Category: Science

The Domestication of Cats

Serious Cat I think this sums up who man’s best friend actually is.

Cats will always remain mysterious animals–but exactly where they came from is no longer a riddle. A genetic study has shown that the ancestors of all of today’s domestic cats prowled the Near East. The work bolsters the notion that cats became useful to humans when agriculture started–which scientists believe happened in the Near East–forcing people to protect grain stores from rodents.

A Fertile Domestication of Cats — Holden 2007 (628): 1 — ScienceNOW

Wooden Binary Adding Machine

 
Quite amazing. I hope he builds some more computer parts out of wood.

… a few months ago, I had an idea as to how the divide by two mechanisms from my first marble machine could be cascaded together to actually function as a sort of adder or counter. Once I had that idea, I knew I had to try it at some point, and recently, I finally got around to building my marble binary adding machine.

[via MAKE]
Binary marble adding machine

You Want to Build a Tesla Coil?

1 million volt Tesla coil
If you ever find yourself with a pile of wire and big transformers and can work with tools without killing yourself you might want to build a Tesla coil. What a Tesla coil does is transform low voltage low frequency (120V / 60 Hz) power into high voltage high frequency (5-1000 KV / 10-2000 KHz) power. It’s done by finely tuned coils and capacitors that resonate at the greatest efficiency. The results can be quite spectacular. The image I used for this entry is of a Tesla coil I shot a few years ago. It was pounding out a million volts of electricity and producing a dazzling display of sparks. The coil was about three feet high and the breeze made by the charge was downright amazing.
The guys at Deep Fried Neon have all the info that you will need to get started in the wonderful hobby.

DeepFriedNeon – Tesla Coils

Strange Creatures from the Deep

Football fishWho needs science fiction aliens when we have them right here. I mean, most of these critters look to have been drawn up by the best special effects designers in Hollywood.

On dry land, most organisms are confined to the surface, or at most to altitudes of a hundred meters—the height of the tallest trees. In the oceans, though, living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions: with an average depth of 3800 meters, the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where life can develop. And the deep sea, which has been immersed in total darkness since the dawn of time, occupies 85% of ocean space, forming the planet’s largest habitat. Yet these depths abound with mystery. The deep sea is mostly uncharted—only about 5 percent of the seafloor has been mapped with any reasonable degree of detail—and we know very little about the creatures that call it home. Current estimates about the number of species yet to be found vary between ten and thirty million. The deep sea no longer has anything to prove; it is without doubt Earth’s largest reservoir of life.

[via science redigg]
The Deep

Pick it up on Amazon.com – The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss

STEREO Grabs First 3-D Images of the Sun

Our sun in 3DBreak out the 3D glasses because the big brains at NASA have done it again!

NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. For the first time, scientists will be able to see structures in the sun’s atmosphere in three dimensions. The new view will greatly aid scientists’ ability to understand solar physics and there by improve space weather forecasting.

These are some of the best 3D astro images I have ever seen. For an even bigger treat download some of the videos. Seeing the mass ejections and sunspots with real depth is astounding.

Sun in 3d