These are time lapse sequences taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station during August and October. The combination of city lights, aurora and thunderstorms from space are simply mesmerizing. A super fun game is to try and guess the location of each sequence from the visible land masses. I’ll post them below the vid. For full trippyness you may want to click through to watch it in HD on the vimeo site. 1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United [read on...]
random updates
We’ve all suffered that terrifying moment during our research when we’ve been asked what it is we’re actually doing. There’s that slight awkward pause, the sucking-in of breath through the teeth, and then… we bust out the moves and interpretive dance our way to an explanation. Right? Well, maybe not. But that’s the premise of Gonzolabs‘ annual Dance Your PhD contest. The objective – as if it needs clarifying – is to get PhD students to translate their thesis into [read on...]
Aug 272011
There’s been a bit of a hiatus here at Team Nerd, but rest assured it is temporary! There is another podcast in the pipes, and the flow of wallpapers and blogposts will resume before you can say “Where the hell is the octopus?” In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this spectacular, informative little video from Science Friday. Impressive stuff.
Jul 142011
A brief, brief post in the name of perspective. I like perspective, as I have discussed before. Today there is a lot of coverage in the UK press of an increase in the numbers of animals used in science experiments. These statistics are released every year by the Home Office, which regulates animal experiments in Britain – very thoroughly and very tightly, I can say with confidence as a license holder. This year the number of procedures was 3.7 million. [read on...]
Jun 242011
About this time each week, you would usually be regaled with a fresh blogpost from a member of Team Nerd. This week, however, there has been an unfortunate alignment of sub-optimal circumstances* and no such blogpost will be appearing. So here are some fun links about planes instead! Tenuous, I hear you say? Don’t even bring that word in here. This is vital stuff. Hey, I’ve even got a news peg. There’s an air show going on. Haven’t you heard? [read on...]
Never again lose sleep or freak out about the fate of your article. Send it to the The Journal of Universal Rejection. All submissions are guaranteed to be rejected immediately. About the Journal: You can send your manuscript here without suffering waves of anxiety regarding the eventual fate of your submission. You know with 100% certainty that it will not be accepted for publication. You retain complete rights to your work, and are free to resubmit to other journals even before [read on...]
Dec 092010
[fb-like] This time each week we usually beam another nerdy podcast your way, but there won’t be any new ones until January. In the meantime, please subscribe in iTunes, have a listen to some of our old shows, and check out this behind-the-scenes video that Pete made! Consider it the “bonus features” disc for the Nerd Alert box-set that will never happen… [WARNING: burritos - and broadcasting standards - were harmed in the making of this movie.]
Nov 202010
[fb-like] Apoptosis by Drew Berry at Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research I stumbled upon this after reading an article in The New York Times which described the growing field of molecular animation, in which scientist animators use graphics and video magic to visualize the intricacies of cell biology. This particular film depicts apotosis, a process in which a cell begins to self-destruct in a form of controlled cell death. The frenetic imagery and soundtrack confers an interesting [read on...]
Nov 172010
[fb-like] This video just made my day, now I’m totally psyched to hit a few experiments. It’s part of a musical project called the Symphony of Science headed by John Boswell, which aims to deliver scientific knowledge and the general philosophy of science in musical form. Because the lyrics are so awesome I’ve pasted them in here, naturally it’s an all star line up: Lyrics: [Michael Shermer] Science is the best tool ever devised For understanding how the world works [read on...]
Here at Nerd Alert, we dislike bollocks. We prefer brains. That’s why several recent developments have made us, and countless other nerds, more than a little bit cross. First of all, the infamous and (unsurprisingly) much-tweeted ‘Twitter Joke Trial’ came to a sudden end today when Paul Chambers was handed more than £3,000 in additional expenses to go with the £1,000 fine he was appealing. Now, there are many different flavours of overheated opinion to be found online about this [read on...]
fresh ripostes: