Monday, December 01, 2008

3 Things - God I love science stuff

1. Water Bears. Alien or mother-effing awesome animal?
Thanks to a fellow nerd (but less so, as I believe she is a tad bit cooler than I am) Natalie, I have discovered Water Bears...otherwise known as "Tardigrade".


Water Bear

(I have also discovered the BBC magazine "Knowledge" thanks to Natalie. It's bloody brilliant.)

Water Bears. Let me tell you a little bit about these things....if they were our size, they would fuck us up. They aren't. They are like... .006 inches big.

Fact 1: Water Bears can withstand heat and cold...
how high? 303 degrees Fahrenheit
how low? absolute zero...or ...−459.67 degrees Fahrenheit

Fact 2: Water Bears can survive 1000 times more radiation than any other animal.

Fact 3: Water Bears can survive in the low pressure vacuum of space. And more than 6 times the pressure of what is down at the bottom of the ocean. For 10 DAYS.

Fact 4: Water Bears don't have to drink water for one decade and won't die, and will get re-hydrated in just one drop of water.

So let me ask you then, Water Bears: alien or just a mother-effing awesome animal?

2. Did I tell you how much I love science fiction?
Well, did I ? Because its not even funny how much I've immersed myself into this world. I should have long ago really, but unfortunately it's just happened in the past couple of years. Actually you know what? I lied. I took a freaking sci-fi literature class in college. Not just anyone takes that class.

But more recently I've noticed that I've read more books, watched more movies, wrote short stories, dreamed about robots, and wished I was in sci-fi shows. I think about Sci-fi all the freaking time really. And ask you, dear reader, to please give me recommendations of more sci-fi I can obsess over. Oh especially comic books. I wanna get into comic books.

My recommendations for you?
1. Book: Night Watch, Day Watch and Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
2. Movie: Serenity (and Firefly the tv show) if you haven't seen them already
3. Tv Series: Doctor -freakin- Who. All of them. All of them from 1963 to today. Not kidding. They are all good. But, if you're just starting out...go with the 9th Doctor (2005) first and then move around...like I did.


3. I wish I could get cable and choose my channels.


Did you know there is a Science Channel? And an awesome show is on it...its called "Sci-Q".

As I was happily watching cable at Dans parents house during Thanksgiving, we stopped on the science channel. Which I proceeded to freak out about. And then that freaking, Sci-Q, preview came out and I peed my pants a little.

Yes. I wish I could choose my channels for cable.
I wouldn't choose sports. Probably only choose like...CNN or something for news, and then proceed to choose this line up.

a. Discovery Channel
b. Discovery Health
c. TLC
d. Animal Planet
e. Science Channel
f. History Channel

and of course

g. Cartoon Network
h. Bravo
i. VH1

Hey, is that too much to ask? Really? IS IT?

But, that'll never happen. Comcast, RCN and other expensive crappy providers wanna give me what they think I'll like.

I know what I like thanks.

I like Science stuff.

2 comments:

Mr. B said...

Hi Leslie,

Long time reader, first time commenter. If you dig Science, and it looks like you do, can I recommend the Radio Lab audio podcast for you? They're available for free download off of Itunes or you can listen to them for free on their website. (Google Radio Lab for that link.)
Radio Lab are hour long audio podcasts that take a single subject (ie. Time, Identity, Morality, Mortality, Space etc.) and use interviews with scientists and other notables to tell stories that explore those topics. They've released a single episode for the current, fifth season. They have four other seasons available. Each season has six episodes.
They're incredible. I can't recommend them highly enough.

Check them out.

Cheers,
COB

Leslie said...

Thank you thank you! Weeee