camera phone you take a picture of something. Google defines “something” as: a landmark, book, business card, artwork, place, wine, logo (what, no barcodes?). Then Google uses the photo as a search key [...]

Tags: , , , ,

Recent Postings by Category