Crispian Jago makes completely transparent attempts to get linked from blogs. The thing is, he keeps doing spectacular stuff! This time it’s a metro-subway-style map showing scientists of the past 400 or so years. It’s wonderfully detailed! Here it is shrunk enough to fit on my meager 610-pixel wide blog: Each color track route represent a field of science – brown is chemistry, red is theoretical physical and quantum mechanics, and so on – and the time is concentric, with the 16th Century in the middle, and current time on the outside. Just like a subway map where there are transfer points, some people span more than one discipline, and you can see that as two circles connecting different tracks. Stephen Hawking, for example, is astronomy and physics. Here’s a zoom: Cool, huh? Galileo was clearly a man of many hats. Lots of other scientists straddle multiple fields, but interestingly, the number of them dwindles with time. I’m no science historian – I’m not sure science existed before Twitter – but I imagine there are many reasons for this, not the least of which was that when science as a method was new, it was easier to make grand discoveries that spanned many different disciplines. It’s just plain old harder to do that these days. To make a name for yourself you have to be pretty good in a narrow field, and very few people have that sort of polymath capability when modern science is so deep and rich. Note that for the 20th Century, Crispian started including a lot of popularizers of science as well. There may be a few names you recognize… I expect this map will go viral once places like Geekologie and Boing Boing find it. Which they will. Get in on the coolness on the ground floor now. Or, of course, one flight lower.

Found by The Dude

James Lovelock says that “[h]umans are too stupid to prevent climate change.”

As for what I think… I fear that he’s right. Humans are far too narrow minded and short sighted to deal with a global problem.
We haven’t evolved for this. Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on our selves, but it sucks to be the organisms that put a whole planet in the toilet.

via The Guardian

//The Dude

V. S. Ramachandran explains the wonders of perception and art.

In essence it takes all of the things that creative people have instinctively known since we started painting on cave walls and carving fetishes and applied science to it. We can indeed explain art!

Via IHC

//The Dude

Readers of the Hitchhiker’s Guide are familiar with the concept of Earth being a giant super computer (sorry ’bout the spoiler).

But now the topper of all toppers have theorized that the whole universe is a quantum computer.

In Decoding Reality, Vedral argues that we should regard the entire universe as a gigantic quantum computer. Wacky as that may sound, it is backed up by hard science. The laws of physics show that it is not only possible for electrons to store and flip bits: it is mandatory. For more than a decade, quantum-information scientists have been working to determine just how the universe processes information at the most microscopic scale.

Via New Scientist

//The Dude

I posit that anything that can be used to represent pixels on a screen will automatically generate a Nintendo related image.

Example:

 

//The Dude

It struck me today, while brushing my teeth – as it so often does, that it is useless and impossible in every way that I know of to truly be someone else. To walk in their shoes and see the world as they see it.

I had been watching The Prestige and the twin paradox struck me. No matter how convincing they were in play the same man, they were ultimately different and saw the world with their own unique eyes. (I’m trying not to spoil anything, and probably failed.) Then it struck me that it is in fact impossible even if we’d allow for infinite parallel multiverses and infinite possibilities. If I were for example to swap places with a person in another universe, then I could not possibly “be” that person and observe through their eyes. I’d be me in that persons guise and vice versa. Maybe not the deepest of observations, but pretty good for something you realize when brushing your teeth.

It’s no secret that I have a special place in my warped mind for Hunter Thompson. It’s a fascination that has bordered on obsession on many occasions. And as much as I’d like to actually be my idol I know that it is impossible and not really desirable. His style of living was his alone and suited to his psyche.

I’ve seen quite a few people try to imitate his style of writing on various blogs and forums, but they usually get called out for it. “I know mr Hunter S Thompson, and you good sir are not him”
But there is a twist to this. Early in his life when Hunter had decided to become a great American writer he copied out among other texts “The Great Gatsby” on his typewriter. To feel the music and flow of the words.

Now Hunter did become the great American writer, but not by being Fitzgerald. No, he wrote until he found his own voice. It has become known as Gonzo, a word he made his own. At some point I’d like to find my own particular voice, to write my novel. It is all a folly right now, but who knows? Stranger things are yet to come after all.

Enough soft brained mumblings for now…

//The Dude

It turns out that chameleons’ tongues give them a natural advantage over other lizards.

Their tongues work roughly like a cross between a catapult and an collapsable fishing pole. This means that they don’t use their muscles to launch the tongue, but they use them when reeling it back in.

This is significant because lizards are slow and sluggish when cold because their muscles are less effective. Not the chameleons tongue though, so he can get a late or early snack just as easily as at noon.

You can read the full article here:
www.newscientist.com

And here’s more on the workings of the tongue:
www.nationalgeographic.com

Cheers!
//The Dude

So I got an invitation on all our truly beloved FaceBook to “The International Day of Awesomness” featuring approxiamately 5321 guests from around the globe. How awesome isin’t that? Anywho. To celebrate this severely cool day, all you need is to strut your stuff as if you were the most awesome thing walking around (I know I am, so I will).

For those with difficulties figuring out their awesomeness, you should check out this periodic table. It’ll definitely rise your awesome-factor! I can’t help but ask… Awesome, isin’t it? Just click on the picture or follow the source below to be able to check out all the sweet details.

Source: http://pixelbits.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/tblofawesome.jpg

//The Dudette

…while being eaten by a snake!

It’s cute too! At least I think so

He looks a bit hissy, showing off those colorful stripes on his chins. I guess he don’t like being messed with, hehe!

“A new species of chameleon, measuring just 6 inches from snout to tail, has been discovered in east Tanzania’s mountains.”

Read More at Wired Science

//The Dude

These are sculptures of the human form that are so detailed and realistic that they could pass off as the real thing. More real than real possibly…

Link via webdesignerdepot.com

There’s more…

See also these realistic 3D renderings of people

Noupe.com via FARK

//The Dude