#43, FIXEDD;

Spheres of one size are not the most efficient way to fill a container- they fill about 75% maximum.

Cubes could be better- appropriately sized cubes in a cubic container would (obviously) fill 100% of the space.

If you were to add an equal number of spheres with a radius of 0.15* times that of the original spheres, you'd get much better packing. If you iterate this to infinity, you would get 100% packing.

*For face-centred cubic packing, which is the most efficient way of packing spheres.

Reminds me of Patricia Waller's work (featured here some time ago, I think).

Having tried to dig up some dandelions recently, I assumed 'think like a dandelion' meant 'hang on to your position as hard as you can'.

The article puts me in mind of the reproductive strategy of some fish- they just spray out millions of eggs and sperm, and hope that some get fertilised and survive.

So I guess 'fuck like a fish' would have been my suggestion.

Is "internet users have short attention spans" not rather patronising?

If you liked this, you may like Sedlec Ossuary and the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione, in Rome.

I visited the public bit of the Paris catacombs a while ago, and the attendants there shouted volubly at anyone who used a flash. Though this was nothing in comparison to the woman guarding La Dame à la licorne, who gave a lengthy and vigorous bilingual ear-bashing to one tourist foolish enough to ignore the numerous signs forbidding flashes.

#7, Gunn- there are a few lights down there, so the visitors can see where they're going- there's a bit of algal growth around some of these.

#43, Arkizzle:

Read the paper; the 'nice toy' has already been shared in this publication. Anyone who can understand the maths can implement it themselves. The authors suggest it would be useful in court cases, in particular child porn, movie piracy, and insurance claims.

#43, Drachezan:

Read the paper; the authors used jpeg files to match pictures by camera.

Jpeg compression is functionally identical to resizing the image in this case- the overall pattern of sensor response is retained, though with less precision.

This instructable is mostly nonsense.

It does suggest removing the EXIF tags*, which (as Symphonix pointed out above) would be enough for the vast majority of cases.

The paper that this is based on suggests that cropping, resizing, filtering, lossy compression and/or gamma correction will not prevent identification.

It does specify 'no geometrical transformations', though, so a rotation of a few degrees (or any non-uniform geometrical transform) may be enough to beat it.

Adding per-pixel random noise will only prevent identification where the new noise overwhelms the old noise- it would be hard to know how much would be enough...

This all relates to attempting to match images by camera- matching images to a known camera (e.g. where forensics have a suspect's camera and want to determine if images originated from it) is a little easier, and so would be harder to beat.

*When I post images to the web, I often use a python script to resize them, and generate thumbnails- using wxImage for the conversion incidentally discards all the EXIF data, and other jpeg comments.

#1: The study of soil at the nanoscale is extremely relevant- it's at this scale that the gradual exchange of plant nutrients between soil and water takes place. Understanding this process makes all the difference between over-fertilisation (with associated water contamination and environmental damage) and under-fertilisation (crops die, and we all starve).

Nanostructure of soil minerals is very well known and understood- soil organic matter is very poorly known and understood. It's great that research is now able to tell us more about it...

Steel coffins? That's wrong in so many ways. What was wrong with the good old winding-sheet?

Our breadboard was made (by my aunt-in-law) from a recycled coffin- a nice bit of elm.

Dead boys don't say no, either, according to the film Kissed.

This is kind of cute- but it's hardly surprising that the spiders rejected the 'repairs'- lots of orb web spinners will completely rebuild their web every morning. I understand they often eat the old web.

#10: I do occasionally wake up to find a Pholcus phalangioides descending on a string towards my face. I had no idea it was requesting web assistance... (We do have an understanding with our P. phalangioides, as they do a good job of eating other spider species).

Quoting Sturgeon's law/ revelation in isolation makes it sound terribly elitist.

In context, it is a reply to an assertion that 90% of science fiction was crud/ crap/ shit/ trash.

The point is that it's unfair to judge a medium or genre by its worst examples.

On the main point, I watch a minuscule fraction of the amount of TV I used to, but I haven't experienced any 'cognitive surplus'- I just wonder how I found time to watch so much TV in the past.

Of course, the drug of choice for American forces is pharmaceutical speed.

This comes as less of a surprise when one considers that the current Mayor of Middlesbrough was credited with bringing 'Zero Tolerance' policing to the UK, and was nicknamed 'Robocop'.

