A helium balloon will not float on the moon.  The reason that balloons float on Earth is that the helium inside the balloon is lighter than the nitrogen/oxygen air.

On the moon, there is no air.  So the balloon will just sink.  Or rather, be pulled to the surface by the moon’s gravity.

Source: Nerdular Nerdance

Time to update your chemistry books, boys and girls. There is now a new element: 112 – Copernicium.

Like other high number elements, this one is only man made, and only exists for a few seconds at a time.

The element was temporarily called Ununbium (’ununbi’ meaning ‘one one two’ in Latin) but was recently rechristened Copernicium, in honor of Nicolas Copernicus.

For more on the new guy, click here.

As for me, I guess I have to head back to my High School. You see, a friend and I painted a huge Periodic Table on the wall of our chemistry classroom. Complete with the Lanthanoids and Actinoids in their proper place. Because we thought it was cool, that’s why.

And I just can’t stand the idea of my beautiful artwork being out-of-date.

This is one that slipped past my 80’s radar. Nerd’s had a breakfast cereal. Like Nerds candy, it came in a divided box with orange cereal on one side and cherry cereal on the other. Both Nerds cereal, and the Nintendo Cereal System, which also had the divided box, were made by Ralston (Purina?).

Possibly the best part about Nerds cereal, however, is Nerd-gate. You see, with only 2 proofs of purchase and $.50, you could order a cool nerds separated bowl, with a gate in the middle!!! How could I have missed this fad?

Source: this awesome site, while trying to fine the entire Batman quote “You wanna get nuts? Come on! Let’s get nuts!” which is apparently not on the internet.

The dye that makes maraschino cherries glow red comes from crushed female cochineal beetles.

I think I’ll stick with regular coke for awhile.

Source: Nerdular Nerdance

As in “Hey that scientist over there is growing sharks in an artificial uterus!”

“Why would someone grow sharks in an artificial uterus?” you may ask.

Well, you inquisitive soul, the Grey Nurse shark is endangered. And they only have two shark babies (called pups) at a time.

But, at the beginning, there is more than one shark baby in each of the mama shark’s twin uteruses (uteri?).

You see, little baby Grey Nurse sharks have this bad habit of eating their brothers and sisters while in the womb. Bad sharks. (You might even call them naughty nurses, if you were so inclined.)

So the scientists want to create artificial shark wombs to raise one shark baby each, where their brothers and sisters can’t eat them.

It already worked with a wobbegong shark, which have less cannibalistic babies. So the guy in charge (Nick Otway, a fisheries biologist at Port Stephens Fisheries Institute in Austrailia) is hopeful that he’ll be able to use it with those naughty grey nurses.

But don’t worry- he says he has no interest in producing artificial human uteri. I mean, for now.

Source: Nerdular Nerdance, which apparently had a particularily interesting set of articles this month.

Well, not quite yet… but maybe someday…

Last winter, scientists in Spain cloned a Pyrenean ibex, which is a type of mountain goat.

Yes, they’ve been cloning sheep for awhile now, so you may be asking yourself “Self, why is this important?”

Well you see, the Pyrenean ibex is extinct. The goat was cloned from frozen skin cells.

Alas, the poor baby goatlet only lived for about 7 minutes. Obviously the technique needs some perfecting.

So don’t rush out to the Jurassic Park box office quite yet. But I’m confident in declaring the return of the dinosaur inevitable. It’s just a matter of time.

Source: Nerdular Nerdance, backed up by this article.

So, a blogger who is trying to quote from a paper article would be advised to search the popsci website before retyping the whole paragraph. It would save them time.

Almost hidden in a Nerdular Nerdance article about new Fire Prevention technology:

Voltree Power in Canton, Massachusetts, has developed a shoebox-sized sensor that, planted one per acre, could gather micro-climate information, such as spikes in temperature and drops in humidity, that signal a nascent forest fire. In April the Forest Service began field-testing the device, which can run for a decade on voltage generated from the pH imbalance between a tree and soil.

Soil powered batteries? Awesome.

I can picture the future now… legions of new Toyota Piouses with big platforms on the back holding trees… The tree car! I love it. You may even be able to make your carbon footprint negative with the new tree car!

Well, maybe not so much.

But a soil powered battery is an awesome invention. Bravo Voltree Power.

Now how about a potato powered Pious? That would be even awesomer.

I’ve had this one sitting around for a while, but I just found the magazine while cleaning.

According to Nerdular Nerdance:

A 12 Pound Goose that hits a plane traveling at 150 mph (common takeoff speed) hits with roughly the same amount of force as dropping a grand piano from the second story of a building.

Ouch.

From the same article:
It would take 300 to 500 piranhas about 5 minutes to strip the flesh off of a 180-pound human.

Double Ouch.

Everyone Poops. But Birds don’t fart.

It’s not that they can’t, you see. It’s just that they don’t need to.

Generally speaking, their bodies don’t produce the bacteria that is responsible for the gas in other creatures.

If, however, you are a bird owner, and you think your bird is guilty, you’d better get said bird to the vet ASAP. Gas in a bird’s intestinal system is a big problem.

Cats and Dogs, on the other hand, fart often. This I know from unfortunate personal experience.

Source: Nerdular Nerdance