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A child's skull in London's Hunterian Museum shows what your head is really up to when new teeth are coming in.
posted by hereticfig at 10:53 PM PST - 88 comments

How Salman Rushdie Used Twitter to Defeat Facebook On Monday, world-famous author Salman Rushdie, who won the “Booker of Booker” prize for his novel Midnight’s Children, revealed that Facebook had deleted his account at the weekend — and then, when he sent the company a copy of his passport to prove who he said he was, denied him the right to use “Salman” as his first name. (The author’s full given name, which he never uses, is Ahmed Salman Rushdie.)
posted by sweetkid at 9:52 PM PST - 68 comments

The crew of ST:TNG watches A New Hope.
posted by hippybear at 8:42 PM PST - 53 comments

Today marks the 10th birthday of the Xbox. VentureBeat takes an in-depth look back at its history, from its rocky inception to the Kinect. Part 2. [more inside]
posted by kyp at 6:17 PM PST - 25 comments

NASA is hiring new astronaut candidates. Positions are open for all qualified U.S. citizens. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:02 PM PST - 122 comments

Library Science is an exhibition at New Haven (Connecticut) libraries that contemplates our personal, intellectual and physical relationship to the library as this venerable institution—and the information it contains—is being radically transformed by the digital era. Some examples: Untitled (Suburban Homes) by Erica Baum, Hurricanes by Chris Coffin, and Chinese Library No. 46 by Xiaoze Xie.
posted by carter at 4:53 PM PST - 2 comments

From Colossal:It never ceases to amaze me: just when I think I’ve seen every possible permutation of an artform or technique—be it figurative sculpture, stop motion animation, or in this case, high speed photography—somebody comes along and manages to do something radically different. His photostream. His set up. (flickr)
posted by elemenopee at 4:33 PM PST - 10 comments

The first Hunger Games trailer has been released. (SLYT) Previously and more previously
posted by revikim at 3:22 PM PST - 170 comments

Google Verbatim Search. Last week Google disabled the '+' operator. In response to feedback, they have now created a search mode that doesn't try to out-think you.
posted by bitmage at 2:19 PM PST - 115 comments

Daniel Yergin was recently interviewed on NPR's always informative Planet Money podcast. Yergin—most famous for his 1992 Pulitzer-winning opus on 20th century petroleum development, The Prize—has penned a sequel, of sorts, examining the modern quest for sustainable energy amidst the looming threat of climate change. If The Prize was an epic glorification of the quest for money, oil and power, The Quest is a look at those who might have to clean up the whole mess. "The heroes are the engineers and scientists of the energy world — the geeks, in other words." [more inside]
posted by hamandcheese at 1:45 PM PST - 11 comments

The Thais, resourceful as ever, have come up with numerous ways to overcome the recent flood waters that have killed over 500 people.
posted by gman at 12:55 PM PST - 30 comments

Solyndra used to make thin-film solar cells, but they could not make any money. The Department of Energy tried to help with a $535 million “Green” loan guarantee but the DOE missed the memo that says EBITDA needs to be in the black if they expect to keep taxpayers out of the red. Private investors kicked in another $70 million eventually but only after the DOE primed itself. As White House economic advisor Larry Summers noted, “…[government] is a crappy vc [venture capitalist]…" Thanks to the DOE though, 40 employees and 150 contractors got to keep their jobs for an extra week last year according to the WaPo.
posted by otto42 at 12:47 PM PST - 46 comments

The 49ers are back, but who's paying attention? Sitting on top of a weak NFC West, is the Niner's impressive rise going overlooked? [more inside]
posted by Carillon at 12:24 PM PST - 77 comments

Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers (SLYT)
posted by leigh1 at 12:18 PM PST - 36 comments

Jane Austen 'died from arsenic poisoning'. [The Guardian] Crime writer Lindsay Ashford bases claim on reading of author's letters and claims murder cannot be ruled out. Almost 200 years after she died, Jane Austen's early death at the age of just 41 has been attributed to many things, from cancer to Addison's disease. Now sleuthing from a crime novelist has uncovered a new possibility: arsenic poisoning.
posted by Fizz at 12:18 PM PST - 37 comments

