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• Japan’s Kirin Serves up Beer with Frozen Foam

  In Science, Technology, Wired Madness

  

  Japan’s Kirin brewery has developed a novel method for keeping beer colder for longer – its latest beverage, “Ichiban Shibori Frozen Draft” comes with frozen foam. According to Kirin, the -5C foam is able to keep a beer cold for up to half an hour. They say that it also gives the beer a “cool and refreshing texture.” So how does it work? The foam is subjected to a process that Kirin has termed “frozen [...]

   

• Physicist Uses Power of Physics to Beat Traffic Ticket

  In Science, Wired Madness

  

  When physicist Dmitri Krioukov was issued with a traffic ticket for running a stop sign that he disagreed with, he chose to argue his point with the power of science. Rather than engage in a fruitless debate with the officer who claimed that he saw him run a stop sign, Krioukov set to work at bamboozling explaining his way out by means of a complex mathematical proof. From the Verge: Krioukov claims that the officer [...]

   

• Use a Cup of Coffee as a Crude Barometer

  In Science

  

  Did you know bubbles in a hot cup of coffee, tea or cocoa can give you an idea of what the weather is going to be like for the day? Instructables user stickmop shared this trick from Backpacker magazine: pour a cup and watch what happens to the bubbles: if they move to the edge quickly, then there should be clear skies for the next 12 hours; if they stay in the middle it means [...]

   

• Smartphone medical diagnosis coming soon to your pocket

  In Geeky, Phones, Science

  

  A team of South Korean scientists, with the help of some government funding, have been working on an app, that will use the specific capacitative sensitivity of the phone’s touchscreens to diagnose some diseases by using a single droplet of blood, saliva or other, as yet, unspecified secretions. The team, at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said that when its technology is commercialised, it will cause a revolution in diagnostic medicine around [...]

   

• Internet and Cocaine Addictions Might Have Something in Common

  In Internet, Science

  

  A team of Chinese researchers claims to have found similar changes in the brain chemistry of people that are addicted to Internet, to changes that are found in people who are addicted to alcohol, heroin, marijuana, amphetamines, and ketamine. The diagnosis of Internet addiction disorder (IAD), was made using a questionnaire that was based on Young’s Diagnostic Questionnaire for Internet Addiction criteria by Beard and Wolf: (1) Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet (i.e., [...]

   

• The Large Hadron Collider Scaled Down in Lego

  In DIY, Science

  

  Sasha Melhase, a physicist at Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen put together this 1:50 scale model of the Large Hadron Collider in order to promote it to students. The total build time was 81 hours, 48 of which was spent in planning. That’s fast for a project of that size. He had some help from his wife and a few students, who helped him sort the 9,500 bricks and put them all [...]

   

• Amazing video from SECCHI shows Mercury’s magnetic field blocking some plasma from the sun

  In Science, Videos

  

  In this amazing video from the SECCHI (Pronounced Say-kki and NOT setchi like the narrator does) heliosphere observer, some solar plasma ejectae is shown being blocked by Mercury’s magnetic field. Feel free to enjoy the video, but also to ignore the tinfoil hat wearing, Lone Gunmen wannabe narrator, claiming that the dark magnetic spot is a cloaking device. It’s not. Look closely at the photo below: Sure, it might “cloak” Mercury from the solar plasma [...]

   

• Ten Ways To Entertain Your Children With Science

  In Science, Videos

  

  Psychology Professor Richard Wiseman has thrown together this video compilation of science tricks, all of which would be good for entertaining children or less scientifically-minded adults. All of them are easy to pull off, except the cute one that only works if you have Her Majesty on your money. [Neatorama]

   

• Procrastinate Much? Here’s Why [Video]

  In Science, Videos

  

  Do you procrastinate? Of course you do. You are probably procrastinating as you read this. It turns out that most of us humans are pathetic procrastinators – and the why behind it all is actually pretty interesting. This three-and-a-half-minute kinetic typography video is created from a passage from David Rainey’s You Are Not So Smart: A Celebration of Self Delusion. [Neatorama]

   

• The Best Earth Time-Lapse You Will See All Day

  In Science, Videos

  

  We’ve seen a time-lapse of the Earth from space before, but Michael König raises the bar a little with a nice little HD production. He also mentions that a Full-HD version is coming soon – can’t wait. From König: Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around [...]

   

• The Weight of the Internet [Video]

  In Internet, Science, Videos

  

  How much does the Internet weigh? About 50 grams – give or take. This educational video by Vsauce Michael explains the math behind weighing the Internet, by the weight of the electrons used to store all of those ones and zeroes. It is pretty interesting stuff and well worth the four-and-a-half minutes of your time that it takes to watch. [The Awesomer]

   

• Quantum Trapping Could Give Us a Really Expensive and Impractical Hoverboard (but probably won’t)

  In Science

  

  In this video, scientists from Tel Aviv University demonstrate an interesting phenomenon called “quantum trapping”. The system that they use is comprised of two parts: a superconductor and a permanent magnet. If you put them both together and you get nothing special, but if you cool the superconductor with liquid nitrogen, things get really interesting. The cold distorts the magnetic field to such an extent that the superconductor is trapped in space. While it would, [...]