Fun with Liquid Nitrogen

Question of the Week
How many nuclear warheads exist in the world?

In this post-Cold War era of nuclear disarmament counteracted by rogue states, it’s difficult to get an accurate count on just how many nuclear warheads are out there. Still, in the name of transparency to further efforts with Russia to promote nuclear disarmament, the US government recently released the exact number of warheads the United States possesses in its usable stockpile: 5,113. You’ll note that 5,113 nuclear warheads is, in fact, still enough to blow up the entire planet several times over. As Neatorama explains, Russia is believed to possess a bit more than that, too. This is why joint US-Russian talks are key to properly disarming and disposing of unneeded nuclear warheads.

You’ll also note on that graph there are 9 confirmed nuclear powers in the world right now, with the US and Russia – the top two – constituting roughly 90% of the total military nuclear capacity of the planet, and the other seven combined constituting the latter 10%. Still, with the exception of the United Kingdom and France, that lower part is largely constituted of states not known to have the greatest stability nor transparency of government, which is probably more troubling than anything else; these are where there’s a chance of a nuclear warhead being sold – or stolen by – a corrupt or extremist regime that could potentially use it against normal civilians. This is why limiting nuclear proliferation is absolutely key to the safety of the planet in the 21st century.

When humanity took the Nuclear War Demon out of the box in 1945 we knew it would be difficult to put it back. 65 years later there has thankfully not been another incident of nuclear weapons being employed against civilians, though the threat is still there. The fact of the matter is that though the Cold War is long over and the United States and Russia are closer allies now than in nearly a century, the Doomsday Clock still exists for the very good reason that there are still far too many nuclear weapons on the planet. Or at least Iron Maiden think so.

Graph of the Week

It’s that time again: time for the monthly update on the top 20 most-viewed posts I’ve written:

TOP 20 MOST-VIEWED POSTS THROUGH 04/30/10

Not too many surprises, though I’m happy to report that Becky now has 5 posts in the Top 20 despite contributing only one day per week. This is well-deserved as she puts far more effort into each post than I do as she has to make a painting and then research and write about the subject; I just do the latter two, thankfully. Other than that not too much; I’m glad the post on the potential for microbial life elsewhere in the solar system (“Little Moon Big Hope”) is gaining traction as that was one of my favorites to have written. I also think it’s funny that of the two newcomers to the list, neither are new posts, just older ones that gradually accrued enough hits. I suspect there will be a couple additions to the Top 20 from April as of the end of this month, though.

Links of the Week

• Nuclear Reactor Cutaways. A theme! My mom used to buy me books of hand-drawn cross-sectional diagrams like these back in the dark ages of the late 80s and early 90s before computer graphics became so ubiquitous and man, I loved them. So this gives me a little squirt of the nostalgia neurotransmitters in addition to being awesome of its own right.
• Goodhart’s Law: Once you measure something, it changes. A note on market dynamics and how the instantaneous transparency (another theme) afforded by the Internet will affect branding.
• Floating Wind Farm. A good idea to combine wave energy and wind energy. The only problem I see is that wind turbines require tons of regular maintenance, which might be difficult to do on these deployed far off-shore.
• Piezoelectric Promise: Charge a Touch-Screen by Poking It with Your Finger. This is really neat: basically, there’s no good reason we should have to charge our hand-held electronic devices with wall outlets since they use such a low power draw. The regular movements, currents and thermal energy of the human body should be sufficient to keep them charged, if properly captured. The trick is figuring out how to do that in a non-invasive manner.
• XKCD: Color Survey Results. Any children begotten by Randall Munroe will surely revolutionize the world of school science fair projects.

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Question of the Week
How’s the weather up there?

Ugh. My basement hasn’t been dry in about 3 weeks now. The rain has finally stopped – briefly – but it’s still damp outside. It seems that whereas God came short of drowning the Godless Northeast, He did feel it necessary to dunk our heads into the toilet a few times. The tale of the tape from Logan is as follows, via Weather Underground:

• Precip: Actual Month Total: 14.87 Normal month total: 3.85

Yep, that says we got roughly FOUR TIMES as much rain as usual in March. Apparently this caused the worst flooding since 1955 in eastern New England. You see, the whole area’s a glacier deposit, and, as anyone who’s tried to dig a hole deeper than about a foot and a half around here knows, much of what’s underneath the soil is chock-full-o’ big-ass rocks. And rocks, as you might recall from high school science class, don’t absorb water all that well. So eventually all that rain had nowhere to go and started pooling on the streets and in our basements. Not exactly like living in the Mississippi flood plane, but, hey, this is New England. Snowstorms we can handle. This rain frightens and confuses us.

Graph of the Week

Yesterday I made some rather hand-waving comments about which posts I’ve put up that have the most comments. This week, though, I realized that I could just do away with all that and put up a list of all my highest-trafficked posts so far. And here it is:

TOP 20 MOST-VIEWED POSTS THROUGH 03/31/10

You’ll note that there isn’t many from March but a ton from February. A lot of times it seems that stuff takes a few weeks to slowly start gaining interest. The #2 and #3 on that list are good examples of that. So, with the exception of the #1 spot – which will probably stay until I write something else the Internet, be it ever so mercurial, deems to be lulz-worthy – I don’t know how the list is going to look in another month. It’ll be interesting to see!

Links of the Week

Five links today:

• First Amphibious Insect Found Cruising Around Hawaii’s Streams and Shores. Though I am hardly an expert on bugs, I officially declare amphibious insects to be “wickid awesome.”
• The Hooded Pitohui – a Poisonous Bird. Speaking of awesome species diversity: poisonous birds. Seriously.
• Found: 90% of the Distant Universe. Science blogging superstar Phil Plait explains how astronomers were able to locate 90% of the theorized Universe that was, until recently, mysteriously absent from our view.
• Don Herbert: Archive Interview. A lengthy interview with Mr. Wizard himself shortly before his death. Difficult to listen to at parts due to Herbert’s advanced age at the time of taping, but very much worth it, I think.
• Rats fed on Bacon, Cheesecake and Ding-Dongs Become Addicted to Junk Food. Sounds not unlike my diet freshman year of college.

