Humor

The Science 2.0 headquarters in Folsom, California, was raided by police Wednesday after an apparent feng shui violation. Federal law prohibits the 'feng shui jam factor' from being under five out of ten on the electromagnetic spectrometer thingy. The surprise visit by undercover feng shui police to the Scientific Blogging wing of the building resulted in their grading the violation as an obvious science 2.oh no. Fearless leader of the science media revolution Hank Campbell is under investigation for his role in significantly lowering the feng shui standard. Campbell admitted that he knew…

A nerdy R&B-esque science music video that's been stuck in my head since I watched it. I want to buy one right now. Scientists don't always take themselves too seriously. I also thought this perspective on the video, from a female scientist, was interesting. "I have no idea if this product is any good. The advertisement however, is quite funny and I think it says a lot about science labs today. Once women were quite rare in the sciences (some even said that we were simply not capable of it.. and not that long ago). Today however women are entering the sciences in droves and now we are…

An explanation in RAP format of what the Large Hadron Collider is all about. It's nested in the following Daily Telegraph article. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/26/scirap... I enjoy it, hope y'all do too!

I'm taking a moment away from crafting "Journey To The Center Of The Uterus", my opus on reproduction and culture, to discuss something of equal import - namely, orgasms. It will shock you to know this, but nearly 50% of British women don't have orgasms. Are they frigid? No, not at all, as my 1999 layover at Heathrow can attest. Science funding is the issue, as we shall see. As we have discussed in articles like The Science of Orgasms and Would Female Orgasms Kill Men?, (1) orgasms are tricky business but scientists know what they are doing. Fewer scientists means fewer orgasms. Britain is…

This University of Copenhagen press release says that they would like to be first to create a quantum computer. They have made no more progress than anyone else, really, but want us all to know that they are thinking about it. We liked it so much we are just printing it as is: Our results give us, for the first time, the possibility to understand the interaction between just two electrons placed next to each other in a carbon nanotube. A groundbreaking discovery, which is fundamental for the creation of a quantum mechanical bit, a so-called quantum bit – the cornerstone of a quantum…

If you watch popular shows like “Undress the Nation” or Gok Wan’s “How to Look Good Naked” - what, you don't watch them? That's because that guy behind American Idol hasn't brought them here yet, and in these times of strife we need shows about women in underwear - but if you live in England and watch them you may have noticed something a researcher also noticed; when women wear the right underwear, they are more confident about their bodies and about their overall appearance which, to men, is the same thing. Who knew underwear was so important? Not me. All I know is there is 'dating'…

To mark the launch of the Pet Health Information website ( http://www.pethealthinfo.org.uk), a nationwide search for 'it shouldn't happen to a pet' anecdotes to highlight the lack of awareness of pet health issues amongst owners has revealed some howlers. Pet care professionals were invited to submit their stories, and the responses, which ranged from the mildly amusing to the downright ridiculous, came flooding in. Extracts from the "It shouldn't happen to a pet" shortlist... "An 'armchair expert' who carefully removed one of the eight evenly distributed 'ticks' from his dog's undercarriage…

He's not well known like President Bush and musician Neil Young, but Philadelphian Frank Gallagher now has something in common with them: He has a new species named after him. Gallagher was The Academy of Natural Sciences' affable mailroom supervisor for 37 years before retiring in 2003. "They used to call me 'the grapevine,'" said Gallagher, because he not only distributed the mail to the staff but also passed along the latest gossip. Now he is the inspiration for Rhinodoras gallagheri, a new species of catfish described by Academy fish scientist Dr. Mark Sabaj Pérez in the March issue of…

Scientists like order and structure and methodology. Repeatability is even better, though that often requires additional grant funding. It's no different when it comes to weekends, bars and picking up science groupies. But it's not so simple, even for scientists. The perfect world of methodology and repeatability is instead replaced by linguistic voodoo and trial and error regarding alcohol. Science, as always, is here to help. There are rules, you see, but they are unwritten. By taking a broad cross-section of shared experiences we can establish a baseline and go from there. That is…

Believe it or not, scientists do not always take themselves too seriously. We can laugh at ourselves and the sometimes rigid conventions of our profession. Take, for example, this guide to translating the formal language of scientific articles into plain English. (Note: This has circulated on email among scientists a number of times over at least a 10 year period; I remember taping it on the door when I was a grad student.  An astute reader pointed out that it is originally from Graham, CD. 1957. A glossary for research reports.  Metal Progress 71: 75, though it has mutated somewhat…