Science Notes
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Here’s a boost to research: more than half a million science papers online at arXiv. Their content description lists these subjects:
In other words, these are papers that deal with mathematics and with quantifying results.
It’s one of the ways in which the Web makes science much more accessible to us.
Hat tip to Blake Stacey at Science After Sunclipse.
About.com has a lot of nice articles about rocks and rock formation by Andrew Alden. Already this morning, I’ve learned how to tell siltstone from shale or sandstone or mudstone, what a thunder egg is, that agate and chert are both types of chalcedony, that alabaster is a kind of travertine, and how banded iron formations were formed. They date back to when the earth’s atmosphere mostly free of oxygen, and any oxygen produced by photosynthetic bacteria quickly bonded with iron in the earth’s crust.
In the discussion over at Pharyngula about CNN closing its science news department, someone mentioned two good resources for science news: Eureka Alert! and Technology Review.
The Brick Testament has published several new Bible stories from the Chronicles of the kings. The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith says:
Does extreme religious intolerance stir your soul? Does rampant destruction of cultural artifacts move you deep within? Does the slaughter of innocent civilians en masse inspire your heart and mind? If so, the seven newly illustrated Bible stories that bring the King Solomon section of The Brick Testament to a close are certain to leave you feeling just a little closer to God:
While the southern kingdom of Judah struggles to find just the right mix of death and destruction to appease Yahweh into granting them peace, the northern kingdom of Israel suffers much bloodshed due to a system of political succession in which anyone who murders the king in cold blood is immediately granted the kingship. Though for thousands of years this was indeed how many nations appointed their leaders, fortunately here in the United States we learned our lesson and swiftly amended the Constitution after the brief but turbulent Oswald and Ruby administrations of the 1960s.
“MPG” chimed in to a comments thread on Pharyngula with messages spelled, apparently, upside down. The message was in substituted Unicode characters. MPG told us that there’s a character conversion function at Swizzy’s Hideout: “Flip your text with Unicode Text Flipping.”
