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This Week in Science: SkyMall Vandalism and Skydiving Beavers

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

If our sun was replaced by other stars

Gravitational waves discovery now officially dead

This Planet’s Rings are 200 Times Larger Than Saturn’s

Self-assembly of magnetic droplets on a superhydrophobic surface

∞ I was a SkyMall science vandal

Three-day-old chicks just uprooted the idea that a mental number line is a human invention

Very cool visualization of artificial gravity using a bag of tea on the ISS

The smallest snake is totally dorbs, a consequence of island evolution

We’ve pushed the dawn of snakes back a few millions years. The hunt for a four-legged snake is on

Jumping DNA turned our egg-laying ancestors into mammal moms we recognize

∞ Here’s why 76 beavers were forced to skydive into the Idaho wilderness in 1948

Can we take advantage of cheating cancer cells to help fight tumors?

Yes, the balls were under-inflated, but it didn’t really make a difference

What is happening inside a camera, at 10,000 fps

∞ The scorpion that can detach its anus and no longer poop

What if the world lost all its parasites?

Honey bees are their own source of heat in winter

A pod of dolphins surfing

A megamouth shark just washed ashore. It of course looks super weird

How Bill Nye and The Planetary Society are going to sail spacecraft on sunlight

What A Warming World Means for Major Snowstorms

We expected a blizzard like the last nor’easter. This is the new normal

Huh. The orchid mantis doesn’t mimic an orchid. It’s more complicated than that

This is what a laser pulse moving through the air and reflecting off stuff looks like

Why do we yawn and WHY DO I SHIVER WHEN I PEE?

Reading in the brain looks like speaking to yourself

Sounds like hell, looks like a fireworks show, actually blends: Neodymium magnets

Don’t eat pink snow either

Based on the data: “Maybe if we worried less about sex, we’d have more of it.”

∞ Will your medical treatment actually help you? You need to know the statistics

You can make lizards better long-distance runners if you train them

Another quirk of the brain touted by Malcolm Gladwell unsupported by new study

Gwyneth Paltrow says steam your vagina. Please. Please don’t listen to her

An animation of how SpaceX’s rocket reuse is supposed to work, with suitably badass music

What are the icebergs trying to say?

Emerging groundhogs aren’t looking for shadows. They are looking for sex

 

Extreme Nerdery

∞ A Navy SEAL’s Tips On How To Dominate Hide-And-Seek

The Circumference Party

Spider-Man would need a 60-900 egg-a-day diet to make all that silk

An analysis of all the deals on Shark Tank

∞ Thor should really be the god of momentum, considering how he flies, Because Science!

25 people could pull a rod of iron apart in tug-of-war

This effort to build Westeros in Minecraft is impressive

Watch comb jellies appear like ghosts in a LOTR swamp

Unnecessary Information: The U.S. Has Been Colder Than Hoth

You could circumnavigate the universe with a car using just a day’s worth of solar energy

How to destroy rock-paper-scissors opponents with game theory

∞ I calculated how much Link’s iron boots weigh because…well…do I need a reason?

A couple has a stop-motion fight ala Mortal Kombat and it’s awesome

Semi-Auto 9 in. Nail Launcher

What if Earth was a starship with a Star Trek-style dashboard?

Elon Musk fact-checked the Simpsons episode he was in

What p-values mean

The best LEGO Enterprise you’ve ever seen

∞ This tiny jelly looks like the Tony Stark of the deep ocean

 

Sciencey GIFs and Images

Jupiter in the glow of moonlight

Rockets of the world

Paddlefish feeding remind me of Snuffleupagus for some reason

Finally, all the supercell thunderstorm GIFs in one place

Holy shit DO NOT throw firecrackers into sewers

∞ Still my favorite GIF: Striking a flint

Kansas farmer uses drone and feed to make cow art

∞ Ferrofuild amassing in slo-mo

NASA’s Orion lifts off

A plane’s wake turbulence cuts through the clouds

brb trying this until i too get a water force field

Operation Hidden Spider

∞ “Smokeless liquid hydrocarbon combustion for oil wells” OR hellscape doom machine

Zoom way in on this amazing print from Steve Miller of a snake that just ate

Umm should we use moose as snowplows?

∞ An atomic blast in x-ray and HD

I think the attack of the bobbit worm is so unsettling because of the second thrust to pull prey into the ground

Surfers bail on a ginnormous wave bro

I like reading, long walks on the beach, and someone who can handle a giant king cobra

Yeah, we definitely don’t spend enough on the military

I eat doughnuts like a goblin shark

Hollow point bullets are dangerous because of how they are slowed down by your body

I propose that we teach physics students about spring constants with cat videos

∞ The Audubon invites you to meet these owls, who stare right into your soul

 

Pop Culture Happenings

Roald Dahl’s Powerful Pro-Vaccination Letter (From 1988)

Sick Child’s Father Seeks Vaccination Requirement in California

The Onion’s timeline of the measles outbreak

Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action

A subreddit that is only pictures of dead printers

Huh. There is “anti-climb” paint that stays perpetually wet

Ice-climbing Niagra Falls does look pretty awesome

Working past noon on a Friday

xkcd makes a very good point about friends during Super Bowl weekend

∞ America Likes Science. It Does Not Like Scientists’ Findings (as much as scientists do)

Least Cited Scientific Journals

I kind of really want pixel hair

FactCheck launches a section devoted to science-based claims made by partisans to influence public policy

Obama acts alone on climate

Love the GIFs of the coloring of historic photos

∞ Gun ownership *does not* make you safer

Nonsense weight-loss product that Dr. Oz promoted fined 9 million for misleading claims

Tyson Boop

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