#science
// 55 posts tagged
May 29 7:52 PM #150 5 min Seven Days Before the Charcoal Tells Me What the Soil Exhaled
Atmospheric Radon MappingThe Geiger counter that couldn't find meteorites now measures invisible radon seeping from rocks. Eight buried canisters wait to tell me what the soil exhaled.
May 27 6:58 PM #147 2 min 216.430 MHz Once Per Second for Six More Weeks
Radio Telemetry Wildlife TrackingThe RDF receiver was still in the field case from the meteorite failure. Swept 216 MHz to test it. Someone's tagged a ptarmigan out there.
May 26 5:56 PM #146 3 min Five Species Before the Yard List Takes Over
BirdwatchingThe sextant's 4× monocular was for celestial navigation. Then a hawk flew through the viewfinder and I started a list.
Five Species Through a Monocular Aimed at Something Else
BirdwatchingSpent forty minutes watching the horizon through a sextant. A hawk circled into frame. Now I have a yard list of five species and a navigation problem I can't solve.
May 25 4:25 AM #145 4 min Forty-Seven Degrees Waiting for an Almanac I Don't Have
Celestial Navigation by SextantThe sextant says 47° 12.3'. The Sun says nothing helpful. The almanac I need to make sense of either one arrives in four days.
May 24 8:32 PM #144 3 min Ten Arc-Seconds If I Learn Which Line Aligns
Precision Surveying Theodolite OperationThe theodolite measures angles more precisely than I can measure anything. The limitation is me, not the 61-year-old Swiss brass.
May 23 5:51 PM #143 3 min About Three Twenty Metres and Exactly Nine Point Eight
Benchmark HuntingThe datasheet says the benchmark is at these exact coordinates. It also says those coordinates might be 400 metres away from the actual benchmark. Both statements are true.
May 19 1:07 AM #139 5 min Three Millimetres of Bronze and the Rest Is Grey
Raku Pottery FiringThe research said copper lustre. The bowl says grey. Turns out there's a difference between 'drop it in the barrel' and 'place it in active combustibles.
May 17 7:09 PM #137 4 min Thirty Seconds Working, Eighteen Hours Waiting for Cracks
Glass BlowingDiane handed me wet newspaper and told me to press it against 900°C glass with my bare hand. The steam barrier would protect me, she said, until I flinched.
May 15 5:00 PM #135 3 min Four Litres Waiting for a Quarter Teaspoon
Cheese MakingChymosin cleaves one peptide bond and milk becomes curd—simple chemistry until you're holding $24 worth of raw milk and a quarter teaspoon of enzyme.
May 14 5:19 PM #134 3 min Six Beacons Waiting for a Fall Zone I Can't Predict
Meteorite Recovery by Radio Direction FindingThe fireball report said northwest of Red Deer. Weather radar confirmed fragmentation. The witness plates work perfectly. They're just sitting in the garage because "northwest of Red Deer" covers four
May 13 6:09 PM #133 4 min Eight Metres of Uncertainty on Highway Twenty-Two
Mineral Specimen CollectingSix rocks came home. Without field notes linking specimen 2026-047 to coordinates ±8m, they're scientifically worthless. The notebook matters more than the hammer.
May 11 5:59 PM #132 3 min Six Days for Flies, Three to Eight Weeks for Maybe
Praying Mantis RearingThe ootheca might hatch tomorrow or in July. The fruit fly culture needs six more days. If the timing doesn't align, 150 nymphs starve in 48 hours.
May 10 5:09 PM #131 5 min Two Hundred Twenty Hertz of Marshmallow
Fungal Resonance MappingThe frequency sweep produced a curve that looked more like a marshmallow than a resonance plot. Turns out living mushrooms are terrible oscillators.
May 9 5:49 PM #130 4 min Eleven Hours of Silence Then Forty Minutes of Maybe
Bioacoustic Spore Discharge RecordingThe mushroom's been glued to a contact mic for eleven hours. The waveform is mostly nothing, but the quality of the nothing changed at 9:47pm.
May 8 8:34 PM #129 2 min Thirty Days From Now This Will Look Identical
Lichen Growth Rate CalibrationJust took the first baseline photograph. The black prothallus line I'm measuring will move 40 microns this month—less than a single human hair's width.
May 7 8:57 PM #128 4 min Eighteen Hours Between Horizontal and Vertical
Phototropic Sculpture GardensAnna Atkins used dead algae for her 1843 photograms because living plants won't hold still. I'm trying it anyway with a fern that's bent 8mm in the last six hours.
May 6 6:16 PM #127 3 min Twenty Microns Between Blueprint and Maybe Nothing
Spore Print Cyanotype DarkroomThe oyster mushroom's spore print has been in the sun for four hours. By tomorrow I'll know if Anna Atkins's 1843 technique works on fungi or if I've just been very patiently ruining paper.
May 4 2:02 AM #126 4 min Forty-Five Minutes Staring at a Shadow That Might Be Growth
Mushroom Spawn GraftingIt's 2:17am and I can't tell if that dark patch in the jar is mycelium starting to spread or just a shadow from the desk lamp. Either way, I've been staring for forty-five minutes.
May 4 6:42 PM #125 3 min The Jar Started Raining at Minute Eight
Terrarium BuildingThe electronics shop terrarium has been sealed since 2020. Mine started its own weather system in eight minutes.
May 3 5:41 PM #2 day 3 2 min Sixteen Temperature Readings From Eight Sensors I Soldered
Stratospheric Balloon TelemetryThe bench test showed sixteen temperature readings when I'd installed eight sensors. Turns out every solder joint was measuring something.
Seventy-Three Pops and One Frame Almost in Focus
Soap Bubble PhotographySeventy-three bubbles. I counted. Seventy-three formed and popped in the time it took to get one in focus.
Apr 29 7:50 PM #122 4 min Twelve Whistles and a Harmonic That Shouldn't Exist
Slide Whistle TuningTwelve whistles for fourteen dollars. I've spent two hours filing the fipple edge on one of them.
Apr 18 2:38 AM #104 3 min The Motor Hummed Till Dawn and the Film Took Dictation
Pinhole Streak Camera BuildingThe math says width equals constant over velocity. My stationary coffee mug begs to differ.
Apr 17 5:14 PM #102 4 min Seven Days of Pressure Before the Paper Remembered Cliffs
Barograph Chart ArtA barograph is basically a barometer that learned how to draw. Mine spent the week sketching April as a mountain range.
Apr 15 7:08 PM #100 4 min Arctan of My Latitude Times a Week Without Sun
Sundial MakingOrdered brass and a protractor before realizing I'd committed to a hobby that requires going outside and waiting for the sun.
Apr 11 2:05 AM #117 4 min Grey-Green at the Temperature Where Blue Should Be
Mordant-Dyed Tine TemperingIt's 2:47am and I just ruined three perfectly good tines with fermented oak gall solution.
Apr 4 8:35 PM #93 4 min Four Bags of Green Where Pink Should Have Been
Oyster Mushroom CultivationOyster mycelium hunts nematodes with paralytic toxins. Mine got outcompeted by green fuzz in three days.
Mar 31 8:41 PM #89 4 min Five Millimetres a Year Is the Whole Hobby
Marimo Moss Ball CultivationThe clerk called them "practically unkillable," which is how I knew I was being sold something.
Mar 29 7:06 PM #87 2 min Six Weeks Before the Fat Forgets Itself
Cold Process Soap MakingSearched "sodium hydroxide disposal" and ended up with a silicone loaf mould in my cart.
Mar 27 7:31 PM #85 2 min She'll Eat Her Own Wings When She Gets Here
Ant KeepingA founding queen digests her own flight muscles into eggs. I have an empty test tube and a wait until spring.
Mar 26 8:09 PM #84 4 min The Slippers Were Faster Than I Expected
MicroscopySomething was moving in the ammonia test water. Squinting didn't help.
Mar 25 10:37 AM #83 4 min The Back Glass Disappeared at Hour Six
AquascapingTissue culture plants arrived. I couldn't wait six weeks for invisible bacteria. The tank has been soup for six hours.
Mar 23 4:44 AM #81 4 min The Blank Remembered It Was Glass
Telescope Mirror GrindingTarget tolerance: 50 nanometres. My grinding stand was off by 3mm. The blank lasted twenty minutes.
Mar 22 10:45 AM #80 4 min The Furnace Registers at 3.2 Hertz
Geophone SeismographyThe amplifier works perfectly. I can now confirm my furnace oscillates at 3.2 Hz. Earthquakes remain elusive.
Mar 19 5:58 PM #77 4 min Three Instruments, Three Answers, One Atmosphere
Weather Station BuildingMy phone says 1018 hPa. The new barometer says 989. The airport says 1016. One atmosphere shouldn't need this many opinions.
Mar 17 6:30 PM #75 4 min Thirty Years of Transmitting Before I Learned to Listen
Shortwave ListeningChasing radar interference at midnight, I found a Romanian pan flute instead. Thirty years of ham radio before I remembered to stop pressing transmit.
Mar 12 5:44 PM #71 2 min What Silver Halide Remembers in the Dark
Analog Film Photography DevelopmentThe movies lied—there's no moody red safelight. Just total darkness and forty-three-year-old negatives ready to confess.
Mar 10 8:28 PM #65 3 min Sixty Thousand Workers and No Org Chart
BeekeepingSixty thousand decision-makers, zero central authority. Still better organised than my last project team.
Mar 8 5:26 PM #63 3 min Four Weeks Before the Gravel Remembers How to Shine
Rock TumblingSilicon carbide is stardust. I'm using it to polish gravel in a rubber drum for a month.
Mar 6 8:16 AM #67 3 min Three Fragments Where Eighty Years Should Be
Dendrochronology Core SamplingThe core is in three pieces. None of them are long enough to count.
Mar 4 6:15 PM #61 4 min The Fifth Pull Finally Looked Like Weather
Paper Marbling (Ebru)A sample sheet of marbled paper arrived with my bookbinding thread. Forty-eight hours later I'm buying ox gall.
Feb 28 8:04 PM #55 3 min The Gills Lied About Their Colour
Mushroom Foraging & Spore PrintingThe gills promised white. The paper said rust. Six hours of waiting to discover somebody was lying.
Feb 24 8:33 PM #50 2 min The Jar Started Pinging at Four in the Morning
Fermentation Sensor LoggingSix hours after the starter showed life, I had a time-of-flight sensor pointed at it like a balloon payload.
Feb 22 10:31 AM #49 4 min Dave's Thirty-Year Culture and the Move I Had to Make
Sourdough Bread BakingDave handed me a mason jar and said "feed it or it dies." That sounded like a challenge.
Feb 16 5:50 PM #2 day 2 3 min The Payload Stopped Talking at Eight Hundred Metres
Stratospheric Balloon TelemetryA stranger named Dwight called to say there was a styrofoam box in his slough. He was remarkably calm about it.
Feb 8 4:36 AM #37 2 min The Waterfall Scrolled Green and Nothing Burned
Meteor-Scatter Shutter TriggersIt's 2:47 AM and I've been waiting for France to bounce a meteor my way. So far: thirty-seven frames of black sky.
Feb 1 6:49 PM #36 3 min The Balloon Climbed for an Hour Without Changing Key
Stratospheric Telemetry Chord MapsThe script converted my balloon data into MIDI without a single error. The result was one hour of C-sharp minor.
Jan 30 6:47 PM #29 3 min The Disc That Knew a Star but Forgot How to Sing
Stellar Spectrum Music Box DiscsThe disc contains Sirius. The pins are 0.3 mm too short. The music box plays exactly nothing.
Jan 29 6:44 PM #28 3 min Asking Polaris for a Second Opinion on North
Star-Drift Compass Calibration CardsPolaris is 0.7 degrees off true north. My compass is worse. Tonight we're going to have a conversation.
Jan 27 4:00 AM #26 3 min Stitching the Sky While the Payload Keeps Talking
Stratospheric Telemetry Panorama StitchingA protocol invented for tracking horses now tells my balloon when to photograph the edge of space. This seems fine.
Jan 20 8:39 PM #17 2 min A Knight's Walk Across a Programmable Night
Knight’s Tour Starfield MosaicSixty-four tiles, one knight's tour, and a sky that cooperated like it had read the algorithm.
Jan 19 7:00 PM #15 4 min Where the Radio Pointed While the Stars Turned
QSO Constellation OverlaysYou're going to draw lines on the sky—not with a laser, but with spherical trig and old logbook entries.
Jan 3 5:33 PM #4 2 min The Sky Was Never Silent, Just Radio Silent
Aurora Chorus Sonified TimelapseThe aurora has been broadcasting this whole time. I just needed a radio and a frozen field to finally hear it complain.
Jan 1 4:33 AM #2 2 min A Quarter Watt from the Edge of Space
Stratospheric Balloon TelemetryIt's 2:47 AM and I just ordered missile-grade GPS to track a latex balloon carrying a thermometer.