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This Week in Science: Star Trek vs. Star Wars and Electric Life

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

Can an animal’s name help protect it?

Wonderful and unsettling: Hundreds of Cassini mission images sequenced and set to music

How To Create a Fad Diet

Pyura chilensis: the closest thing to getting blood from a stone

∞ “Have you tried turning it off and on again? Sorry, I mean, it sounds like you’re intolerant to wheat.”

Watching ants move about with augmented reality

We’ve discovered life that eats raw energy

∞ Every single time Carl Sagan said “million,” “billion,” or “trillion” in COSMOS, in order

The Vancouver Aquarium studies orcas via drone and takes pictures that look like paintings

Here’s how you can catch light in a bucket

The Amazon River flows with *way* more water than you think

The Declaration of Independence is covered in dog wiener emojis

This is what 2,000 calories looks like

The sleeping patterns of great minds

∞ Cholera bacteria are predator-cannibals, because THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE

Some proteins edit other proteins. We had no idea!

This gene is a obesity risk only in people born after World War II

Want to see a rubber ducky crushed with 100,000 pounds? Why did I even ask

Maybe dinosaurs talked with their *feathers*

You could watch underwater fireworks, like this mass surgeonfish spawning, maybe?

What Animals Appear Most on National Geographic’s Covers?

The lovely mimicry in a juvenile deep-sea squid

This fern uses tiny catapults to spread itself

More clues as to where Ebola comes from

World’s second longest insect insect is a stick

We recognize snakes better than spiders

Maybe we should make a Cloud City in the Venusian atmosphere. We already have a plan

∞ Kleptothermy: When animals are heat thieves

Ants aren’t like Zoolander — they prefer to turn left

Scientists got little birds drunk to see if they would sing differently

 

Extreme Nerdery

The commandments of Star Trek and Star Wars

ELI5: How are video game AIs programmed?

The Scoville Scale explained with DBZ

∞ The pop-culture captain matrix

The fake science of OOT’s OOT

Fairy population dynamics based on Peter Pan

∞ Real worries vs. Movie worries

You could kill a lot of people with all the caffeine consumed over the course of Friends

It’s 2015. We have a hoverboard. I rode it!

10 Futurama Jokes That Will Make You Smarter

Why are we so intrigued by zombies?

∞ Here are my top 5 science stories of 2014, in talk-at-your-face form, Because Science!

Dude solves world’s hardest Rubik’s Cube in 7 hours

If the Earth fell straight into the Sun, how long would we have and what would happen?

∞ In an all-out war, Star Trek would annihilate Star Wars

The Nerdist logo is also a warning not to get your eye fluid boiled

LEGO Star Wars teaser trailer is better than you think

Redditor visits Tunisia, is disappointed with lack of multiple suns

Ralph McQuarrie was the first person to visualize Star Wars. The art was incredible

 

Sciencey GIFs and Images

Praying mantis cosplay

The Radio Police Automaton by Hugo Gernsback

∞ A few days ago, Redditor null_value captured Io and Europa casting shadows on Jupiter

Monsters in America

A 3D, tilt-shifted galaxy

A slight change in athleticism over the years…

∞ Redditor Matt_Dave captures the perfect moment before a great white breaks the surface

Terrible idea #84979389: Feeding a wild crocodile

6 billion geotagged tweets light up our world

The chemical reaction of nitrates of zirconyl barium and glycerine, or hell in a bottle

The first stage separation of Apollo 11

BREAKING: Giant bird creature terrorizing city

The animal photography of Tim Flach captures our cousins in an amazing way

∞ Rusty piece of metal? Lasers can help!

A tiger makes an incredible leap for its food

Need (scary) visual proof that birds are dinosaurs?

A visualization of wifi strength throughout a floor plan

Watch Comet 67P spin in this Flickr gallery

∞ Your scientifically accurate horoscope for 2015

A horn shark’s egg case is a biological screw

Newton’s third law

Half a billion years of evolution in one GIF

The stabilized gallop of a dog is something to see

A deadly, salty “brinicle” descends to seal sea star doom

∞ Can’t unsee: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s abs are Batman’s face

Those circle centers are never going to touch. C’mon brain you can do this.

Seen this GIF for years, finally believe it: Car makes flaming smoke rings

A gallery of pseudo perpetual motion machines

Real snowpiercer

Geckos are Spider-Man

Terrible idea #7868987: Treating a tiger shark like a puppy

Let’s go crabs, let’s go!

Have you ever seen a spinning rocket that makes a double helix on its way up?

∞ Vertical structures cast shadows on Saturn’s B ring

 

Pop Culture Happenings

What will the first new words of 2015 be?

Some friends set up a 140-camera Matrix-style rig, take full advantage of it

A totally truthful in-flight announcement

∞ The MacGyver intro without the music is wonderful

What color is it?

All these images were totally fake in 2014

∞ You don’t need to idle your car before winter driving

Despite the high-profile cases, we’ve had the fewest number of plane crashes in decades

Airline sues kid for making a website around fares that are actually cheaper

New Year’s eve is the WORST

Tyson Boop

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