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Question of the Week
Have had a post that’s been a big hit yet?

After plugging away at this for 12 weeks, it seems I’ve managed to put out a post that has garnered this site a decent bump in traffic: last Saturday’s post has – as of writing this – gotten over 1800 page-views, well more than any other individual post. I’ve noticed a significant increase in traffic to the front page as well. I’m not entirely sure where it’s coming from, since my referrer reporting seems to be spotty at best, but I suspect that it’s coming mostly from Cracked, since I linked a post there and they get enough traffic that a decently-framed pingback might be enough to throw me the increase I’m seeing. So if you found this from Cracked, hello! I’m glad you came for teh lulz – that’s why I make them – but please also stay for the semi-serious actual scientific content, too.

Seriously, I’m not upset that a one-off silly post got a lot of traffic, because I know that it’s part of the game of the Internets that one has to make stuff like that if one wants better content to get recognized. Otherwise it just won’t pique enough interest and fall into that void that is tl;dr. The Internet’s a fickle mistress; gotta romance it a little.

If I look at the rest of my Top 5 viewed posts so far, it seems to reaffirm that, since all of those are ones where a lot of effort went into the writing process and I’m really glad they’re getting recognition:

• This one on freedom of speech in science was probably the singularly hardest-to-write post I’ve made so far and, 6 weeks later, it’s still going strong. Proud of that one.
• The fantastic two-page comic from Ainsley S is also very deservedly getting a lot of views, which makes me glad.
• The piece on agriculture in China wasn’t altogether that much harder than average to write, but it was a pretty important topic, so it’s good it’s generating interest.
• This one on the potential of life outside of Earth in the solar system is one of my two favorite posts I’ve ever written and I’m happy it winds out the Top 5.

So there you go. I know not everything I write is a winner and I realize that just because I think one post is more deserving of traffic than another (for example, I’m a bit disappointed that this one on the human body showing a lack of evidence for Intelligent Design – the other one of my two favorites – is only tied for 15th overall), but that’s sort of why I do this every day (other than that I enjoy it): I never quite know what might become a hit and what might just be another filler-track. Of course, I’d love to think that my blog reads like the White Album plays: a complete experience in and of itself even if some tracks are more popular than others; but I know that’s really wishful thinking and I’ll win some and lose some. It’s all part of the process, and I’m glad I’ve carried it out this far.

Graph of the Week

Let’s continue with that theme and look at an upgraded graph of my weekly traffic stats, not including this week when I’ve seen that increase:

Again, the numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt in that when someone hits the front page it loads several PHPs, thereby inflating the number (which, again, is why I like RSS subscribers because y’all keep the stats honest), but the relative slope should be pretty consistent. No word yet on when it might reach OVER 9000.

Links of the Week

Five links today:

• For the Driver Who Has Everything: an Augmented Reality Windshield. I’m wondering if I should make a weekly AR link a regular thing.
• Worst Science Article of the Week: Facebook Causes Syphilis. Ah, the news media echo chamber at it again. Please note that I’m pretty sure MySpace does, in fact, cause syphilis. Or at least chlamydia. And let’s not even talk about what 4chan causes.
• ScienceShot: Black Holes Tease Out a Dark Matter Secret. Seriously, when we figure out how to exploit dark matter, it’s gonna be so awesome.
• Tiny Island Fought Over by India and Bangladesh Vanishes into the Sea. Sadly, I think Washington, DC will need to be knee deep in water before any serious action is taken in regard to global climate change.
• Mike Rowe on QVC. To end on a lighter note, there’s everyone’s favorite sarcastic TV host proving he’s actually toned it down since the early 90s when he was on QVC. If you’ve never seen these, they’re all pretty priceless. Much unlike the crap he’s doing his best not to sell.

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Question of the Week
Have you seen that video of the Physics professor pouring liquid nitrogen over a laptop and smashing it?

I sure have. A coworker sent it my way, completely unaware of my blog; I just have a reputation for enjoying freezing things with liquid nitrogen and smashing them. And is there anything wrong with that?

No, no there isn’t.

He doesn’t quite have a sense of dramatic flare, but he is a Physics professor so it kind of comes with the territory. The video’s a bit shaky and it misses the money shot, but considering that he’s destroying the laptop as a means of illustrating his distaste for distracting technology in the classroom – and I do believe a camera would count as just that – I kind of understand why the student filming it tried to be inconspicuous.

Liquid nitrogen is awesome.

Graph of the Week

Instead of generating my own graph this week, I’d like to point you to Breakdown of the Blogosphere

It seems about right and you know I’m a sucker for blogging stats and for infographics, so how could I resist this one?

Links of the Week

There are certain topics of discussion I deliberately avoid and one of those is anthropogenic climate change. It’s not because I don’t have my own opinions – I do – it’s just because it’s an issue that’s been so heavily politicized (and, I believe, mixed in with religion as well) to the point that having an informed and intelligent dialogue on the topic is nearly impossible as it quickly breaks down into name-calling along party lines. Which is something that should never happen in science.

Earlier this week Phil Plait linked to a couple of NASA-generated resources on the issue that I’d like to share with you. Perhaps one day I’ll be brave enough to inform myself on the topic of global climate to the extent that I can talk about it intelligently in a post, but for now I’ll let you form your own opinions. Just make sure to use awesome thinking when you do so.

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