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Looks like I’m in for a great summer full of science video goodness! At the end of June, both Carin and I will be heading to an unconference (taking a clue from Bora from Science Online) called BrainSTEM at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada (maybe I’ll get to wave at Stephen Hawking!) We will be discussing many issues related to creating new media with science themes, both as education and entertainment. The wonderfully enthusiastic and positive Angela Maiers , education maven, will be the Keynote speaker.

My old apartment in New York City had seen better days. Stains had darkened the carpet by several shades, and gusts of wind would blow crumbs of decaying brick from the walls

This is a guest post by Jim Perkins, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s medical illustration program .

It’s no secret that Jen-Luc Piquant is a huge fan of the TV series Bones , and last week’s episode was particularly amusing because it poked fun at Hollywood and science consultants. Entitled “The Suit on the Set,” the plot brought Booth and Brennan to Tinsel Town to visit the set of a fictional movie being made of Brennan’s (equally fictional) bestselling novel

Some of the most brilliant colors found on butterflies, birds and squid are produced by nanostructures on wings, feathers and skin that reflect light. The effects can become even more varied when these “structural” colors are combined with filters made from light-absorbing pigments. For example, the characteristic green plumage of parrots seems to be produced by yellow pigment over a blue reflective nanosurface

Phototropism, photo by Tangopaso Wie orientieren sich Cyanobakterien im Licht [More]

It is probably no surprise to my regular readers that I get a little exercised about the science wars that play out across the U.S. in various school boards and court actions. It’s probably unavoidable, given that I think about science for a living — when you’ve got a horse in the race, you end up spending a lot of time at the track

This is an installment in the On My Shelf series reviews about books demonstrating anthropology in practice. Book details follow the post

Interviewer: So, how powerful are you? Could you …say… destroy the Earth? Tick: Destroy the Earth?

To ease on in to the weekend, let’s celebrate by watching some short films on a topic that I mentioned earlier this week in my planthopper post: plant bug poo, aka honeydew . It’s not as gross as you might think.

PASADENA The theory is so obscure there’s not a Wikipedia page about it yet. It might be impossible to formulate mathematically. One theoretical physicist calls it the Emperor Palpatine of theories, even more powerful and inscrutable than the Darth Vader theory that he and others have been studying intensively.

Yesterday my father-in-law asked me to buy him $100 in lottery tickets.

I was having a Twitter conversation with @LeafWarbler about being a lone brown face in a research setting . I told him of my adventures in field research in rural Illinois (outside of Urbana-Champaign). I was trapping small mammals on corn fields just off of a rural road.

Dressings for your dish. | Photo by Michael Rosenstein, CC. Click on image for license and information.