Objects at rest tend to stay at rest, unless acted on by an outside force. And objects in motion tend to stay in motion, unless similarly acted on by an outside force. Football players know this all too well. In addition to the 49ers and the Ravens, Isaac Newton will be on the field today in New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII. The NFL, NBC, and the National Science Foundation recently got together to produce this excellent video series on the science of football. It's always fascinating to me how many athletes intuitively understand the laws of physics without actually being able to express them as such. Watch the videos on projectile motion and vectors for some great examples of this!
Here's some more geek to tide you over until game time.
- STUNNING geology highlights of the Solar System from the last 50 years of robotic exploration.
- Stroke causes victim to ignore half of the world around him. More specifically, the left half. [VIDEO]
- Humongous archive of biodiversity audio and video rabbit hole that you might never return from.
- Next time you want to back up your computer, forget external drives and forget the cloud. DNA is the next big thing in data storage.
- How long could you swim in a spent nuclear fuel pool? A lot longer than you think or probably want to. (via @xkcd)
- These fourteen winners of the 2012 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge will get all up in your face with their awesomeness.
- 80,000-year-old grove of Aspen trees in Utah is effectively one massive root system and the oldest known living organism in the world. [SLIDESHOW]
- Roboticists in the UK have built a bionic man of sorts for $f5 million dollars than you might expect.
- Beware of the skunk. No not that kind, the other kind. For maximum enjoyment, make sure the beer at your Super Bowl party doesn't come in a clear glass bottle.
- Lastly, speaking of the Super Bowl, pull back the curtain on the dumb cheerleader stereotype by checking out how smart some of these ladies are off the field: six of the 49er's and eight of the Raven's cheerleaders work as scientists or engineers.
GO SCIENCE! @Summer_Ash