#51, Iamecks:

To balance that, it does have a fine Victorian Town Hall, the only public Claes Oldenburg sculpture in the UK, and a new modern art museum. But I still wouldn't want to live there.

#10, SpringIsNow:

It's an oversimplification to split 'hallucinogen' and 'entheogen' so completely- most drugs refered to as 'entheogens' today have been described as 'hallucinogens' in the past.

Ayahuasca is not a 'chemical compound'- it's a mixture of compounds, usually containing dimethyltryptamine and a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which allows the DMT to be active orally.

DMT has certainly been used a street drug.

#10, RDI:

It's also been suggested that the drawings (rather than the concept for the school itself) were based on girls from the Cambridge High School for Girls (now Long Road Sixth Form College) and/or the Perse School for Girls; both near Searle's place of work. The Wikipedia article on the Perse suggests that Searle stated this himself- I don't know if this is true, but it's 'common knowledge' in Cambridge.

My mother went to the Cambridge High School for Girls, my other half went to the Perse.

It is kind of nice, but surely not 'avant-garde'; the 'avant-garde' is a redundant concept in our post-modern era- a throwback to modernist notions of constant forward 'progress'.

Apparently Brie and Camembert are regarded as liquids, and so no more than 100ml is allowed in hand baggage. My other half was forced to abandon one and a quarter Bries at Charles de Gaulle yesterday. Gruyere is fine.

#10, PlanetTom:

No, global warming on Mars is caused by massive dust storms.

This nothing to do with the climate on Earth.

...or, it could be a reference to Stalin, the soi-disant 'steel man'.

Some friends of mine occasionally play 'Iron Man' on the hurdy-gurdy. It works extremely well.

#38, Noen:

The Daily Mail* article that contained that quote also claimed that Wiseman does not yet believe in the xistence of remote viewing:

"Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing.

He says: "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.

"If I said that there is a red car outside my house, you would probably believe me.

"But if I said that a UFO had just landed, you'd probably want a lot more evidence.

"Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence." "

*UK readers will know that the Daily Mail is not known for its high journalistic standards.

Readers may be interested to know that jet-propelled flying squid were described recently by marine biologists.

Haven't you heard? Molecular gastronomy is so over.

#12, Lindz- I agree that the name's stupid, but as the summary says, it did serve to distinguish the movement from the industrial implications (Spam, 'cheese food' etc) of 'food science'.

The two original proponents, Nicholas Kurti and Hervé This, were a physicist and chemist respectively, so they did know something about science. This has written an article for Nature which explains some of the history of the term.

The photo here instantly reminded me of this photo (from this set) of a house designed and built by Bob Alexander in 1960.

I have trouble deciding whether the Flat Earth Society is ironic.

Especially when they propose theories like Scott of the Antarctic being murdered by 'the Conspiracy' because he discovered the Ice Wall at the edge of the world, proving once and for all that the Earth is flat.

Or maybe it refers to a test result, and is (almost) completely correct.

It does say "This is not a toy. Does not provide protection." in the present tense, at the very top of the image.

Despite having listened to The Tiger Lillies interpretation of some Gorey writings on my way to work this morning, I can't say I find this particularly reminiscent of Gorey.

I do hope he warned them in advance that he was an evil hypnotist.

Local legend averred that the Darlington Cannibal had 'Subhuman' tattooed on his forehead. In fact he had 'Subhumans' on one side of his head, 'Disorder' on the other, these being the names of two UK punk bands.

#4, ACB:

TrueType fonts can optionally include bitmaps, and it would seem they can be coloured. Vector data is obligatory.

I'd just like to thank Mr. Frauenfelder for teaching me a great new word today.

Specific Heat Capacity might be able to distinguish the tungsten-based bar from the real thing; difference is about 4%.

A comment to the original article pointed out that tungsten is rather difficult to work with, so making a bar approximating a gold ingot would not be trivial.

#10-

'Disoriented' and 'disorientated' are both used regularly here in the UK. I'm a UK native, and I personally find 'disorientated' extremely ugly and unnecessary.

#8, #9: Jupiter is not warming overall, just changing its temperature distribution.

Warming on Mars is related to recent massive dust storms.

Neither of these has anything to do with the climate on Earth.

#5, #6: It's signed in the corner: Geoffrey Dickinson.

