The Periodic Table of Star Wars, Episodes IV, V and VI
While they don’t claim to have every character in the original trilogy, they do have the major ones.
Via etckt:
The first thing we had to think about when designing this new table of elements was the data that was to be contained on the tile. Naturally, there is the Element ID and name but what else could we include. Working through some thumbnails, we settled on the cast order, episode number and the actor’s initials.
When working through the first drafts, it was starting to look good, but wasn’t entirely what the original concept we had hoped for delivering. After much research, we were able to find one of the alphabets used in the films, Arabesh, and decided to use that for some of the ancillary data on the tile.
The coloring of the elements comes from variations on Luke and Darth Vader’s light sabers.
FJP: Be still, our nerd hearts.
I love this idea, but Darth Vader as a noble gas? He’s far too reactive.
A meditation on what we’d live for if we could live forever, from Neil deGrasse Tyson (via explore-blog):
Be like the mayfly – in this short and lovely meditation on life and longevity, the one and only Neil deGrasse Tyson adds to other famous reflections on the meaning of life.
Animal Eye Close-Ups
Jeepers creepers, where’d you get them peepers?
Aren’t eyes just great? It’s amazing to see how evolution has solved a single problem in such a myriad of ways. Actually, to be more accurate, it’s amazing to see that evolution has molded such diverse and intricate machinery from perhaps the same starting point.
That’s right. Although it’s long been thought that animal eyes evolved separately as many as 40 times, eyes most likely owe their varied existence all to one single gene. That gene is named Pax6, and it’s a master control switch for many of the things that end up becoming eyes in jellyfish, flies, snakes and even humans. It doesn’t make eyes on its own, but acts like the conductor during the symphony of development. The protein it makes looks like this:
Now that we are sequencing more and more genomes, and deciphering the precise DNA sequence of Pax6 in all of those diverse creatures, we are able to map out how that gene has changed over time. Like a game of molecular telephone, DNA sequences (usually) get more and more scrambled as they spread into new species. Follow the molecular breadcrumbs back far enough, and you can find out where you came from.
And for all those oodles of eyes, all gorgeous, intricate and exquisite, Pax6 might hold the key to seeing where vision began.
If you wish to have a last supper, you must first create the universe.
Don’t mess with Dr. Venkman.
