I tested my brain on liquids

hello all. How good are you at figuring out what is going on from a few glimpses?
it turns out I am far better at it (if i may toot my own horn) then i thought I would be. Here is what i am talking about. Two days ago I reported on scientists discovering a connection between air and splashing in liquids and I made some fun of it because it did not seem new to me. Well first off I must admit to having NOT read the articles all the way through because the scientists involved were looking at air in terms of atmosphere and not air in terms of dissolved in the liquid. Ok, admission to cutting corners dealt with. I then (today) found this short blurb on the subject. What i did in this case was open the article and look at the photos at the top and read just until I hit the caption for the photos. At that point I stopped and looked carefully at the photos and realized that from those photos I could postulate a theory as to why liquids splash in atmosphere and not in vacuum. Can you do the same? (hint, you must scrutinize the second photo in the top group.) Anyway, I then read the rest of the article and found that my theory was 90% correct. Honestly the answer seems so obvious to me that i am surprised at the fact that the scientists involved were surprised at the answer. However this answer does ask the question, if this works why does smooth water (mentioned earlier) work. That stuff will not splash and it is NOT in a vacuum. I think that should be the next thing these guys look at, might be useful.

Some paleontologists (holy crap i spelled that right on the first try) have found some soft tissue on the inside of a dinosaur fossil. That makes it the worlds oldest left-overs, assuming the rest of the dino was eaten by something at time of death. Anyway, there are articles about it 1) here and 2) here and 3) here and 4) here. By the number of people reporting it you can guess its a very big deal.

Did I ever tell you how much i am amazed and fascinated by octopuses?

The new space prize is out from NASA, they want people to work on parts and ideas for a space elevator.

Another failure for security under the Bush administration as it serves the public good.

More on that Marburg outbreak, it is spreading.

here is a great post of what to do with your body should you go vegetative but still want to be politically relevant.

last item of the day, a game to help people learn how to make money on the foreign money exchange.