#3: And also the Peter Carey novel the film was based on.

Prince Rupert himself was a particularly colourful character- a flamboyant mercenary, who used to go into battle with a white poodle (accused of being his magical familiar, and sexual partner). He apparently survived a shot to the head, and two trepannings, and retired from warfare to pursue scientific research.

There's also a similar project in the UK.

The live maps on it are absolutely fascinating.

According to Chaz Brenchley's blog, this recording was done in his attic, with some equipment he borrowed from a friend. So the audio production probably cost a lot less than the printing in this case...

The story is available in print on Newconpress's website, for anyone who would prefer to read it themself.

#10:

"Can a biologist please explain how a female hormone in a male is somehow an indicator of male reproductive fitness?"

From the actual article:

"Within the brain of the songbird, testosterone is converted into estrogen, which is then released into the blood stream at physiologically significant levels. Paradoxically, in birds where male is the default sex, estrogens are known to be both necessary for the feminisation of the sexual organs during early development, and also for the masculinisation of the avian song centres in the brain."

So, as I understand it, in birds not exposed to endocrine disruptors, high levels of estrogen in that part of the brain would be related to high levels of testosterone in the body; and high levels of testosterone would be related to male reproductive fitness.

The substances identified by, and used in, this study were estradiol, phthalates, and bisphenol A. Likely sources for these are contraceptive pills (estradiol) and plastics (phthalates and bisphenol A).

#8- I love paper books, and buy & read a lot of second-hand novels. Yes, smoker's books are smelly, but I actually enjoy seeing the previous reader's influence. New books seem somewhat characterless and anodyne in comparison.

Incidentally, second-hand porn magazines used to be a staple of a certain kind of junk-shop here in the UK- a shop I know in Cambridge still had a boxful when I was there last year. But no, I wouldn't much fancy buying those.

It's a shame they picked the American Bullfrog to highlight amphibian extinction- this is an invasive species that has been identified as a threat to other amphibian species all over the world.

These were called 'Superloos' when they were first installed in the UK in the late 80s/early 90s.

My brother once forced one open to rescue a kid who'd been trapped inside during the cleaning cycle.

Apparently the trigger for cleaning is that the weight pressing on the floor is below a certain threshold (as would be the case if no-one was inside), so users below this weight cannot prevent it from starting the cycle!

My favourite illusion (not included in this article) is the Shepard Scale; a tone that appears to rise (or fall) in pitch forever.

The example on the Wikipedia page isn't great- Ms Deutsch demonstrated a much better one on a Radio 3 programme a while ago.

Graffiti on glass with diamond rings has a long history; "The Merry-Thought, or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany" was a collection of such, published in 1731.

The BOA have since agreed to re-draft the offending clause in the athletes' contracts.

Please don't take the Daily Mail seriously.

#2, Agent 86: The FDA has existed since ~1930.

LSD was synthesised for the first time in 1938, and its psychedelic properties were discovered in 1943- it was only banned in the US when it started being used recreationally on a large scale. (And was presumably considered a danger to public health).

Under US law, any newly-discovered drug not 'substantially similar' to an existing controlled substance will be legal until specifically scheduled.

Like Mr Ruiz, I've seen it in the National Archaeological Museum- it is absolutely fascinating, even in its corroded state. It's really small, as well- most photos make it look much larger than it really is.

Someone please correct the headline- as NeilFWS said, it's generally agreed that it's of Greek construction, it's not a 'Roman computer'!

#3, Alfie- that mirrors my experience with most of Julian Cope's output- his writing's astounding, and really inspires me to listen to the music he writes about- and then I'm usually massively disappointed when I get round to hearing it. Just not my taste, I guess.

#2: A googlefight for "love the beatles" vs "hate the beatles" just gave 429000 for and 84000 against. You should be proud to be a member of that 16% minority.

The government is not 'trying to sneak in' legislation- this is a leak from a Green Paper, a consultation and discussion document, which is nowhere near becoming law.

Can we wait till we see what the green paper actually says (when it's released next week) before we get up in arms about it?

It's not really an 'old-school' unicorn, as it has no beard. Mediaeval unicorns had beards, cloven hooves, and tails like lions'.

But that should in no way detract from the appeal of the item...

All this, and protrusible eyes! I wish I could link to more of that article, but that's Nature for you.

All those disgusted by this would do well to consider how pigeons feed their young.

