It's one of the most persistent problems in camouflage: how do you hide your eyes?

Skin is not that difficult to disguise. You can change its color, cover it up, match it to your environment. But eyes are tricky. You have to be able to see out of them. And unfortunately, predators are extremely good at looking for eyeballs.

I'm not a predator, but I am a marine biologist, which is kind of the same thing. I've done my time searching through plankton soup for squid larvae--and I can tell you the best way to search is to look for the eyes. They're just so recognizable!

Last month, an article that had caused something of a buzz in science circles since November was published in the journal Icarus.   John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, physicists at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, wrote a paper(1) speculating about the existence of an unknown planet, a monstrous binary companion to our Sun bigger even than Jupiter.

The problem, other than the usual hype by places like Huffington Post along with mainstream media outlets, was this planet would have to be in the Öpik-Oort Cloud , which is itself a hypothesis.   

Losing virginity can improve your self-image,  according to Penn State researchers - if you are a college-age male.  On average, college-age males become more satisfied with their appearance after first intercourse while college-age females become less satisfied.

Overall the researchers found that women became happier with their physical appearance from first to fourth year in college, and men became less satisfied with their appearance over the same time period. However, the researchers found the opposite directly after students had sex for the first time; males were more satisfied with their appearance and females were less satisfied.   

In Australia, babies born since 1971 have had drops of blood taken, which are then tested for a variety of genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis. 

It has been an effective health check, according to Dr. Diana Bowman from the Melbourne School of Population Health, but because there are no laws which define the ownership, storage and use of those blood drops, it could threaten public trust in newborn screening (NBS) programs in Australia. The tests and what is done with the blood afterwards raises many legal questions.

Tree islands, patches of high, dry ground a meter high that dot the marshes of the Florida Everglades, are elevated enough to allow trees to grow and provide a nesting site for alligators and a refuge for birds, panthers, and other wildlife.

And those critters may have anthropogenic garbage left by early man to thank for it.   Garbage mounds left by prehistoric humans might have driven the formation of many of those  Everglades' tree islands, distinctive havens of exceptional ecological richness in the sprawling marsh that are today threatened by human development.

Because of the time difference, many discovered the news of the Tohoku earthquake hours after the 9.0 magnitude tremor was recorded 81 miles off the Japanese East Coast - an earthquake so epic that the resulting tsunami reached across the Pacific and the coasts of America and New Zealand.   But also for much of the waking world, news about the unfolding crisis happened instantaneously - because of the amazing reach of social media. 

Reading The Cryosphere

A picture is worth a thousand words - but only if you can speak the language.

When examining satellite images of the cryosphere it helps to know something of the mechanisms which can create the effects seen.  The skills needed in interpreting these images can be developed by looking at Google Earth or Wikimapia images without any annotations.  Check the history of an area and then go relic hunting.  Alternatively, look at some satellite images, find something odd and then try to guess what it is.  In general, form follows function.  For example, banks of earth in grids or rings not known to be prehistoric indicate that a site was probably once connected with pyrotechnic activities.

Lacking the papers to prove I am a theoretical physicist, I have built something working class: a lunchbox

The box contains Yoplait Yogurt, Del Monte 100 Calorie Mixed Fruit, and White Cheddar Cheese Smart Food Pop Corn (note: all product placements are unpaid). The apple included indicates I work on gravity.

[The video is a reading of the content contained herein, so click or skip]

At the Top of the World.
The massive 9.0 M earthquake at Tohoku, Japan, 11. March 2011 literally shook the entire planet. The signals were read even at the top of the world, close to the north pole. Read on to learn about earthquake and tsunami observations in general before you take a look at the unique earthquake recordings from the high-north.

by Bente Lilja Bye and Ove Christian Dahl Omang


Ny-Ålesund Geodetic Laboratory, Svalbard, Norway. Credit: Ove Christian Dahl Omang

In the days of yore, organic chemistry was considered a branch of science that dealt with endless interactions involving carbon atoms as atomic and molecular interactive forces were not understood.