Science news roundup!
To begin at the very beginning: food. As recent criticisms of biofuels have shown, corn makes a better food than industrial product. As Teresa Herrmann points out, this argument extends to so-called biodegradable bioplastics, which fart out loads of methane while decomposing in addition to driving up the global price of food. Furthermore, it turns out that if you go vegetarian you can once again delight in the glory of citrus year-round (assuming it’s not air-freighted).
In energy news, oooh, look what they’re building in the desert. It also turns out that making right hand turns instead of left hand ones saves heaps of gas! I always knew that New York’s no-right-on-red laws were a breach of my native Californian human rights.
Unexpectedly, dinosaur poop is more desirable than a meteor that might date from the beginning of the universe, showing once again that the people can’t be trusted.
And finally, this is the world’s most geeky and useless con game. I mean, it’s cute, but don’t quantum physicists have better things to do with their time?
Finally finally, (and only tangentially related to science, or news) it seems cheeky to cross post the latest xkcd, so I‘m just going to link to it and hope you go look at it. I hope you found it as excellent as I did.
Best. Con. Game. EVER.
The authors of the paper admit that the current state of technology isn’t good enough for a con artist to make money with quantum mechanics.
That quote made my day.
And to be fair, the meteorite was going for $2.5 million, while the dinosaur leavings were a “mere” $1,000. However valuable and MADE OF AWESOME the meteorite is, even a lot of research centres would have trouble laying hands on that kind of cash without jumping through a lot of hoops first.
I’m sure it will be snapped up at some point. I mean, DAWN OF TIME.
Okay, that’s a fair point, but still. DAWN OF TIME.
And while, yes, I admit that I would love to have a chunk of fossilized dino poop on my shelf, I’m not sure I would pay $2,000 for it. On the other hand, if I had a million dollars, I would certainly consider investing it in a meteor from the DAWN OF TIME. (Although, back in my head there’s an Indiana Jones voice saying “This…belongs…in a museum!!” )