“O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
– Robbie Burns
Others aren’t seeing us particularly favorably right now.
(Thanks to Deana for the link.)
Sperm may ‘sniff’ their way to eggs
The Times (of London) writes: “Scientists from the Ruhr University in Germany and the University of California in Los Angeles have discovered a ́chemical noseî, named hOR17-4, on sperm cells that allows them to sense high concentrations of a sperm- attracting substance called bourgeonal, which researchers believe works as a chemical road sign to mark the location of an egg.”
Cool stuff. UPI has a good story about it.
The Conversation
This conversation about Iraq is much wittier than any I’ve had, but it sounds very familiar.
And yes, I’m stealing outright from Wil Wheaton’s weblog.
Light echoes and mysterious stars
Karen sent a link to an article at Space.com about a bizarre new nova-like star that is expanding and cooling in a way astronomers didn’t expect. At the same time, it’s giving us a show: a light echo, which is light that bounced off larger and larger regions of dust around the star as the star got brighter.
Iraq and environment
There is a fascinating article at New Scientist.
It outlines some of the environmental repercussions of war in Iraq. These aren’t things I’ve heard brought up in any other news. This is a very delicate ecosystem and the idea that we–both sides–could be causing horrible, irreversible damage just horrifies me.