So True

Natural products chemistry pays off

What a ridiculous job to have.

Baggage Handling: A Mathematical Model

Spending an hour in the AUH airport yesterday trying to find my lost baggage, which is hopefully somewhere between Atlanta and Kuwait, got me thinking. Imagine every airport in the world as a node in a network, and bags as packets of information. In order to function properly this system needs to conform to a strict schedule to pass information between nodes (a bag can't make it to it's destination without catching its flight. Also information transfer in this system will freeze if each packet doesn't stay at a node for a specified delay period (in this case about an hour). Increase in the delay period at a node decreases the delay period at subsequent nodes, which is to say this system is dependent on time. This super complicated system may be modeled using discrete mathematics. I'm not sure how to throw down the equations here, but some pretty straightforward predictions can be made: Increase in delay time at one node fucks up the rest of your trip. Also, freezing the whole system is all too easy.

Good luck with your holiday travels.

gChat Fun: Seattle Snow Lulz

manuelv19: SNOW!
liquor!
yeh!

The Beautiful Mind

www.enception.org is one of the coolest sites I've seen in a minute. These photos are fare more indicative of a resemblance between the brain and the universe. Now if only I could find a well designed site explicating my roomate's face's resemblance.

Oh Yeah, I Remember That Thing...

Hey, do you guys remember a few months back when some Swiss nerds turned on that big machine they built and it was supposed to figure out Science/create God/destroy the world, but then none of that happened because it broke or something? Well, they finally released some pictures of the damage (not pictured: signs of a fight between Terminators, and metal hand left behind).

gChat Fun - T.I.A., re: Jessica

Mike: what the fuckrica

africWHAT?

WHYfrica?

Praise "Science Machine"

This great science-related video has been gathering fame on the internets, and for good reason. This video should be watched full screen in its HD glory. It contains the following science-related things: 

sea creatures

cats

pollution

the solar system

tsunamis

and many more...

The music track is "We Carry On" by Portishead off their eerie 2008 album, "Third"

Sad Sky is Sad

If you missed that large dark object above us called the 'night sky' or failed to see one of 1000 news articles on that large object in front of you called the 'Internets', then you may be surprised to learn that Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon joined forces tonight to let you know what the Universe thinks of us here on Earth. Here is a photo of said phenomena (taken and edited for best effect by yours truly) as well as an article by some rag called 'National Geographic' or some such if you would like to learn more.

ED. NOTE: Click on the image for a larger, and much more visible version of Sad Sky.

Pleistoceine Park

It has a nice ring to it, and is now somewhat feasible, thanks to the completion of the woolly mammoth genome mapping. The gist: Woolly mammoth DNA will be implanted into an African Elephant embryo, and a full gestation period later, out pops a woolly mammoth. Praise Science!