Archive for August, 2009

Big Bang Theory

Friday, August 28th, 2009

There seem to be a large number of quality science videos coming out. Here’s another courtesy of Bad Astronomy where the current theories on the origin of the universe are explained.
Big Bang Theory, the video (but not that one) | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Giant carnivorous plants

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Boing Boing has a really interesting video with David Attenborough about carnivorous pitcher plants. These plants are so large that it’s said they have been known to consume small rodents. The best part about this video is a visually stunning surreal time lapse segment showing how the plant constructs the pitchers.
Video: giant carnivorous [...]

Tilted Twister

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

I saw a soduko solver somewhere today, and this is the website that it was on. These are two pretty nifty robots, one that solves Rubik’s cubes and the other solves soduko. Looks like they’re both done with LEGO mindstorms, so given that small footprint these are pretty elegant solutions.
Tilted Twister

ASIMO avoids moving obstacles

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Here’s an interesting video found via Make. It shows work done on the vision system of an ASIMO robot to detect and avoid moving obstacles in it’s environment. It’s amazing to watch this robot navigate and calculate trajectories completely on the fly.
Make: Online : ASIMO avoids moving obstacles
At this rate the [...]

Shine a light

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Phil Plait has up today a very well done piece of educational video about the nature of light. Apparently there is going to be a series of these, if they’re all this well done that should be great.
Shine a light | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Visualizing up to ten dimensions

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Also known as how to make your head hurt.
Visualizing up to ten dimensions – Boing Boing
Now if you understood that you’re in the wrong business. If you don’t have a headache you didn’t pay close enough attention.

Everyone has an inner n-rd.