Italian astrophysicists, well-known as the party animals of their field, have decided that it would be fun to launch a disco ball into orbit and then shoot lasers at it. Besides giving the astronauts on the ISS a good excuse to get their boogie on (like they need one), the disco ball should also help measure one of the weirdest effects of general relativity to an accuracy of 1%.

View original post here:
Massive orbiting disco ball to measure relativity with lasers

The female g-spot: much like a fountain of youth or an all-you-can-eat buffet where the other patrons aren’t so fat that you’re too disgusted to eat, men have spent centuries trying to find one. And now penis doctor urologist Amichai Kilchevsky adds his two cents to the growing amount of skepticism about a mythical come-button. Based on a review of 96 published studies, an Israeli and American research team came to one conclusion. “Without a doubt, a discreet anatomic entity called the G-spot does not exist,” said Dr. Amichai Kilchevsky, a urology resident at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, and lead author of the review, published Jan. 12 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Kilchevsky conceded the work is not “1,000 percent conclusive,” allowing that other scientists could one day find something his team missed. But they would need new technology to do it, he said. AHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!! Sorry Amichai, but anybody calling themselves a doctor who uses phrases like “1,000 percent conclusive” can’t be trusted. Sucks too because I was really hoping there wasn’t a g-spot. Oh well, looks like it’s back to studying the vagina map my friend drew for me in middle school! Now if my calculations are correct, then this X should mark the spot. “Your maps upside down.” So…. “So that would be her b-hole.” B -hole, G -spot — I think I’m getting warmer! G-Spot Does Not Exist, ‘Without A Doubt,’ Say Researchers [huffingtonpost] Thanks to PYY, who doesn’t care if there’s a g-spot or not just so long as she can… you know — O_O

More here:
"Experts": ‘Without A Doubt’ There Is No G-Spot

The photos of these genetically engineered “supersoldier” ants — with their giant heads and pincers — are a little terrifying. These bugs look like they could beat up my dog. While supersoldier ants can be found in nature, apparently they are quite rare — genetic accidents; I’m glad of that for personal reasons, but they do have a scientific significance.

Read the original:
Photo: genetically engineered monster antsit’s o.k. to scream

Seen here believing he can fly, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is seeking a new graduate assistant and, obviously, I’m the man-child for the job. “ZIP ZAP, NOT THE STAIRS GW!” Oh relaaaaaaax Steve, I’ll just tilt your chair back and we’ll bounce right down. The original purpose of this position was ‘to aid Professor Hawking in those areas which he has difficulty due to his disability’. The job has since expanded and now includes: Managing Professor Hawking’s national and international travel. Preparation of lecture graphics and public speaking Dealing with the media and press Development of Professor Hawking’s computer systems Maintenance of computer and medical equipment Answering inquiries from the public and maintaining the website Departmental and administrative roles Not gonna lie, that sounds like a lot more responsibility and a lot less fun that I had anticipated. How much to just carry him around on my back like Yoda? Official Job Posting Thanks to Alex T, who claims he’s already got the job in the bag. Let me see that. HA! These are groceries, Alex.

More:
Stephen Hawking Seeks New Graduate Assistant

Scientists have released a new study revealing human activity may be the culprit behind an increase in tornadoes and hailstorms during summer weekdays. It turns out severe weather is higher during the week due to reduced air quality. Simply put, it’s linked to our commute .

Go here to read the rest:
Why tornadoes take weekends off

Bruno Zamborlin, a PhD candidate at IRCAM/Centre Pompidou and Goldsmiths, University of London, and Norbert Schnell, a Centre Pompidou researcher, created this astounding demo of using a contact microphone to turn any hard surface into a touch interface. The microphone detects the vibrations from your touches and figures out what kind of touch you’re engaged in and what you’re touching with, and translates that into music. Don’t miss the balloon demo at the end. Through gesture recognition techniques we detect different kind of fingers-touch and associate them with different sounds. In the video we used two different audio synthesis techniques: 1- physics modelling, which consists in generating the sound by simulating physical laws; 2- concatenative synthesis (audio mosaicing), in which the sound of the contact microphone is associated with its closest frame present in a sound database. The system can recognise both fingers-touches and objects that emit a sound, such as the coin shown in the video. Mogees ( via Kottke )

See more here:
Turn any hard surface into a touch interface with a contact mic

There is a sleeping super volcano in Europe, and it isn’t in Italy (a country famous for its eruptions). This giant is located under the Laacher See, a caldera lake in Germany, and it is showing signs of life. Should it erupt, it could spew billions of tons of magma as far as 620 square miles — that covers most of Europe.

See more here:
Europe’s super volcano shows signs of life; time to wait

It may surprise you to learn pigeons can count much less understand abstract rules about numbers, but in fact, researchers have proved just that. This skill is something previously only showed in rhesus monkey testing from the 1990’s. Pigeons, super smart? Apparently .

Continued here:
Pigeons surprise the world with glimmer of intelligence

Future X-Factor and American Idol stars can rest easy in the knowledge scientists have been working tirelessly to take out the guesswork in what makes a hit song. They’ve developed a software program that can predict chart positions with about 60% accuracy.

Go here to read the rest:
Scientists can now predict pop hits sort of

Though searching for a fountain of youth might sound like something out of a King Arthur story, it’s also something happening right now, across the world, as scientists race toward discovering immortality . It might make marriage proposals seem a bit heavier, but some folks out there are dedicated to figuring out how to live forever (which sounds expensive).

Link:
Two ways today’s scientists are pursuing immortality