As my ‘Read Later’ list in Diigo acquires not only its own gravity well, but, at this point, its own set of physics laws, a post pointing to a couple of fun snippet-based science thingummies.

The first is, of course, that this week’s TOSP is out.  It covers everything from nanotech to transhumanism, space skiing to forensic science, the Nobels to the, well, Ig Nobels (and some of the appalling scientific blunders made by people who are part of that first illustrious crowd).

And, as I noticed last week but then completely forgot to blog: this year’s Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition results are out.  W000000!

Every year, people around the world send in the images they taken, in which they point Magnificent Magnification Machines at objects (flora, fauna and mineral), and record the results. Photographically.  Not only are the images stunning, but truly educational, too, allowing us to see far beyond the limits of the rather average orbs with which we get through our day to day lives.

The official website’s here, and the Boston Globe’s excellent photography blog, The Big Picture, has the results here.  Of course, Wired got in there, too (it’s where I first saw the results) :)

UPDATE:  Oh, yeah.  I also just got sent this wonderful map, showing metrication (by year) of the countries of the world.  Note which countries have yet to adopt it :)

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