BBC: Top Ten Science Pictures of the Year
Of note:

Migraine attacks can cause a variety of visual symptoms (aura) as well as the notorious stabbing head pain. This is a representation of a barn seen during an attack, painted by an artist and migraine sufferer.

Representation of panspermia - a theory that the seeds of life are [...]

Wired: R is for Robot
…
In the back of the lab, by a coffee table made from scrap pegboard left over from Rubi’s exoskeleton, Movellan tells me in hushed tones about the epiphany that pushed him headlong into the world of affective computing. In the fall of 2002, he was working in Kyoto at ATR, the [...]

I’m sure this is everywhere on the internet right now, but let me indulge in my childhood imagination.

National Geographic
…this isn’t science fiction. A set of extraordinary images captured by Japanese scientists marks the first-ever record of a live giant squid (Architeuthis) in the wild.
The animal-which measures roughly 25 feet (8 meters) long- was photographed 2,950 [...]

They are free nerve endings.
C-fibers are unmyeliniated and as a result, have a slower conduction velocity; lower than 2 m/s. These fibers are associated with chronic or dull pain. C-fibers are associated with sensations of cold, as well as mechanical and chemical stimuli. The density for cold receptors in the skin is greater than the [...]

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was interviewed on C-SPAN last night. You can read the transcript and watch the interview on the same page. Of interest:
LAMB: As I was doing - well, using Wikipedia to do the research for this interview I kept thinking when will Google or Yahoo! put Jimmy Wales out of business. And [...]

According to Wikipedia, Sandra Day O’Conner was sworn in as the first female Supreme Court Justice on the exact date of my birth. My birthday is shared with:

1897 - William Faulkner
1930 - Shel Silverstein
1931 - Barbara Walters
1932 - Glenn Gould
1951 - Mark Hamill
1952 - Christopher Reeve
1965 - Scottie Pippen
1968 - Will Smith
1969 - Catherine Zeta-Jones

Curiously, [...]

I just wanted to clarify something about my position. During the Goodman reading group Dave commented on how part of my project was to redefine the Turing Test in such a way as to recognize that machines already pass it. Dave suggested that this sort of philosophical analysis could be used to cash in on [...]

My thumbnail thinks terrible thoughts
and on those thoughts I thrive
I shove it in my slimy mouth
and suck its supply dry.
Ripping round the cuticle
’til red raw tears remain
it quenches quite deliciously
and keeps quality thoughts away.

CNET News: Authors Guild sues Google over library project
Response from Google Blog.
A bit more background: CNN - Google’s digital library tests law
I went to the Chuck D and Hilary Rosen debate last night on file sharing. Rosen’s argument was basically the standard “Its stealing guys. Stealing is wrong”, while Chuck D’s main argument was [...]