Better camo than you'd see at Monster Truck shows:

As a bird flies overhead, two insects freeze, hoping not to be noticed. If one of the insects is just the slightest bit more difficult to see, the other will be more likely to be eaten. This rule of nature is best summed up: "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you." So in the constant struggle to hide better than the competition, the result is near invisibility.

The mimics

Galaxy Zoo

Did you ever want to be an astrophysicist, working with the top names of astronomy in solving the most pressing questions of how and why our universe behaves the way it does, but think, "Gee golly, that's a lot of school"?

Well fret no more, you pseudo-nerds! With Galaxy Zoo you, too, can spend hours of your precious life going cross-eyed staring at blurry snapshots on your computer hoping to get better results than some crappy $78 billion computer.

Seriously, though. This is real science that you can take part in. You can classify galaxies and run galaxy collision models on your computer. You will be doing real science, with real results. You're just a few clicks away from helping the next generation understand, and benefit from, the universe more than ever before.

Intelligence Squared

A series of debates from IQSquared US. It helps to see how our own arguments are being treated by the knowledgeable. Plus, debates can be very, very entertaining: intellectual football.

IQ Squared Debates

Global Warmooling?

So is the globe warming or cooling? The science is clear, but only, it seems, to scientists. "Conspiracy!" claims the right, funded by coal and oil. "Danger!" cries the left, funded by nature groups and donations. When both sides are in such extreme disagreement, what do we do? Decide the truth is in the middle? No! Of course not. One side may be completely wrong. We educate ourselves. What does the science say without the propaganda? Listen to the scientist.

David Archer's Understanding the Forecast: A free online "class" from the University of Chicago.

You can claim he's part of the Conspiracy, but if the only truth we accept is the truth we already think we know, we were never really after the truth, were we?

Images and Beyond!

Nasa has been having a grand time with cameras, both still and video. It's like first time parents. I'm serious, they take a picture of everything. "Oh, look, the shuttle is landing late in the second week of August instead of early in the second week of August, get a picture!"

Okay, but in their defense, most of these pictures are stunning: Pillars of Creation stunning. What's more, they tell stories spanning a 13.75 billion year epic of the violent and destructive tearing apart of nothingness that created in all its insignificant mass and paltry relevance that which we call "something." And this "something" is beautiful, and grows in beauty the more we understand about it.

Nasa Picture Pages (...time to get your picture pages, time to get your crayons and your pencil.)

Elemental

Just a great little help for those of you plugging through a science class, those of you plugging through a science career, or those of you as dorky as I am and just curious:

An interactive table of the elements with some pretty handy tools.

Coffee beans are big.

Not from the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy:
"A coffee bean," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to a coffee bean, LISTEN!" and so on...

Okay, we all know a coffee bean is rather small; small enough to be quite challenging to manage to choke on one. Since choking on food is one talent humans have monopolized on planet earth, we had to find another way to make the bean dangerous, a worthy opponent. Thus, we balance hot coffee in flimsy Styrofoam cups between our legs while driving 5 speed manuals with temperamental clutches through Boston rush hour traffic while texting how terrible other drivers are.

But still, coffee beans are quite large in comparison to those things that make up most of the universe:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Space is big

From the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy:
"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space, LISTEN!" and so on...

"But how big is 'mindbogglingly big?'" you might ask. It's this big:

http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/solarsystem/

Gap Minder

Hans Rosling and his family have developed this fantastic software that help you to plot out statistical facts. Watch his videos and see how our view of the world is not as attached to reality as we might think. A warning though: Garbage In = Garbage Out. In order for a conclusion to be true, the premises must also be true. Still, an excellent tool to clearly demonstrate how the statistics play out.

http://www.gapminder.org/

Or, to find out more about Hans Rosling, check out his blog over at:

http://www.roslingsblogger.blogspot.com/