Incidentally, "a mysterious subterranean order of amphibians" is not quite correct, as some of them are aquatic.

Ms Hayden- surely those laws haven't been observed for centuries- did all the crenellated Gothic Revival buildings (Strawberry Hill for instance) require crenellation licences?

Tiny Tim's renditions of 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' are among the most disturbing things I've ever seen.

Scarily, Swedish drug law similarly criminalises possession of drugs in one's urine or bloodstream...

As hinted at by #3, 'One Got Fat' is also available to stream or download from archive.org- right here.

I live in (a part of) a 14th century castle. This is not a castle. It's a cottage that just happens to have crenellations on it.

There are some more pictures of it in articles from the Telegraph and Daily Mail.

Ms Jackson created a BBC TV series, Doubletake, a couple of years ago. It was presented as comedy at the time. The CCTV/amateur style of the filming did a little to hide any inaccuracies in physical appearance...

now with Guaranteed Personality.

A graffito near where I used to live in Newcastle read 'Orwell was right', and sure enough, it is generally true.

He was wrong about putting the milk in last, though.

One of the nominations for this year's Bram Stoker Awards is a spooky story involving an orrery.

#9: Yes, I have a 1970s pressure cooker similar to this- it has one large compartment at the bottom, and three wedge-shaped ones above it.

Though my mother often used to use it to cook several kinds of veg at once, I don't use it like this very often- stacking steamers are much more useful.

'Beet juice' is a bit of a simplification- it includes a byproduct of sugar refining- this uses Sugar Beet, not the purple/red beets used for Borscht etc.

It's been used in the UK for a couple of years now under the name 'Safecote'.
It's supposedly less damaging to vehicles, roads and verges than using salt alone...

#5: and it's only vaguely similar to Metatron's cube.

Ms. Grossman's original sculpture can be seen here. I have a couple of her mini 3d metal-prints, and they are things of beauty.

It's not necessarily the 'largest' snake in captivity, as the summary states- the article itself describes it as the 'longest'.

Reticulated pythons are relatively slender, so it's possible that there's a captive anaconda somewhere that's 'larger' if not longer- anacondas are much bulkier snakes.

Is this the page that lets you perform the search after entering a captcha? This happened all day at my workplace (in the UK) this Tuesday.

#13: There doesn't need to be a 'double meaning' to constitute irony- it could be argued that this is an example of situational irony.

Nice to see 'just deserts' spelt correctly, though.

The raptors around here (NE England) leave a lot more mess than that- there's usually a halo of feathers around any bird carcass they leave.

A kestrel once killed a pigeon outside my window, and ate nothing but its brains...

The windows are too big.

#3: Here in NE England, we prefer to credit the Mackem Joseph Swan with the invention of the incandescent light bulb (he certainly held a patent for it before Edison).

According to the FAO, American Bullfrogs are currently farmed in various S. American and Asian countries (the link also gives information on some of the rearing methods used).

American Bullfrogs have become a pest in some coutries they've been introduced to, partly due to competing with (and eating!) native species, partly due to carrying the chytrid fungus.

A colony here in the UK was recently exterminated by erecting a frog-proof fence round it, draining all the ponds in the area, and killing the frogs (about 7000 of them) with shotguns.

My vote for most picturesque cabbage cultivar goes to Romanesco broccoli.

The purple colour in most cabbages results from anthocyanins, which change colour according to pH. It's possible to make your own pH indicator from cabbage water- it's worth trying, as the colour changes can be quite startling (red with acid solutions, blue with alkaline).

This campaign won several awards earlier this year. The 'countryside' picture mentioned in the post reads 'a single can of dissolvent pollute millions of litres of water' (sic), and there's a third one, reading 'one single litre of gasoline can pollute millions of litres of water'.

All three can be seen here.

No idea what city it is though, I'd be interested if anyone knows... the ad agency that created it is Spanish- is it somewhere in Spain?

Apparently, the vet had his arm reattached, and the crocodile survived being shot at by zoo employees during retrieval of the arm- so a surprisingly happy ending all round...

As I understand it, it's not quite correct to state that US law would have required the Government to 'notify immediately'.

The US law states that disclosure is required when 'personal information was acquired by an unauthorized person', and that disclosure 'shall be made as promptly as possible and without unreasonable delay'. Adequately encrypted data are exempted for providing 'no reasonable risk of identity theft, fraud, or other unlawful conduct'.

