Three Articles from the NY Times

i actually have real work to do these days, but i simply have to link to these three articles that i read in the ny times today.

flirting with invisibility is an article about some recent experiments to render objects invisible. for anybody with a love for science fiction and superhero stories this one will be of particular charm.

she calls it phenomena is a look into the works of felice frankel, who photographs scientific phenomena. some very interesting pictures, with the obvious follow-up question: is this art?

goldilocks planet is an insight into the discovery of the extrasolar planet gliese 581c, which just a few months ago was getting everybody very excited about the possibility it might be a planet suited for life (as we know it). it turns out, the planet is probably much too hot for life to emerge on it. but, ironically, another planet in the system - gliese 581d - might be a more favorable site for life to emerge.

Evolution vs. Creationism

america speaks. be appropriately shocked, and then go the field museum and check out the darwin exhibit that opens friday.

The Future of (Some) Scientific Disciplines

while on the seed note, let me link to this article as well, in which leaders in a number of scientific disciplines discuss where they believe their fields are headed in the next few years. notable entries by sean carroll on cosmology, lisa randall on high energy physics, and marc hauser (one of my favorite people from my year at harvard) on cognitive evolution. not surprisingly, both sean and lisa talk about the importance of the lhc and the implications for physics beyond the standard model. it's an exciting time for physicists!

Connections in the Scientific Disciplines

i'm stealing from ryan over at fish heal thyself again, but i'm doing some undercover work for him so i hope he doesn't mind too much. the image above is an illustration of the citations made by nearly a million articles sorted into roughly 750 scientific paradigms (shown as the pale dots), thereby giving some sense of the connections between the scientific disciplines. (real image credit: seed magazine)