Scottish Nous

The Spice Pages

Gernot Katzer is a chemist with a somewhat eccentric but fitting hobby: spices.  The tea my sweet, soft paramour gave me contains lemon verbena, otherwise known as Herba Luisa "in honour of Maria Luisa Teresa de Parma (1751-1819), wife of king Carlos IV of Spain".  The essential oil is present in the leaf in concentrations less than one percent, ant it is charaterized primarily by stereoisomers of citral: neral and geranial.  Links to the chemical compounds are provided to satisfy those of us with a certain fondness for chemistry, and pictures of the spices are provided to placate the less analytic.

Sphaerodactylus ariasae

See some (bad) pictures of the newly discovered world's smallest lizard (only 16 mm long)!  Despite appearances to the contrary, the English phrase "the world's smallest lizard" does not function as, according to the article, a definite description:

It shares the title of "smallest" with another lizard species named Sphaerodactylus parthenopion, discovered in 1965 in the British Virgin Islands.

Unicorn Tusks Still Pretty Magical

The narwhal's tusk/tooth/horn, recently discovered to function as a sensory organ, contains some ten million odd nerves exposed to the frigid arctic water. That's one hell of a cold tooth.  Can you just imagine the pain?  [Via Majikthise]  Now go to the Metropolitan's website to see the The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries.

Front Range Geography and Geology

For Colorado readers, Jeremy McCreary at the Colorado School of Mines has an amazing geology photojournal here.  His abstract:

The  photojournals  feature discussion and annotated photographs of sites of geologic interest in Colorado. The groundwork articles provide in-depth background on Colorado geologic history,  rocks and tectonics.

I there found a nifty link to the Jules Verne Voyager where you can explore the topology of the Earth, numerous other planets and even planetary moons.  Select a map and then use your mouse to draw a box on the map to get a zoomed view.

Martians!

New evidence of life on Mars?  See here.  I take it that it's reasonable to expect that there's life on Mars, given the obvious interplanetary transportation vehicles available to such life.  (I'm trying to sound loony.)  But seriously, big rocks and chunks of dirt do travel back (and forth?) between Mars and Earth.  Why not think an extremophile or two hitched a ride?  Some of those little buggers can withstand insane temperatures and pressures, as well as munch glass, eat rocks, and feed on sulfur or hydrogen.  So our current fellow Martians may not be that complex, but Martians they nonetheless are.  The interesting question is this: Which came first?  The Martian or the Earthling? [Via For the Record]

Coffee Prevents Liver Cancer

If you like your coffee as much as I do, get ready to do a happy little dance.  According to this article (and others which I don'te care to find), studies show that drinking three to four cups of coffee daily reduces the risk of liver cancer by fifty percent!  I can still be a sick man, and an angry man, but with a drastically reduced change of adding liver disease to that Dostoevskyan mix.

Baby w/ Vestigial Tail

This linked page contains several pictures of a naked baby with a vestigial tail.  This is not a mere appendage that happened, by random chance, to be located in the baby's caudal region, but rather a flesh and blood muscular tail replete with a nervous structure, skin, hair, and contractual ability.

Yang-Mills Theory and the Mass Gap

Scientists believe that there are four, and only four, fundamental forces of nature: gravity, the strong force, electromagnetism, and the weak force.  In the ongoing search for a grand unified theory, physicists and mathematicians are working hard at combing these forces into one theory.  The last two have succesfully been combined into the electroweak force, but the strong force, which holds the nucleus together, hasn't yet been incorporated into the theory, much less gravity.  But things are looking up for the strong force!