Cool Science

I didn't feel like reading depressing news about the heat-wave in Europe or just how many names the poor voters in California are going to have to wade through, so I sought out the science section and found this. Very cool that we can dig up some old dude from a chunk of ice, figure out how he died, what he ate before he died, that he put up a good fight before his death, and numerous other things. Gets me even more excited about this Sunday's Discovery premiere of Nefertiti Resurrected. Forensic archaeology is just amazing. But we've already determined I'm a science geek, so maybe there aren't a whole lot of people as excited about this as I am.

Speaking of nerds, I forgot to mention how I spent my Monday night. I was worldbuilding Velorin and finally came up with some of the basic mechanics of the world (length of day, year, seasons, etc). I decided I wanted four moons, one for each season, and that when a particular moon was new, it would indicate the start of a season. My husband is a closet geologist and astronomer, so I dumped this idea on him and asked him to tell me how I might get this to work. Five hours later, we finished creating equations that would provide a rough estimate as to where we could find the moons on the horizon at any point during the year, from any point on the planet. Granted, it took three hours to decide that my neatly ordered four moon system violates at least three laws of physics, but I'm going to run with "the Gods created it thus and ensure it stays thus" for a while and see how that feels.

For the lighter side of science, Teresa linked to a real scientific treat a few days ago. I love scientists with funny streaks.

And here's another example of quirky scientific humor (see Alex Brown's comment). I also find it extremely amusing that they've reduced all lipids to the label of "fats". To be fair, the article did start out calling them "fats and oils" and dropped the "oils" immediately. But at least it was there.