Friday 29 April 2011

Quote of the Week - Albert Abraham Michelson on the future of physics

Hindsight is a wonderful thing-
have a look at this quote by the physicist and Nobel laureate Albert Abraham Michelson (born 19th Dec, 1852)-

“The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.”

- he made this comment in 1903, two years before Albert Einstein published his theory of Special Relativity....

Saturday 23 April 2011

Hedgehogs

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful.

By the time you read this post, I hope to be half way up a Swiss Alp, taking pictures of pretty much anything weird or beautiful, floral or fauna-l. Pictures will be posted on here when I get back. In the meantime, there's just one link I want to post today; to an old newspaper story (new to weirdbeautiful but published in 2008); mainly the link is because of the baby hedgehog picture at the top of the article-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1935609/Hedgehogs-arrive-early-with-warm-weather.html

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Jellyfish pictures and why we don't believe science



"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."
- Aesop

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful


First link today is this set of jellyfish pictures that are both weird and beautiful at once-

http://www.designswan.com/archives/beautiful-monsters-from-the-white-sea-by-alexander-semenov.html

The second link is to an article called "The Science of Why we Don't Believe Science"- part psychology, part philosophy-of-science, it's an interesting read-
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

Saturday 16 April 2011

Nuthatches, Sniffer-Wasps and Antibiotics


(c) Iva Lee, 2011 | All rights reserved

Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful

Beautiful image of the day is this picture of a Brown-headed Nuthatch, Sitta pusilla, by the South Carolina photographer Iva Lee . The Brown-headed Nuthatch is a small songbird native to pine forests of the Southeastern USA- it is one of the smaller nuthatch species, measuring around 9cm (3.5 inches); the Eurasian Nuthatch, Sitta europaea, for example- the creature that is so loved by British twitchers- is a good 5cm (2 inches) larger.

Many thanks to Iva Lee for letting us this image on weirdbeautiful.

First weird link-of-the-day today is this article on sciencedaily.com on research by Dr Martin Kaltenpoth showing that wasps cultivate antibiotic-producing bacteria in special glands beside their antennae:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110411194823.htm

Sticking with the theme of wasps, today's second link is weirder still: an article claiming that because of their impressive sense of smell, wasps can be trained to sniff out explosives, toxic chemicals and food/crop mould...-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/0702-wasps_mans_new_best_friend.htm