It's all a matter of scale

This is cool...

Why are there no blue roses?

Experience just how big the universe is in one mind-blowing interactive

Mind-blowing is certainly the (compound) word I would use to describe it. I find it amazing that there are stars with diameters greater than the distance between Earth and the Sun. And I love the way that's things are compared in size that you might never have considered comparing before, such as Halley's Comet, Deimos (Mars's second moon), and Mount Everest...

... or Rwanda, the Grand Canyon, and West Virginia - or even Italy and California for that matter.

To check out this amazing interactive for yourself, follow this link.

10 Urban Legends about Famous Scientists

We've all heard stories about killers in the back seat, but hapless heroines aren't the only ones who spawn urban legends. There are a number of urban legends about famous scientists. Some are funny, some are mere inaccuracies, and some are about committing murder by accident.

To find out more click this link.

Bacterium-sized Bunny the future for Bionic Brains

Scientists in Japan have created a new material that can be shaped into complex, conductive 3-D structures. Get ready for your custom brain electrodes.

To read more about this story, click here.

The Modern Periodic Table

What happens when you wring out a washcloth in space?

Click the link to find out...

The Genius of Invention

"What does the name Thomas Newcomen mean to you? Not much, I’ll bet," claims the Radio Times website.

Now if you've read Match With With the Kids, then you will already know that Newcomen’s Engine was the first practical steam engine, devised to pump water out of Cornish tin mines.

Newcomen was a Devon ironmonger in the early 18th century who designed the first reliable steam engine but because James Watt improved the design half a century later, Watt is the name that most people remember.

How their ideas evolved and what they led to (i.e. the Industrial Revolution) is the subject of a wonderfully educational programme, The Genius of Invention, and it starts tonight on BBC2 at 9.00pm.

The Sparkling Enope Squid

This is a picture of the Sparkling Enope squid - also known as the flirefly squid - washed up on the beach at Toyama Bay in Japan. 

The squid are are roughly 15cm in length and die after only a year of life. Found in the Western Pacific ocean, they live at depths of 183-366m and only come to the surface at night to show off their brilliant bioluminescence. The squid's photophores* are located at the end of each tentacle.

The Sparkling Enope squid is the only species of cephalopod that has evolved to be able to see colour in three visual pigments. Scientists think that this is to help them distinguish between ambient light and their own bioluminescence.

The firefly squid lights up for two reasons: the lights on the tentacle can flash to attract fish that the squid feed on, and lighting up their entire bodies help to attract a mate during the months of March to June.

* The organs that produce the light.

Things you need to know about the human brain

I'm loving James May's new series and this episode (all about the human brain) is both fascinating and highly entertaining.

You can watch the programme here via the wonders of the BBC iPlayer - not to mention those of your own visual cortex.

That's just how I roll, baby

You Are What You Eat

Mohamed Babu from India, captured these amazing pictures last year after his wife noticed that ants turned white when they drank milk.

He dissolved sugar in food colouring solutions of red, green, blue and yellow and then placed them in his garden to attract ants. Some of them even moved between the different solutions, resulting in psychedelic colour combinations.

Science + Art = ?

"I listen to colour"

Incredible. The next stage in human evolution is here...

Just Add Water

A day out on the beach would be incomplete without a sand castle. The mightier the castle, the better. But sand is next to useless as a building material. Without water it simply spreads out as wide as possible. So in search of a good recipe Daniel Bonn, a physicist at the University of Amsterdam, and colleagues have stumbled upon a formula for making the perfect sandy redoubt. 

To read more about this story, click here.

The World's Tallest Sandcastle

The Loch Ness Monster - The Creationist's Argument

In case you missed this incredible - and quite appalling - story yourself, click here to find out more.

Many a true word...

Science Fact

The Final Frontiers?

"Space... is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is..."

So speaks the Voice of the Book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But if you're determined to try to achieve some sense of the vastness, or by turns tininess, of things in general, then you could do a lost worse than to click this link. (And it's got some nice music too.)

Science Fact!