If this had happened in the US, there would have been no need to disclose at all, as there's not yet any evidence that HMRC's lost discs have been 'acquired by an unauthorized person'.

Markfrei- do you mean this? Scary indeed.

How many times... it's 'octopodes', not 'octopi'!

But yes, very nice tree.

And now he's been arrested, national newspapers are printing photos supposedly depicting him & his wife together last year, and his wife is claiming that she claimed on his life insurance 'in good faith'.

Apparently, body parts and bones have also been illegally sold from New York funeral homes relatively recently, including those of the broadcaster Alistair Cooke.

The bacteria and protozoa (a) are not naked-eye visible; the scale bar is 50um. The nematodes and smaller enchytraeids (b) are barely naked-eye visible.

The amount of bacteria alone in soil is absolutely staggering- there are about 10^9 (1000000000) bacterial cells in every gram. Not sure how many species this represents...

As I understand it, the phrase was coined by Eric Voegelin in the early 1950s.

It's clearly Eldrad, back from the dead again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/handoffear/detail.shtml

A quick question- is this print actually produced by engraving (i.e. printed from an engraved plate), or does the 'engraving' just refer to the source of the non-tentacled parts of the image?

The term 'engraving' is sometimes used to cover a number of printing techniques other than true engraving- I was under the impression that most Victorian mass-market illustrations were etched rather than engraved (though I'd be delighted to be corrected if someone knows better).

When I grew up in urban Cambridge (UK) in the 1970s, my parents kept chickens (for eggs), goats (for milk) and rabbits (for meat) in our back garden. We had no complaints from the neighbours.

My grandfather raised pigs on his nearby allotment- he did have complaints, and eventually had to give it up. He insists that the complaints were from newcomers to the area, as it became gradually more gentrified.

UK readers may be reminded of 'The Good Life'...

Sam- can you clarify whether you're pitying the creationists who rabidly crusade to tear down scientific beliefs, the scientists who rabidly crusade to tear down creationist beliefs, or both?

Prufrock451, that's a great link. The pattern of the less well-off being the accusers is fascinating- this seems the be the reverse of what happened in the earlier trials in the UK, certainly in Warboys, the one with which I'm most familiar.

The theory that ergot caused the symptoms of those 'bewitched' was disproved by historians almost as soon as it was proposed in the 1970s, yet here it is again...

The wikipedia article on the Trials covers it in somewhat better fashion.

It's a bit disingenuous to describe this as 'discovery of new species'. As the articles state, it's not that the the beaked whale and dwarf killer whale have never been seen before, just that certain populations have been split off into new taxa, the beaked whale by DNA analysis, and the killer whale by morphology.

The dwarf killer whale species were actually proposed in the early 1980s, the new research is just adding evidence for their species status.

This is all just part of the ongoing process of taxonomy, it's a little odd to be expected to get worked up about it.

The news of the first live sighting of Shepherd's Ziphiid is rather more exciting, though it isn't a 'new species' either, as it was first described in 1937.

The UK also prohibited discounting of new books until the mid 1990s.

Since then, the large supermarket chains have started selling the best-selling books at a massive discount. For example, the latest Harry Potter was sold at around £8 in Tesco and Asda; RRP was ~£18. As wholesale price was allegedly ~£10, it seems it was regarded as a loss leader.

I suspect this has put a dent in the revenue of large and small bookshops alike...

"Pooh is very, very lucrative. Children live with him every day. They sleep with Pooh on their sheets, they wipe their faces with Pooh as they get out of the shower"

-Bonnie Eskenazi, a lawyer representing the Slesinger family, 2002.

According to the AP story, Ms Caroff had a previous history of psychological problems.

Ms Collette claims that the tourists involved in the other incidents had taken alcohol in addition to mushrooms, against the advice of the mushroom vendors.

DLINDSEY- the ones in your bathroom are probably not fully grown. I've been seeing lots of tiny toads (~12mm) in my corner of the UK recently, but their adult size will be 80-100mm if they survive that long.

It would be interesting to know how much of this new species' growth is in the tadpole stage. Most frogs and toads are at about 10-20% of their adult size when they metamorphose- the paradoxical frog and the American bullfrog are notable exceptions, both being proportionally larger at metamorphosis.