science

Wednesday various

  • Stieg Larsson is turning out to be an incredibly prolific dead man.
  • Scientists have created software that can recognize sarcasm. Now if we could just figure out a way to transfer that ability to more people… [via]

  • Whatever your feelings about deaf culture and cochlear implants — personally, I sympathize, but I still believe deafness is a disability — it’s hard not to be a little moved by this video of an eight-month-old deaf baby hearing sound for the first time. [via]
    • And that child later would grow up to be…Iron Baby.
  • And finally, Lorne Michaels on being Canadian and comedic [via]:

    “I think that Canadians have an incredible reverence for authority and regard for authority, and I think one of the healthy ways that it’s challenged is through questioning it, through the polite hostility of comedy. It’s allowed. It’s not encouraged, but it’s definitely allowed, and you stand very little chance of being shot.”

Tuesday various

  • Well this is disheartening:

    “Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem,” Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said at the meeting of environmentalists here. “This is happening in the context of overwhelming scientific agreement that climate change is real and a threat. But the poll figures are going through the floor.”

  • Know what’s not going through the floor? Vegetables grown upside-down, that’s what. (And how’s that for segues?)
  • Two words: zombie astronauts. The auction has ended, but the dream lives on forever.
  • Though I think maybe too much of the Internet is devoted to Super Mario Bros. — I know, heresy! — this study of in-game camera movement was surprisingly interesting and something I had never once considered before. [via]
  • And finally, I have to say, ItsJustSomeRandomGuy has really outdone himself with his 100th video:

Tuesday various

Wednesday various

Tuesday various