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I have dug through the Internet this week and uncovered all this science/pop culture goodness. You can find the hundreds of links from previous weeks here.

I have marked my favorite links with a ∞. Enjoy.

Must Read

The Lady Who Is Impossible To Lift

The coolest thing I read today was about a parasite that intentionally mutates frog legs to pass itself

∞ Were you too busy getting busy to catch all the Valentine’s Day facts and figures I gave you yesterday? (25!)

The American Alligator has a switchblade for a penis. Now you know.

If the Hubble telescope were aimed at the Earth, how detailed would the images be?

A Real-Life Cupid Would Have the Wings of a Giant Vulture and a Crossbow

Cupid doodleIf you’re a nudibranch, sometimes it’s just easier to discard your penis after use. But it has spares.

A military analysis of the Battle of Hoth: The Empire Strikes Out

∞ How the Star Wars Kessel Run Turns Han Solo Into a Time-Traveler

eHarmony tries to defend its matching algorithms against the skeptics

A measured call to put evolutionary psychology to the test, using all the methods any science should use.

Must Watch

Capturing continent-killers: Asteroid 2012 DA14 Passes the Earth

Have you ever seen a golf ball hit a steel plate? It’s like it is made of Jello

My favorite TED talk is still this subtle parody of TED featuring amazing beatboxing and great tech work

∞ The Bobbit Worm is awesome/scary because it will eat you like the worms from Tremors

First video I’ve seen of the meteor impact with both bolide (~4:30) and sonic boom (~7:00)

Here is Carl Sagan talking about the last famous Russian meteorite impact: The Tunguska Event

You’ve seen those wicked sweet fire tornadoes in Australia right? Either way, I found an HD video of one

If you’re having math problems I feel bad for you son, I got 98.999 problems but .999 repeating IS 1

It’s the little things in life, like watching a hose spit out nothing but cylindrical ice cubes

Good lord don’t watch this if you are an arachnophobe (but they’re harmless!)

In Defense of Comic Sans. I learned a TON from this

Maybe the best video of the Leidenfrost Effect I’ve seen. Effect explained here

A red hot ball of nickel melting into an ice block might be the coolest thing you see today

∞ Wow, I’m no magician, but I’m pretty sure that this sleight-of-hand work is award-winning

Science

How likely are you to die from an asteroid impact? [Infographic]

Space Rocks 101: Don’t get asteroid and meteoroid confused or I will laugh at you

According to what I could find, the Russian meteorite (on the high end) entered the atmosphere with ~2 TRILLION Joules. Comparison time!:

  • The kinetic energy of the Russian meteorite was roughly equivalent to being hit with 100,000 armor-piercing ISU-152 tank rounds at once.
  • The explosion was amazing, but the Russian meteorite only had 20x the energy released in the nuclear fission of ONE gram of U-235!
  • The Russian meteorite had 1000x more Joules of energy than the average lightning bolt produces.
  • If the ISS fell to Earth, it would hit with 10x more kinetic energy than the Russian meteorite.
  • The Russian meteorite hit with 1/3 of all the energy contained in the jet fuel of a fully loaded cargo 747.
  • The Russian meteorite had twice as many Joules as there are stars in the Andromeda galaxy.

10 yrs ago, creationists claimed that many scientists doubted evolution. We then found more supporters just named Steve

Interestingly, if you look at the trail lefftttt HOLY CRAP EXPLODING SPACE ROCKS! Imagine the myths this would inspire

∞ We have obtained Sasquatch genome data and set up a tool for you to calculate how sasquatch you are!

How radiologists missed this gorilla shows that we have a spotlight of attention that illuminates but also obscures

Funny/Cool/Interesting

XKCD nails what most apps are like

The worst disease you will not see coming: Lung Monkey 

Consider: multiple sources in Russia can simultaneously film a 1/100-year meteor strike but NO ONE ever gets good footage of a “real” UFO.

∞ You guys you guys, I found an online version of SkiFree where you are the yeti and all you do is eat skiers

A tip for walking on ice: do as the penguin does

What would aliens think of steroid use? XKCD

Growing Up With Scientist Mom [Comic] Rejecting the null hypothesis that your baby is not the cutest. Science and ghost hunters. On the boogeyman and irrational fears.

This is apparently a real pair of underwear, and it makes me happy

Best anti-drug billboard ever.

∞ Anyone else suspicious of the fact that the Pope is resigning amid all the Death Star kickstarters/petitions?

Watch Bill Nye quickly jump past a “Is the asteroid because of global warming?” question. Because there are stupid questions

If you have a list of cutest animals, prepare to revise it: Slow Loris eats a rice ball

Shatner does Reddit AMA, calls out racist, homophobic, sexist crap on Reddit