Best Of MetaFilter

Detail from Thomas Dolby album The Golden Age of Wireless

She BLINDED me, with one of these several distinct, though interrelated, things! biogeo breaks down what we mean when we say "science."

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) drone image of Francis Scott Key Bridge and Cargo Ship Dali

In hydra77's thread about the cargo ship crashing into the bridge, two comments in particular stand out. First, automatronic’s experience gives a look at the various issues of of maintaining and running a ship. Then WaylandSmith notes the physics involved that caused the collapse. Fascinating and enlightening information!

Screenshot from the video About that mouse that's been tidying up a shed: sciatrix relays some information about what kind of mouse it might be and possibly what's it doing and why!

Let's check in on humanity's solar system exploration before 2024 kicks in: doctornemo has made a fantastic post about the current state of developments in space, including asteroid bits, fast spaceships, JuMBOs, a space battle, and a space cat video .

A bowl of kelp noodles In Ask Metafilter, 'music for skeletons' asked about softening kelp noodles and another member, 'flug', responded with an incredibly informative answer to the chemistry behind the softening.

antarctica research base by ▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓ (cc by-sa)

Mefi member chariot pulled by cassowaries posted How Scientists Working in Antarctica Inadvertently Developed a New Accent. A 2019 study of scientists over-wintering in Antarctica revealed subtle but measurable changes in the participants’ speech.

My Podcast Set I by brainblogger (cc by)

Shepherd is looking for "debunky, chatty, science-y" podcast recs: "I love Maintenance Phase and If Books Could Kill and would like more podcasts like this..."

via BBC.com

Fizz posted Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never seen before, the first full-sized digital scan of the Titanic, with visualizations pieced together from 700,000 images collected by remote controlled submersibles. (Title via pthomas745 in the comments!)

Woodcut of Guillaume Le Gentil's attempted shipboard observation of the 1761 transit of Venus

Great question and answers in storybored's Ask Metafilter post "Who are some lesser known scientists who failed heroically?"

Image via Aeon Magazine

"For more than 200 years, children have been neglected by archaeologists. It was part of a disciplinary bias towards adult men in archaeological interpretations. This began to change in the 1970s and ’80s with the rise of feminist archaeology and the archaeology of gender..." cgc373 posted Aeon Magazine's article by April Nowell.

Amazon milk frog by hehaden (cc by-nc)

blue_beetle posted the Zoomable Tree of Life: All known species in one zoomable fractal.

Itsy frog will make you feel positively competent: moonmilk offers a post that asks Why Is This Tiny Frog So Awful At Jumping?, an interesting discussion ensues, and the primroses were over observes, who among us has not been so bad at something that our sheer incompetence has become a matter of scientific inquiry? Excellent point.

uBiome - Microbiome Sequencing Gut Bacteria Sample Kit by Tony Webster (cc by)

In an interesting thread about "rethinking healthy eating in light of the gut microbiome," ASF Tod und Schwerkraft shares some enlightening commentary on why the results of microbiome research is always much more complicated and less definitive than science reporting makes it sound.

Baby Starfish by A. Jarrett (cc by-nc-nd)

Today in Weird Science!: A handy guide to the rocks and minerals of Minecraft, teensy little cannibals who eat their own siblings for their own survival, and hot, hot, sweaty manikins.

(Hey, it's Weird Science theme week during our August fundraising drive on Mefi!)