10 Things Not to Do on Facebook

Image via CrunchBase

Facebook has matched Myspace and raised it with a dose of not-so-fugly page layout. This has effectively merging a small portion of the real world, henceforth referred to as the RW, with the virtual world. If you are raving mad in the RW you can go online and let everyone you know (and maybe a bunch you don’t) see exactly how mad you are. If you’re happy, why not change your status? Just won an award? Or upload a picture of that baby for everyone to compliment you on.

Is there a downside to this extension of the RW? Of course there bloody is! If you’ve spent any amount of time on Facebook, you’ve hid at least half your ‘friends’. You might tolerate them perfectly fine in the RW, but the moment they get on Facebook you find yourself wanting to punch them in the face(book).

If you want to avoid becoming one of the annoying people that ends up on everyone’s blocked list, we highly recommend that you follow our advice (and maybe share this article on your Facebook page, doing your part to end the madness).

This should be included in every textbook

The Clearest View Yet Of A 1,000 Year Old Explosion

In 1054, humans recorded sightings of the mega-star explosion that created the Crab Nebula. It was so bright it was visible to the naked eye. Now three space telescopes have together created a more complete picture of the debris.

According to National Geographic:

This new picture of the Crab Nebula combines data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope . . . Infrared light caught by Spitzer and visible light seen by Hubble paint the nebula’s expanding debris cloud in shades of purple and red. Meanwhile, Chandra’s x-ray vision is helping astronomers understand the high-energy particles (seen in blue) coming from the dead star’s core, known as a [sic] white dwarf.

I just love that weird tendril of x-rays shooting out of the pulsar. It seems to be emerging from a giant maw in space (which – isn’t there a Doctor Who story called Maw In Space? Maybe I’m just on crack).

The Evolution of Handwriting: From Kindergarten to Adulthood

Scientists Can Predict Your Gaming Skills By Scanning Your Head

Do you suck at StarCraft II? Do the intricate combo moves of Street Fighter escape you? Maybe you need an MRI. Researchers have found a method for scanning the brain that could predict how well you play video games.

Some of us are just better gamers than other. Mind you I’m not putting myself in that group. I spend rounds of Halo shouting obscenities at the screen. I’m talking about folks like my nephew, who runs around killing his opponents with a sniper rifle, never once stopping to line up his shot. The little jerk.

Maybe he’s not simply a better player. Maybe his basal ganglia is just better developed than mine.

The basal ganglia (also known as the cerebral nuclei) is a group of structures – located in the middle of your brain associated with learning new motor skills (joystick wiggling) as well as performing tasks that require quick strategizing and rapid attention shifts.