Stick figures in danger. (via Michael Nielsen's blog)

An article claiming that the U.S. finantial crisis bailout has already cost "more than the Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, moonshot, S&L bailout, Korean War, New Deal, Iraq war, Vietnam war, and NASA's lifetime budget -- *combined*! ".

Where do large science machines go when they die?

On the current state of affairs in Iceland, post-bank-meltdown.

Seven leading U.S. authors reflect on Bush's legacy.

A set of beautiful microphotographs.

An example of an (almost) unreported change: incandescent light bulbs are being banned from Europe in 2010.

Rapping about CERN's LHC.

Check out this video in which logic gates are made using toppling dominoes.

This start-up company modified E. Coli so that it digests wood chips, straw and other such materials to produce oil.

A 1968 video with "the first public use of a mouse, as well as examples of cutting, copying, pasting, teleconferencing, video conferencing, email, and... hypertext."

This is a great video mashup of Fred Astaire dancing to Michael Jackson.

A list of links to AI success stories.

A paper showing how computers can make automated scientific discovery of new drugs. This is much more straightforward in maths, where computers can prove theorems. My computer routinely does that - but the theorems are not very interesting.

Lablit is a site which dedicates itself to reviewing/praising realistic depictions of scientists in literature. Listen here to a podcast with the scientist responsible for it.

An interesting interview with VS Naipaul.

John Gray's essay against the "secular fundamentalists" Amis, Dawkins, Hitchens and colleagues.