Yesterday, the Supreme court granted certiorari to several of the challenges to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Here's a great roundup of several news stories. I like the NPR story for a quick summary of the issues. The Court will hear a total of 5.5 hours of oral argument, and a decision is expected by the end of the current term, in June.
posted by insectosaurus at 12:05 PM PST - 77 comments

BBC's "Frozen Planet" series will not be airing an episode about climate change in the United States.
posted by deathpanels at 11:36 AM PST - 78 comments

Built by the Shona (1100-1500 AD), the empire of Great Zimbabwe, one of Africa’s greatest civilizations like Egypt and Meroe, stood between present-day Zimbabwe, eastern Botswana and south-east Mozambique. The empire’s highly developed architecture overwhelmed discoverers. And much in the same manner as German anthropologist Doctor Frobenius ignorantly mistook the Kingdom of Ife in Nigeria for the lost kingdom of Atlantis in 1911, some Europeans blatantly refused to believe that Great Zimbabwe was built by Africans. Dawson Munjeri, former director of Great Zimbabwe, a World Heritage site, discusses the history of the exceptional Zimbabwe empire. [more inside]
posted by infini at 11:31 AM PST - 19 comments

DJHistory.com's list of 100 Greatest Dance Records may not be definitive or feature your favorite record, but it's hard to say that each and every record on there hasn't earned its place, from the Northern Soul swing of "The Clapping Song" to the post-ironic dancehall of "Pon De Floor." [more inside]
posted by beaucoupkevin at 11:30 AM PST - 38 comments

Interactive info graphic: 100 years¹ of western² dance³ music, as it has grown and migrated around the world. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 10:58 AM PST - 24 comments

The Lick (slyt).
posted by googly at 10:39 AM PST - 20 comments

A hypnotic little tutorial on 25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made (filmed in her bedroom). (via Already Pretty)
posted by flex at 10:31 AM PST - 32 comments

Princeton's 5th annual Art of Science Competition "The Art of Science exhibition explores the interplay between science and art. These practices both involve the pursuit of those moments of discovery when what you perceive suddenly becomes more than the sum of its parts. Each piece in this exhibition is, in its own way, a record of such a moment."
posted by dhruva at 10:15 AM PST - 8 comments

Bruce Wayne's medical history, from Gotham City General Hospital. "These recent maladies appear to be in keeping with the pattern that has emerged over the past several years, in which significant medical problems are associated with odd or incongruous explanations." ... "By far the greatest contributor to patient’s ongoing morbidity are his multiple and seemingly ceaseless musculoskeletal injuries."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:59 AM PST - 63 comments

Gullah—the African-influenced dialect of Georgia’s Sea Islands—has undergone few changes since the first slave ships landed 300 years ago, and provides a clear window into the shaping of African-American English. This classic PBS program traces that story from the west coast of Africa through the American South, then to large northern cities in the 1920s. Studying the origins of West African pidgin English and creole speech—along with the tendency of 19th-century white Southerners to pick up speech habits from their black nursemaids—the program highlights the impact of WWI-era industrialization and the migration of jazz musicians to New York and Chicago.
posted by cthuljew at 7:42 AM PST - 12 comments

My assumption has always been: If something like a soul exists, and it affects our consciousness in any manner, then it must be detectable by some scientific device. I find it difficult to imagine that something can interact with my physical body without leaving any physical trace. But though I find it hard to imagine, is it possible for something like a soul to interact with me without leaving any physical trace?
posted by veedubya at 7:25 AM PST - 152 comments

Ozark Giraffe Rock architectural exteriors are a common sight along Route 66 in the Ozarks region of the United States, as they were a popular building choice between 1910 - 1940. The construction materials for giraffe rock exteriors were inexpensive and produced locally from materials found in plentiful supply in the Ozark Mountains, and the style was most predominant on small houses, usually bungalows. [more inside]
posted by aabbbiee at 6:59 AM PST - 30 comments

Check this out really quick, it's basically one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century presented in 3D, and you don't even have to wear glasses!

Guernica 3D: In 1937, during the Spanish civil war, the fascists devastated the town of Guernica with aerial bombings executed by the Nazi Luftwaffe. [more inside]
posted by malapropist at 3:31 AM PST - 78 comments