eveninghawk’s links

Once upon a time there was an evilscientist article put out about making a bristlebot.  Now, to improve on the theme, there is a snailbot.  too cute!

I love listening to The Naked Scientists at work. Mind you, they are going on vacation until September, but their archive is fully available and downloadable to listen to. I absolutely adore it and it keeps me going often at work.

On the question and answer show from August 6^th there was a fantastic question and answer moment:

Question: My question is, if you have a star, say like the sun, which is approximately 860,000 miles across, and it explodes like a supernova, would the matter coming from it travel faster than the speed of light?

Answer: Well, first thing is to reassure everyone at home that the sun is actually probably too small to turn into a supernova and explode, it’s more likely to turn into a red giant and sort of fluff up about the size of a, which will kill us all anyway, but slightly less violently. But fundamentally no, nothing can go faster than the speed of light. In a supernova things would get very very close and be incredibly energetic.

There you go folks. My fears are assuaged. If the sun dies on us we will all die slightly less violently than if it exploded. Now I can sleep calmly at night. I’m off, snickering, to return to my tiny benthic bivalves (for now, Thyasira brevis).

Two links of interest today. First off, Josh pointed me to this fantastic size comparison of various planets and stars. Some of the image resolution is prettier than on other pictures, but the concept is great. The thought of sitting some size comparison planets on my desk is a lot of fun.

The second is an issue where museum preservation of biological species meets art. An ineffectively preserved shark is shrinking, so the artist wants to replace it with one more properly preserved. Not a bad idea. The question then becomes whether or not this modification changes the value of the art. Heck, does the rotting of the current shark in the container change the value of the art? Big questions.