Digging through the web this week, I uncovered all this geeky goodness. You can find the thousands of links from previous weeks here.
I have marked my favorite links with a ∞. Enjoy.
Science to Read, Watch
You can use thermodynamics to make ice fog this winter, just make sure you know which way the wind is blowing
Smart Every Day went to 250,000 frames per second to find out how spaghetti snaps. It’s surprisingly complicated
∞ This half-male, half-female cardinal can’t sing
China just gave us a fresh look at the Moon
The black, goopy history of the dire wolf
Watch the shock wave as two muskox collide
The Songs That Saved The Whales
∞ Psychology can help you keep a New Year’s resolution
No easy way to say it, so… Study addresses what “squirting” is
A lava dome forms in the ruins of Mount St. Helens from 2004 to 2008
∞ My absolute favorite science video this year: “Wanderers”
The proboscis worm is a giant ocean floor scavenger that happens to look like guts
Are these flying lizards evolved to look like falling leaves?
Huh. You actually can’t see the cutting edge of a knife
This is a horsehair worm emerging from a praying mantis. I warned you
The wisdom of a bunch of fruit flies
What do we know about the efficacy of police body cameras?
Sloths and armadillos have terrible eyesight. But why?
A galactic collision in the spirit of the holidays
∞ Watching a goshawk fly through the forest is amazing
An interactive of the US’s 250,000 rivers
Some organisms get an economy class ticket on the ISS. It’s not a nice trip
Extreme Nerdery
This fire pit is fully operational
∞ How would we scientifically describe gaming’s most famous parasite, the headcrab?
Why Rudolph Should Have Never Joined Santa’s Reindeer
Robots in disguise indeed
How engineers designed the sounds of Godzilla
Where does Santa “put” all those cookies?
Why astronomers write down their plans beforehand
PopSci redesigned Santa’s sleigh to be more aerodynamic
Astronomically Correct Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Laser company offering a 3D printer file in case you want to make the trisaber
∞ On the forth day of Majora’s Mask Christmas my true love gave to me…uh oh
Sciencey GIFs and Images
Wait, are cats athletic?
∞ Striking a flint is actually one of my favorite GIFs ever
“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again. But…”
∞ This is a vampire bat galloping
I know of a spider who is better at cartwheels than you
This is the average color of the universe
A gorgeous animation of Simon Stalenhag’s gorgeous art
Holiday-themed light diffraction lenses turn lights into snowmen
The art of Sienna Morris is made of data and equations
∞ I might go comatose watching stabilized rhythmic gymnastics
Proboscis worms really earn their name
You can make pancakes with flubber, apparently
These aquarium snails ate every part of a carrot except for the skin
NASA’s NASANuSTAR images high-energy X-rays bursting from the Sun overlaid on an SDO picture
The Cliffs of Comet Churyumov Gerasimenko
How to stop a truck with a pole
Sped-up laser engraving of a keyboard
The world’s population as peaks and valleys
I stared at the 3rd GIF in this Erik Söderberg series for far too long
∞ Professor tells students they can use one notecard for the test, student steps up big time
You don’t need a cannon ball to have a cannon
A decent imgur gallery of some fantastic science images and GIFs from 2014
Pop Culture Happenings
Pope Francis makes an edict for action on climate change
∞ Another one of my favorite videos from this year: Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl
Man Buys PlayStation 4 From Walmart, Says He Got Two Bags Of Rocks
What people asked librarians before the Internet
Most of the terms on your egg carton are misleading or meaningless
You could do presents, or you could stare into the abyss with Werner Herzog
It’s OK if you don’t watch The Interview on Christmas, or ever
∞ Paul Rosolie speaks out about what “Eaten Alive” was supposed to be
Re-writing the Ten Commandments
Australian court to finally penalize homeopaths who claimed vaccine alternative
“An orangutan named Sandra has become the first non-human animal recognized as a person in a court of law”
Photographer Spends 20 Years Documenting How We All Dress Exactly Alike
∞ Most decade-specific words in Billboard song titles
The MythBusters never meant to be educational. That’s the magic of the show
Naughty Dog insisted that The Last of Us was play-tested with women (it wasn’t going to be)
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