PZ Myers, over at Pharyngula, draws our attention to an animation of the inner workings of a cell. The animation is available here, together with some background. Since I am not conversant with molecular biology, I could have done with some more explanation of what I was seeing. But there are some arresting images, like the motor protein that looks like an alien tightrope walker pulling a huge balloon (apparently, a large bag of lipids).

Some awesome time lapse photography of the night sky here. I particularly like the fact that the sequence of comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has picked up a passing meteor on one of the frames. Great stuff!

 

(hat tip to Seed magazine)

I’m often struck by how evocative our sense of smell is. Today, for example, I was taking the dog out for his lunchtime walk through our local woods. While July this year was marked by a heatwave, this August has been one of the wettest on record. So the woods are pretty damp underfoot, and this has released various scents. At one point I smelt something that was a dead ringer for the smell of fresh plasticine – something I haven’t smelled for nigh on fifty years. But instantly, I was back there in my childhood, opening the box containing strips of plasticine in different colours and smelling that same smell.

 

And of course, the human sense of smell is nothing compared to that of a dog. There he was, running around, snuffling and smelling heaven knows what all around me. He was clearly experiencing a symphony of smells, while all I was getting was a one-note samba. Still, it was a very loud note – and it did enable me to remember and revisit a time in the long gone past, so I am not complaining.