How a Microwave Oven Works

I always did wonder.  This is an excellent explanatory video.  But who knew there were still vacuum tubes in the world?

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A Brief History of Everything

A mind-boggling summary by astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City:

Holy Crap, Electric Bacteria

Geobacter rockin' the electron gobble.

New Scientist reports:

Unlike any other life on Earth, these extraordinary bacteria use energy in its purest form – they eat and breathe electrons – and they are everywhere.

STICK an electrode in the ground, pump electrons down it, and they will come: living cells that eat electricity. We have known bacteria to survive on a variety of energy sources, but none as weird as this. Think of Frankenstein's monster, brought to life by galvanic energy, except these "electric bacteria" are very real and are popping up all over the place.

Unlike any other living thing on Earth, electric bacteria use energy in its purest form – naked electricity in the shape of electrons harvested from rocks and metals. We already knew about two types, Shewanella and Geobacter. Now, biologists are showing that they can entice many more out of rocks and marine mud by tempting them with a bit of electrical juice. Experiments growing bacteria on battery electrodes demonstrate that these novel, mind-boggling forms of life are essentially eating and excreting electricity. . . .

The discovery of electric bacteria shows that some very basic forms of life can do away with sugary middlemen and handle the energy in its purest form – electrons, harvested from the surface of minerals. "It is truly foreign, you know," says Nealson. "In a sense, alien."

Nealson's team is one of a handful that is now growing these bacteria directly on electrodes, keeping them alive with electricity and nothing else – neither sugars nor any other kind of nutrient. The highly dangerous equivalent in humans, he says, would be for us to power up by shoving our fingers in a DC electrical socket.

This modern world is just Too.Fucking.Weird. Can I please have a ticket back to the nice, quiet, normal 20th century? Pleeease?

Archimedes' Secret

Mylar, My Gosh

This publicity film from 1955 may be too tedious for some of you, especially if science is not your strong suit - your Head Trucker is not a scientist either, and found it puzzling in some respects. But oh my gosh, my golly, what an amazing scientific development Mylar was. I thought Mylar was just the name of those funky thin, gold space blankets. But as Wikipedia informs me, sixty years later it is still an extremely useful product and is used in many, many applications today - including some we take for granted in our homes.

And just think: this miracle was devised and produced without the aid of computers at all. Or if any computers were used, they were full of vacuum tubes, were programmed with punched cards, and took up the space of an average house.  But mostly it was due to sheer human brainpower, ideas and formulas scratched on paper with pencil.  Wow.

How Big Is It?

For all you size queens out there, from the American Museum of Natural History:



Honk to Andrew Sullivan

Gay Twins

Interesting stuff.  Take note, however, that nothing is as yet proven:  pay attention to all the times "may" and "might" are used.

And in any case, whatever the ultimate "cause" of gayness is, even when we find out - does it really, truly matter?  We are human beings.  We live, we love, we laugh, we work; we have our particular contribution to give to the life of the world.  Like every other mother's son on this planet.

Beyond that, what else matters?  Every flower that blooms adds its small touch of beauty to the world before it withers into dust.  Every bird arcing through the sky has its little song to sing before it falls, as it must one day, to earth.

Life is short.  We are all given a moment out of eternity to live and bloom and sing our song before we return to dust.  Science and knowledge are important, don't mistake me; but even more important is to live a decent, compassionate, unselfish life in the concert of humanity.

To add our warbled note, however tiny, however frail, to the beautiful, mysterious aria of Love that proceeds from the heart of things:  that's why we're here.

In Today's News

Political shocker: Reuters reports that the revised marriage-equality bill was defeated by just two votes in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, although the Senate approved it. One of the voices raised against the amended bill was that of gay Republican Steve Vaillancourt. Figures. The bill now goes to a joint committee for further negotiation.

And the Christian Science Monitor has a miscellany of interesting articles, none of them gay-related, but all of them thought-provoking:

- A review of Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality, by veteran NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty. A quote:

‘God’ may not be, as the atheists have it, a delusion – but perhaps a conclusion driven by the math of the universe. [R]ather than dispel the spiritual, science is cracking it open for all to see. It seems to me that the instruments of brain science are picking up something beyond this material world.

- The Republican National Committee abandoned its attempt to pass a formal resolution asking the Democrats to call themselves the Democrat Socialist Party. The roommate laughed out loud and didn't believe me when I told him this, but I'm not making this up. Geez. Those RNC lamebrains have no clue what a real socialist party even looks like - and it's sure not the Dems, who I have to say are starting to work my nerves with their pussyfooting around.

- The RNC also got a pass today from the Federal Elections Commission, which ruled that Sarah Palin's dress-to-impress $150,000 Neiman-Marcus wardrobe was A-OK with them, because the money came from party funds, not contributions. BTW, she's hard at work on writing her memoirs right now - don't you know that will be a hoot to read?

- A professor of media economics writes an insightful opinion piece on "why journalists deserve low pay": in this age of bloggetry and twitteraciousness, journalists must adapt or die, giving consumers value-added expertise and information that they can't get for free just by surfing the 'Net.

- And the U.S. Senate voted 90-5 to impose limits on how bad the credit-card companies can jerk you around. About damn time, too; the last 20 years, the conniving, money-grubbing, effing Republicans have let the credit and banking industries screw consumers mercilessly. If you don't read any of the other stories, do check out the list of what the legislation will specifically do (and not do) to protect you, if passed by the House as expected.