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

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

overthinking-it

Did you hear? I am Scientific American’s newest blogger!

How Much Would It Cost to Build the Starship Enterprise? A lot

This is the Z-Machine. It uses massive bursts of electricity to create and study x and gamma rays

Best engineered table?

∞ The pilot, taking this ridiculous turn, goes from weighing maybe 180 pounds to weighing 1620 pounds

Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

Unlike Harley Quinn, these harlequins are actually dangerous, to other ladybugs

Just found it again and had to share: The best picture of Central Park

What acid on film looks like

∞ Is Homosexuality Natural? Yes. So is male lactation. I really like this series.

Long exposure lava is lovely

Misophonia: Enraged by Everyday Sounds. For me it’s people eating apples.

Why science? Because 3D scans of butterfly metamorphosis

How science could realize Mass Effect’s genophage. “I am the very model of a scientist Solarian…”

∞ An Open Letter to Animal Planet: Learn The Difference Between Real and Fake Monsters

When we discovered this supernova in 1604, it was brighter than everything in the night sky except the Moon and Venus

The coolest turtle has a moss mohawk

I imagine this is what bailing on a skateboard really feels like

Watching the spire being put on the Freedom Tower gives me serious acrophobia

Male Black Widows Sniff Out Femme Fatales. It’s smell or die!

The Science of Earth and the Human Policies that Change It

∞ Magnet People: How Do They Work?

∞ Oh it’s nothing much, just a dust devil on MARS

Forget a pizza in an oven, and it will evolve into a fungal jelly

Vaccines work. The numbers prove it

Before you saw this GIF, I bet you didn’t know that a magnesium flint is the coolest thing ever

This tree of life drawing is not what you expect, and is wonderfully detailed

You’re a fish, minding your own business and then BAM! Death by Kingfisher

∞ An ode to a “hopeful monster,” and a lovely explainer on mutant dandelion genetics

I know this is just an Internet GIF, but does this really work? Can I trap flies with a marker?

∞ Treebeard Joins the NRA. Yes, that Treebeard, and yes, that NRA.

I am going to try this: How to draw your hand in 3D

∞ Death By Lens Flare: Drink Into Darkness. The Star Trek drinking game that will kill you

This bleeding glacier is literally the most metal thing I’ve seen today

Was Commander Hadfield’s “Space Oddity” cover the most expensive music video ever? Not so fast

Accurately Mapping the Geology of Skyrim. Quite a project

Why you do this to my eyes J.J. Abrams!?

Which meme is the rest of the universe repeating right now?

How airplane wings work, GIFified. Go ahead, say it, “GIFified”

Lightning strikes the Grand Canyon, I sit in awe

A real-time map of unregistered Wikipedia edits

What can Iron Man teach us about the potential dangers of 3D printing?

∞ All you need to convince someone that WiFi is making them sick is a headband and an antenna

If you haven’t watched Commander Hadfield cover David Bowie yet, do. The perfect man to make the oddity real.

Batman street art is the best street art

10 reasons why time travel is no good, courtesy of puppets

Surprisingly, this N64 game had 100% perfect orbital mechanics

The film science behind “Rikering.” It actually makes a lot of sense

∞ Awesome infographic showing how long it would take famous sci-fi ships to reach nearby stars and galaxies

The psychology behind why you see a dog in a pile of dots

I propose the Whedon unit to equal Show potential/Show run. Firefly=10 Whedons, Star Trek TNG=1 Whedons, Ghost Hunters=0.001 Whedons.

If the Earth was controlled by the Empire, how would it handle the Enterprise?

How dog tongues work, GIFified

“Homeopaths Without Borders” should be called “Visitors Without Medicine”

The term “billion” is thrown around a lot, so here is a tidy infographic comparing all the billions you hear about

Would the pen be mightier than the sword if the pen were your finger?

The Gaboon pit viper has 2-inch fangs and a blacker than black nano-structured camouflage. Sleep tight

∞ Fantastic piece on breast cancer risk and reality: Angelina Jolie, meet Nate Silver

This is what you look like when you speak. In other words, weird/gross

Video of “shimmering” behavior in giant honey bees from this 2011 paper is so cool

If the second evolution of a Pokemon is the “adolescent” form, technically, this makes Wartortle a teenage mutant ninja Squirtle.

∞ I could watch this caterpillar GIF all day, really

LiveScience tackles homeopathy, finds what every skeptic has been saying for years

The first x-class solar flare of the year is the prettiest thing you’ll see today

Why isn’t everything made of memory metal!?

Need to name a favorite kind of cloud? Let me help. This is your favorite

Remember that XKCD comic that would update every so often? It’s been updating for the last 50 days straight

∞ The fastest animal alive is a dinosaur that catches other dinosaurs in mid air and eats them. It’s a good world

What if you were born in space? What would you look like? How would you develop?

∞ These GIFs from Cassini are better than any sci-fi magic

You’ll be astounded how much activity proceeds just a 1-second lightning strike