Science, Spoken

Of course I'm not the first to look at the physics in Super Mario Bros-there was this interesting paper looking at the optimal jump to get to the highest point on the flag at the end of the level. There is also a nice page looking at the acceleration of jumping Mario in the different games. Good stuff. But there's a new game out-Super Mario Run on iOS and Android. This is a great chance to take another look at the physics of Mario. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This post is Chad Orzel's fault. It started with this tweet: Hey, @rjallain , is this consistent with your regression analysis of the Lego brick cost a while back? pic.twitter.com/RaTcP07xI1 — Chad Orzel (@orzelc) December 13, 2016 Yes, it's true that I have pondered the price of Lego bricks before, by looking up the cost and number of pieces in various sets. Here is the data, and a link to my original analysis. I arrived at a price of about 10.4 cents per piece. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You unfurl your yoga mat at home, ready to stretch out into downward dog and take some deep breaths. Just for a second, you look away to grab your water bottle and block. But when you turn around, you find that your pup has already staked her territory on your mat, doing some stretches of her own. If you’re an asana-ing dog person, you’ve probably already figured out a way to tap into your canine’s weird yoga mat affinity. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Basil Al-Reabi was riding home from school in southern Syria, in the fall of 2014, when a roadside bomb struck. The eight-year-old watched as shrapnel shredded his classmates and reduced them to a collection of body parts. As the remnants of the minibus bounced, rolled, and finally came to rest at the foot of a low embankment, three of his limbs were scythed off, his cheeks peppered with shards of blue vehicle paint. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Hurricane Ivan would not die. After traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, it stewed for more than a week in the Caribbean, fluctuating between a Category 3 and 5 storm while battering Jamaica, Cuba, and other vulnerable islands. And as it approached the US Gulf Coast, it stirred up a massive mud slide on the sea floor. The mudslide created leaks in 25 undersea oil wells, snarled the pipelines leading from the wells to a nearby oil platform, and brought the platform down on top of all of it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Let's look at some volcanic rumblings and eruptions from the last week: Washington Mount St. Helens is keeping up its unsettled 2016, this time with another small earthquake swarm. The USGS detected over 120 earthquakes over the last few days, all occurring 2-4 kilometers (1-2 miles) beneath the volcano and all very small (less than M1). Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Even for a particle physicist, Janet Conrad thinks small. Early in her career, when her peers were fanning out in search of the top quark, now known to be the heaviest elementary particle, she broke ranks to seek out the neutrino, the lightest. In part, she did this to avoid working as part of a large collaboration, demonstrating an independent streak shared by the particles she studies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth and, later, the oldest human to leave the planet, died on December 8, 2016. He was 95 years old. In 1962, Glenn became the face of American technological triumph. NASA rocketed him upward in a vessel that looked more like a spotlight bulb than a space capsule, not sure that he would make it back. But they knew they had to try, and that this was the time. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Today, SpaceX announced it expects to begin launching again in early January—just four months after one of its Falcon 9 rockets burst into flames on a Florida launchpad. But the private space company helmed by Elon Musk is still missing one important thing before it leaves Earth: a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The International Space Station is currently home to six intrepid astronauts, one Robonaut, and four 14,000-pound payload-holders called ExPRESS Logistics Carriers. Experiments from Earth like the laser-communicator OPALS fly up to Station and Lego-attach to these carriers, which provide them with a place to stay and, just as importantly, the electrical power and data links they need to do their jobs. But since 2013, scientists sending up payloads have had trouble with the on-orbit utility grid. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices