Graham Glass, etc.

Desktop Background

My new desktop background is the tiny moon Janus, seen before Saturn's rings, with massive moon Titan beyond. The original photo is here.

Humanity at its best

Here's a picture of the NASA Phoenix Lander with its parachute open on its descent to Mars. It's inspiring that scientists were able to send the lander 422 million miles to land on a desolate and unforgiving environment. I wish we could apply the same level of ingenuity to the problems we face on Earth.

Physics in Action

Capivating demo that shows how a little feedback can help metronomes to synchronize.

Voice without Sound

In a conversation last week I remarked that it should be possible to extract phoneme patterns from nerve signals on their way from the brain to the vocal cords. And funnily enough, research is already showing it can be done!

Check out this video for an early demonstration of a cell phone conversation where one party doesn't ever "speak":

Yuri's Night

Yuri's night is a world-wide celebration of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. It's a bit like Burning Man meets NASA; here are a couple of photos from this year's event.

A flame-throwing metal creature:

A fun dance hall:

 

John Wheeler, RIP

I was very sorry to hear that John Wheeler just died. He was a fantastic Physicist and an inspiration to many. He was a truly free thinker and continued to work on interesting new ideas until the very end.

Octopuses

The Octopus is an amazing creature and one of my favorites. Check out these videos to see why:

Octopus squeezing through a tiny hole:

Octopus killing a shark:

Octopus camouflage in action:

The Earth at Night

A beautiful picture of the Earth at night:

My New Desktop Graphic

Body Wiring

This is fascinating, and reveals something about the way our brain is wired: