Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
Brief but cool slideshow of mantis closeups.
Brown Betty ain't what she used to be.
Despite my claims to the contrary, pet monkeys are not a good idea unless you wear armor.
I don't understand the math in this paper (though the press release helps), but page through it and click the Quicktime symbols for the animated eye candy.
There's a massive hurricane at Saturn's south pole right now, wider across than Earth and the first such storm observed on another planet. More here.
Check out the zoom function on these megapixel photos.
brown betty...lol
i prefer the fun betty....SUPRISE!!!
Posted by: suzy darling at November 13, 2006 05:50 PMOn the Lorenz/modular flow paper (which I was able to follow for about 3 paragraphs) - any treatise which has to rely on a book by Jean-Paul Serre, even if it's called A Course in Arithmetic (hint: it's not seventh-grade arithmetic) is bound to be arcane. Just stick with staring at the pictures. The people who would find this useful are probably stuck deep in the bowels of a university.
Posted by: John Johnson at November 13, 2006 08:10 PMWait a second. I spotted the following statement in the press release: "If one could prove a certain fact about the horocycle flow, the Riemann Hypothesis would follow as a consequence."
This is huge, much huger than I first thought. Proving the Riemann hypothesis would have a profound effect on the field of cryptography. Basically much of our current cryptographical methods are based on the distribution of prime numbers, which is tied into the Riemann hypothesis (which says that the complex roots of a certain weird-looking function depends on the distribution of primes).
There may be a big announcement from our mathematician friends in a few years. Scratch my last post. I bet you a lot of eyes are turned toward this one.
Posted by: John Johnson at November 13, 2006 08:17 PMThe question "Does the carpet match the drapes?" has now gotten much more complicated.
Posted by: M/tch M/lls at November 13, 2006 11:15 PMI always thought the big red spot on Jupiter was supposed to be a hurricane.
Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist at November 14, 2006 08:23 AMThe red spot is a storm, but it isn't centered around a well-formed eye, with the characteristic cloud towers. I suppose you could question whether Saturn's storm could truly be called a hurricane, since it isn't being fed by liquid.
Posted by: Mr. Sticky at November 14, 2006 08:44 AMYou know, I wonder if they show "Ugly Betty" will agree to do some product placement for this brave new consumer item.
Posted by: M/tch M/lls at November 14, 2006 10:48 AMThe two monkeys I had growing up were terrible pets. Fuckers used to bite anything or anyone they could get a hold of.
Posted by: mikefromtexas at November 15, 2006 12:06 AM