Some completely different things

1. Interesting (slightly repetitive?) piece by Stephen Wolfram about how to send messages to alien civilisations - and what messages we have already sent. Even if you are not interested in this at a theoretical level, it's worth scrolling down to the pictures: why has humankind decided to send Lego to Jupiter? And what about this, apparently left on the Moon attached to the Apollo 12 lander:

Seriously? There's a chance that the sole record of human civilisation that will remain for aliens to discover is a schoolboy drawing of a willy?

2. Two nice videos, each about 3 minutes long and enjoyable to watch.

3. Man bites dog.

4. This is brilliantly done - all the holiday photos all at once. I was impressed by the winglets moving back and the egg moving round the bowl.

5. These (downloads at the right of the page) could be interesting. They are part of a Royal Society scheme to develop primers to help judges handling scientific evidence in the courtroom. The first two are on DNA and gait analysis. I'm sure they are a good source of authoritative scientific information aimed at the intelligent layperson.

6. Why we should have money that “rots like potatoes” and “rusts like iron”.

7. "Nigel lived for years on his own on uninhabited Mana Island off the north of the country, surrounded by concrete replica gannets." Poor Nigel.