Sunday Selection 3

Continuing a new series where there is little additional content from me, but I simply share a few items, new and old, that have pleased me this week.  As almost every week, I see items on the web that I find interesting, amazing or  or amusing.  This disjointed ramble might be on any of my normal topics - or on other topics entirely.  My thanks go to the friends who helped me to find them.

First: This truly amazing video shows how the Curiosity rover is going to land on Mars next month - we hope!

Next: The toughest life on earth - the surprising survival of some lichens which have been deliberately kept on the outside of the International Space Station in the vacuum of space, bathed in solar radiation for 18 months - and still alive!

Favorite word of the week:  Pronoia - the opposite of paranoia - the belief that there is a conspiracy to help you!  It has another historical meaning relating to the granting of state money to individuals.

Podcast of the week: George Hrab's Geologic podcast. George's monologues are sometimes more interesting than other times.  Episode 267 started with a long and entirely justified assassination of the plot of the movie Prometheus.  Having seen it this afternoon I think George was being surprisingly generous in his criticism.  I think it had the most staggeringly pathetic and incoherent plot line and it is a strong candidate to count as the worst film I have ever seen in my life!  Nice graphics I suppose - as long as physics doesn't come into it.

Twitter:  #prometheusboo is the hashtag of the week.

Atheist article of the week:  Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology, an interesting article from wired.com.  Good for them!

Life science of the week: The mystery about the spike in carbon-14, observed in tree rings dating from the years 774 and 775.  Nobody knows what caused it but the event can be observed world-wide by dendrochronologists.

And finally . . .

Favourite places: When you see a red light on a building in Japan, it doesn't mean the same as it does in Europe.

Japanese police station - not the red light district!

Your comments and preferences will help me to decide whether this is a good idea or not.