Sep 17 2011
Take a Nap! Change Your Life
Cool Tools today features a practical guide to the nap.
Improve your productivity by having a 10 minute kiip.Sounds very civilized to me.
And the Ig Nobel goes to …The Science of Beer Goggles
Sep 16 2011
60 Second Lecture: Down with FractionsI like the thinking in the School of Arts and Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Every few weeks in Spring and Autumn, one of the faculty share their perspectives on topics ranging from human history and the knowable universe, to fractions and fly-fishing – and they are only allocated one minute for the lecture.
Should be compulsory everywhere.
We’ll feature some of these lectures in ‘What I Learnt Today’.
Today – Dennis DeTurck, a mathematician and the Professor for Excellence in Teaching, says “Down with Fractions!”
Alex in Wonderland – Shakespeare and Company
Sep 15 2011
Reptile WorldThere are times when it feels like we may be living in Australia Zoo.
On Sunday a koala climber up a tree to watch the boys play backyard footy.
Yesterday loud squawking alerted us to a pair of magpies swooping a huge goanna, to drive it away from their nest. They were successful, and the goanna retreated to a refuge under the fig tree.
And soon after that, Murray the wonder dog started barking madly. A snake had come to visit, and was by the front door.
Calmy, it slithered through the garage and off to some bushes on the boundary of our house. It was thin, about a metre long, with a greenish sides and a brown back.
And today, two more snakes of the same species were sunning themselves in the driveway.
Identifying snakes is notoriously diffcult. Herpetologists often have to count the number of dorsal scales to be sure of the species (really!).That’s more initmate than I want to get to a snake.
Men are from Mars, Women are from…somewhere different
Sep 14 2011
The Only Good Red Dot is a Dead One
The only good red dot is a dead one.
Tilt to Live is currently a ‘preferred game; in our house.
In this asteroid-like iPad game, you steer your small space ship by tilting the iPad. Touching one of the swarm of red dots casues instant death, butyou can pick up and use orbs to destroy them and craete a clear path.
I thought 3 million was a good score – but Brendan has four.
Back to the battlefield.
Thou Shalt Not Add Oil to Pasta Water…the 10 Commandments of Italian Cooking
Sep 13 2011
Rods, Cones and Colours
This optical effect is pretty cool.
See the blue and green spirals in the picture above?
They are actually both the same colour! (green, in fact)
We perceive them to be different due to the different colours next to them. Our retina has two different types of light detecting cells – rods (120 million of them) and cones (7 million).
The numerous rods are good at detecting movement and work well in low light. They are responsible for our peripheral vision – one of the main functions of which is to warn us of rapidly approaching threats (quick, duck). They work in black and white, and are incredibly sensitive.
The cones are concentrated in the central part of our retina, called the macula. They enable focused vision. There are three types of cones, each of which responds maximally to different wavelengths of light ie colours (red, green, blue). Just like the inks in a printer, the brain combines their signals it receives from the different cones to perceive the full spectrum of colours. Colour blindness is caused by an absence of one or more the three different types of cones.
The optical illusion above is due to the adjacent colours stimulating the different cones in an overlapping way that confuses the eye.
More on rods and cones at
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html
Are you plentysomething?One thing I learn each day by Tony Lembke.
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